A Pen Runs Through It

The Orange Parker Duofold

The tropical breezes of Pearl Harbor offer no relief from the relentless Hawaiian sun. I am standing on the windy deck of the USS Missouri. In my pocket is an orange Parker Duofold fountain pen and my father's sterling silver airman's wings from World War Two. Our tour guide, "Doc," is a masterful storyteller, regaling our group with facts and lore about the big ship that have us all hanging on his next word. I am discovering that almost every nook and cranny of this fifty thousand ton battleship has a story to tell.

Our first stop on the tour is the foredeck just under turret number one. Under foot are miles of teak boards and over my shoulder are six sixteen-inch guns mounted on the two forward gun turrets. Each of the gun barrels reaches out over sixty feet and is capable of tossing a two thousand, seven hundred pound projectile (think a VW Bug) over twenty miles with formidable accuracy.

As I round the starboard side of the turret, I cannot help but reach up and slap it. Just as I figured, it is like slapping a steel mountain. There is not an ounce of resonance, no sound sans my flesh contacting battle-hardened metal, nothing. The steel mountain of a gun turret juxtaposed with the teak wood deck is a poetic partnering.

We escape the tropical midday heat by ducking into the combat engagement center where Doc entertains us with stories of tomahawk missiles over Beirut and of the movie stars who have sat in this room. The actual markings from the last time this room was used in "real life" are still on the grease board.

The guided tour finishes up on the surrender deck, the place I really came to see. Under the canopy is a display case protecting a copy of the Instrument of Surrender signed by commanders of the Allied forces and the representatives of the Japanese government to end WWII. There is one other item in the case: an orange Parker Duofold fountain pen.

On September 2, 1945 Allied military leaders and representatives of the Japanese government met to conduct the surrender ceremony. At 8:59 AM General MacArthur stepped out of Admiral Halsey's quarters and was angered that the Japanese contingent had still not arrived on the ceremony deck. Offended, he took a step back into the admiral's cabin and waited three minutes before exiting, forcing the Japanese to wait for him and not vice versa.

Prior to the ceremony General MacArthur ordered that all officers were to wear everyday khakis, not their dress uniforms. He said that we were in our work clothes when we had been forced into the war on the morning of December 7th, 1941 and we would end it the same way.

In Tokyo Bay that day the Allies assembled an armada of several hundred ships and an even greater number of aircraft. Aboard the Missouri almost all anti-aircraft batteries were armed and manned in case of a surprise kamikaze attack, and fighter planes circled high overhead, keeping a lookout for incoming enemy aircraft. Had the signing not gone as planned or if the Japanese contingent failed to capitulate, General MacArthur was prepared to bring the war to downtown Tokyo. From the muzzles of her sixteen-inch guns to the Japanese Imperial Palace was 22.8 miles, well within Mighty Mo's striking distance.

At 9:02 AM, as thousands of sailors and officers looked on, the parties took their positions and twenty-three minutes after the ceremony commenced, it was over.

A famous quote states, "Behind every great man there's a great woman." Behind General MacArthur was a great woman with an orange Parker Duofold. Prior to leaving for his mission to oversee the Japanese surrender, Jean, the General's wife, took her pen from her purse and handed it to him. This was her everyday pen, the one she used when she wrote checks for the groceries. She asked her husband to use the pen during the ceremony. There were five pens used that day. The first two were given to General Jonathan Wainwright and British General Percival. Two of the remaining pens are part of the collection at the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, VA. Jean's original Parker Duofold was lost (stolen) in the years following the ceremony. Currently on display at the MacArthur Memorial is a commemorative version of the orange Parker Duofold.