By Pat Desmond
Times Staff
9/3/09
Willard Dunlop has lived almost all of his life in Milton. But there were two years when Dunlop left the town to become part of history.
At 19, he was aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor for the formal ending of World War II.
Dunlop mentioned that the anniversary was coming up only a few weeks ago when he stopped by Bruegger’s in East Milton for coffee. The anniversary is Sept. 2.
The ship is now a museum located in Hawaii. Dunlop and the others who were stationed aboard the battleship have regular reunions. They have a bond to share.
Dunlop’s experiences aboard the Missouri changed his life.
He was a seaman aboard the ship.
“It was the end of the war,” Dunlop said. “They needed men.”
Dunlop enlisted in the Navy in 1944. He was given two weeks training and then headed off to war. The Missouri, which was the fourth ship in the Navy to receive that name, was commissioned in New York in 1944.
He spent much of the time when the ship was in the war zone staring into the sun.
His job as sun spotter was to search out black spots in the sun. And once he saw a spot, he’d alert the gun crews.
“The kamikazes would fly out of the sun,” Dunlop explained.
As a sun spotter, Dunlop wore special glasses. He was on the ship during battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. While he was on the ship, in April 1945, one kamikaze crashed into the side.
“We were lucky,” he said.
They were saved from more extensive damage because for some reason, the plane didn’t explode when it hit the battleship. The only death was that of the Japanese pilot.
Dunlop said that pilot was a man about his own age. There were 1,900 kamikaze missions during the battle of Okinawa. The battleships were prime targets but the Missouri came through the siege.
On Aug. 6, 1945, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Three days later, Milton’s Charles Sweeney (who died five years ago) dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki. Dunlop said he didn’t know Gen. Sweeney at the time.
“I did buy a car from him later,” he said.
The Japanese surrender led to the decision to bring the Missouri into Tokyo Harbor.
“I was just a seaman,” Dunlop said, explaining he was just one of the many men on board the ship who were following orders.
“We guessed they chose the Missouri because that’s where [President] Truman was from.” Not only was the Missouri named for Truman’s home state, but his daughter, Margaret, had christened the ship.
He was at his post high above the main deck during the signing ceremony.
He said that the actual surrender document was signed on a makeshift stage with two regular mess tables covered with a cloth. Afterward, the men who had put the table together placed the folding tables back where they had gotten them.
“Not long after that, the officers realized the historic impact of the signing and said to get the tables,” he said.
Dunlop smiled as he related the fact that they had no idea which pile of tables held the ones that had been used.
For the next year, Dunlop traveled aboard the Missouri. The crew received a hero’s welcome in New York in October.
He missed the ticker-tape parade thrown for the crew because he wanted to spend the weekend back in Massachusetts so he could visit his father.
“It was something but I’m glad I took the leave,” he said. The battleship remained on display in New York. By that time, Dunlop was no longer a sun spotter; he worked in supplies.
The next spring, the ship traveled to the Mediterranean with the body of the Turkish ambassador who had died during the war in Washington, D.C.
The ship toured the region and Dunlop remembers that time fondly. His return to civilian life came after the Mediterranean cruise. His return to Milton came not long after.
Dunlop and his wife Shirley have traveled around the globe. They both enjoy the sea. He said they have made it a practice to enjoy a yearly cruise.
This year, a trip to London is on their schedule.

– Scott MacKeen