It is an Iowa-class battleship built for the US Navy in 1944, the last battleship commissioned by the United States & now a museum ship in Pearl Harbor Hawaii. USS Missouri was assigned to the Pacific Theater of World War II, participating in the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa & shelling the Japanese home islands. The “Japanese Instrument of Surrender” was signed on her quarterdeck on 2 September 1945. This date is sometimes known as “VJ day” (victory over Japan) …but also refers to the date of Emperor Hirohito's radio broadcast announcement – (the “Imperial Acceptance for the Terms of Surrender”) -- made in the earlier Potsdam Declaration (15 August 1945). That Potsdam meeting of “the big 3” - (Churchill Stalin & Truman) is the same photo we always see in history books & films about dealing with the postwar peace management decisions between the Allies & Axis powers ending WW2.