Japanese battleship flag donated at Pearl Harbor

Dianne Hall of Salisbury, N.C.recently presented a flag to the National Park Service in a ceremony nearly 75 years after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack that wrenched the U.S. into World War II. The Japanese navy flag flew on Yamamoto’s flagship, the Nagato.

Hall’s father, Robert Hartman, was a U.S. Navy sailor who acquired the Rear Admiral-style standard battleship Nagato after Japan surrendered. The Nagato was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s flagship during the bombing of Hawaii. Yamamoto is credited with being the mastermind of the attack.

Hall told Audrey McAvoy of the Associated Press, “It feels good in my heart that it’s going somewhere where it’s going to be taken care of and where children, adults — different countries can see this.”

The National Park Service’s Chief of Cultural and Natural Resources, Scott Pawlowski, said it hasn’t been decided how the flag will be displayed. Research has yet to show that the flag was actually flying on the Nagato when Yamamoto launched the attack on Pearl Harbor, though Pawlowski admitted to the AP that it is a significant donation, theorizing, “It’s a witness to both the message that Yamamoto sent out for the Japanese to proceed with the attack on Dec. 7 and it participated in the attack from a distance…”