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Ed Steadman at the Truk Surrender
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Ed Steadman was a young seaman on board the USS Rhind which took Admiral Murrey to Truk for the Japanese surrender in 1945. He sent us this account of his adventures along with pictures of the Japanese surrender on Pagan Island, just north of Saipan:
Our ship delivered Admiral Murrey to Truk to board the Portland.
We had a busy two months before the Japanese surrenders. We spent a few days at Iwo Jima, then two weeks as a station boat half way between Iwo and Japan. The P-51's used us as a radio beacon and for emergency pickup. None had any failures while we were there. We came back to Saipan for a short time. I was there when the A-bomb crews came back.
We were then sent to Marcus to tell them (the Japanese) to surrender. A B-24 was in ahead of us to spray bug killer.
 USS Rhind
Returned to Saipan and then on to Guam where we picked up Adm. Murrey who we took to Pagan Island to accept the surrender of the Marianas. Those are the pictures below. They aren't professional quality, they were taken by an amateurs and processed aboard ship. I tried to enhance them on the computer. As souvenirs, all the crew got rifles and bayonets, and the officers got swords. The card below says we did this on September 2, 1945, but the surrender on Truk was the same day.
We left Pagan, fueled in Guam and headed for Truk at flank speed. We almost didn't make it. Our water tender mixed up some valves and put water in the boiler fuel. Fortunately we didn't blowup, but we were stopped in the water for an hour or so.
We got back underway and finally got to Truk where we transferred Admiral Murrey to his new ship, the Portland.
  Japanese Surrender Party Boarding the USS Portland Witnessing the signing from the bow.
We stayed in the harbor there a couple days then returned to Guam. While we were in Truk, we had a few guests, the natives. One older man had his body completely tattooed. One of our crew also picked up a bug and got sleeping sickness, we think. He was taken off the ship at Guam and we didn't hear any more of him. I was nineteen and had been in for a year and one-half when all this happened.
Note: We just inserted Mr. Steadman's pictures of the Truk surrender and left out his Pagan photos since this article is primarily about the Truk surrender.
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