Paul Woo Helps Track Down the Pen that Marked the End of WWII

One Pen’s Journey Through War and Peace

Aboard the deck of the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay 70 years ago this week, [Fleet Adm. Chester] Nimitz took two pens from his pocket and signed Japan’s surrender, ending the war.

One of them—a Parker fountain pen given to Nimitz by a friend and California banker named Y.C. Woo—soon vanished.

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Paul Woo—who works as director of career services at the University of Chicago Law School—recalls his grandfather’s friendship with Nimitz, and has memories of visiting the retired admiral’s home as a child. When he began the search for the pen, he assumed it was buried away somewhere in Taiwan.

Mr. Woo sought help from Taiwanese authorities in Chicago. But he learned over time the pen had never reached Taiwan.

As the hunt continued, it became clear the missing Parker pen was, in fact, at a museum in Nanjing.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal