Found some old matchbooks

[quack1]

While I was cleaning out Mom and Dads house I found these matchbooks. Wonder if all the ships present for the surrender had them printed. I took them to the nursing home and showed Dad, he didn't know, in fact he didn't even remember he still had them.
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll300/1quack1/IMG_0056.jpg

[Bad Water Bill]

I never knew any ships had enough money to fund match books.

Thanks for posting a great part of history.

I still have the "Welcome aboard U S Independence CVA 62 photo that was inserted into every pack of cigarettes.

Yes it was her first trip out of the U S in 1959 to Gitmo.

[HollandNut]

pretty neat

[JeffinNZ]

That's very cool. Would like to know the reason for them. Great history.

[jcameron996]

My Grandfather was in the fleet with the Missouri when the surrender was signed. I never got the chance to meet him. He survived the war to be killed in a truck accident when my father was only six years old. Would have liked to have heard the stories.

[beezapilot]

I've a large collection of WWII matchbooks, that is a nice find- they are not worth much, but I enjoy them. Many came in ration packs with propaganda on them.

[quack1]

[QUOTE=Bad Water Bill;2727974]I never knew any ships had enough money to fund match books.

I never considered that they might have been printed on the ship. The Chicago was a heavy cruiser, don't know if they had space for a printing shop, especially in the middle of a war. That would explain, though, why the matchbooks were printed for each division on the ship.
Dad does remember them passing the match books around on the ship after the surrender. He just forgot he saved them all those years.
I also remember him saying his ship was close enough to the Missouri that he was able to watch the signing of the surrender through binoculars from the bridge of his ship.
With that in mind, and with a lot of digging on the computer, I was eventually able to find a picture of the Missouri in Tokyo bay, with Dads ship in the background. It's almost out of the picture on the left side.
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll300/1quack1/016307c.jpg

[M Hicks]

^ That is pretty cool.

[autofix4u]

My grandpa was on the Missouri at the time and has several photos of the signing. Also lots of good stories to tell. He recently gave me a type 99 he picked up in Tokyo 5 days after.