WILLMAR - Tell Bob Halvorson a war story or two, and there is no telling where it might get you.
It got Wally Gustafson aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan where more than 900 people applauded him not once but twice.
The Willmar attorney and those applauding him were aboard the supercarrier on June 3, 2013, for a change of command ceremony for the U.S. Third Fleet.
Bob and Polly Halvorson of rural New London were there as well. Their son, Tom, is chief of staff for the commander of the Third Fleet. His boss was retiring, but his new boss, Vice Admiral Kenneth E. Floyd kept him on as chief of command.
Tom Halvorson had sent Gustafson the invitation. The invite had no more than landed in his mailbox when Gustafson hopped into his pickup truck and raced over to the Halvorsons to let them know he was ready to fly to San Diego, California, to be there.
The applause that greeted him aboard the USS Ronald Reagan was in recognition of the fact that Gustafson, 89, is the last known surviving officer from the staff of Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, who commanded the Third Fleet as it was poised for the invasion of Japan.
He was aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945, when a delegation representing the Japanese military and Emperor Hirohito arrived to sign the instrument of surrender that ended World War II.
“There was no applause, no band playing, no shaking of hands, no saluting,’’said Gustafson of the historic event.
He was sitting atop a five-inch gun about 30 feet from the desk where General Douglas MacArthur directed the Japanese delegation. There were seven or eight, Gustafson remembers. One wore a top hat and had a wooden leg.
“It was strictly a very somber event,’’ said Gustafson. The stone-faced delegates signed the paper, and MacArthur turned and said “the proceedings are terminated,’’ Gustafson said. “They turned around and left.’’
Gustafson had grown up on a farm outside of Bird Island and joined the Navy on January 20, 1943, or one day before he turned 18 years old. Officer training took him to Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, Columbia University in New York City, and to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He was waiting on base at Pearl Harbor when the P.A. announced that Ensign Gustafson was to report. The lieutenant who handed him his assignment “looked at me like I had won the Nobel Peace Prize,’’ Gustafson said.
The admiral met him in his bathing suit at the plush estate where he was spending a couple of days. The admiral welcomed the new staff member by telling him that bathing suits were the uniform of the day.
Aboard the USS Missouri, Gustafson was responsible for communications over the electronic cryptography machines that kept the admiral and staff in contact with the Third Fleet and its nearly 2,000 ships. In the days before the atomic bombs were dropped, the USS Missouri was firing its 16-inch guns at Tokyo, less than 20 miles away.
Those guns were kept aimed directly at the Japanese military command in Tokyo right up to the arrival of the Japanese delegation, Gustafson said.
He was among the second group of Americans to land on the Japanese mainland at war’s end. The first group included former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen, the only other Minnesotan on Halsey’s staff.
That group had landed before the official cessation of hostilities and came to remove some 10,000 American prisoners of war. No one could be certain whether the Japanese military leaders would turn over the American prisoners absent a formal surrender, Gustafson said.
No one trusted the Americans when Gustafson and his party landed in a suburb of Tokyo after the instrument of surrender was signed. Windows were boarded up and everyone hid. Gustafson said the word was out that the Americans intended to kill them all.
The Americans visited the labyrinth of tunnels the Japanese had made in preparation to defend the mainland to their death.
Gustafson also witnessed the destruction that had been wrought on Tokyo in preparation for the planned invasion. To this day, he said, he has been amazed that the Japanese could have held out as long as they did.
Among the first he met in Japan was a man who came rushing toward him. He was shouting in impeccable English about how happy he was to see them. He had lived in America for 35 years working for the Singer sewing machine company and had been stranded in Japan when the war broke out, Gustafson said.
He said it was about three days after the arrival of the Americans that the Japanese began to trust that their occupiers did not intend to kill them.
Gustafson also knows just how differently U.S.-Japanese relations might have been at that point. Prior to the war’s end, Admiral Halsey had made known his intention to ride Emperor Hirohito’s white horse down the main thoroughfare in Tokyo after the defeat of Japan.
Gustafson said saddles began to arrive and take up space on the cramped USS Missouri when word of Admiral Halsey’s intentions got out. He remembers that there were nearly 20 saddles sent to the ship, including a beautiful, silver-trimmed saddle from Colorado. The Aleuts of Alaska had sent stirrups carved of walrus tusk.
Halsey never made that ride. General MacArthur told him he was not going to allow him to embarrass the Japanese, Gustafson said. The Emperor was a deity to the Japanese. “To ride that horse would have been a terrible morale problem,’’ Gustafson said.
Gustafson remained in the Navy for another year after the surrender. He retired as a lieutenant and returned to Minnesota to study law at the University of Minnesota. As a farm kid he had hated high school, but at the end of his senior year, a new principal had arrived and inspired him with a passion for the law.
He began his legal practice in Olivia in 1951, and opened his Willmar practice in 1956. He also served 10 years in the state Legislature. He remains in his law practice today.
He admits that it really wasn’t until he was back home after the war that he fully appreciated the magnitude of what he had witnessed aboard the USS Missouri as a 20-year-old.
What he witnessed on the Japanese mainland shaped him more. “I think it matured me pretty fast to see all this happening. The destruction (we saw) when we went ashore in Japan was overwhelming.’’
So too were his emotions nearly 69 years later when all the applause aboard the USS Ronald Reagan was directed at him. “Pretty heavy stuff,’’ he said of the experience.
