Ships
- USS Missouri (BB-63) Captain, 14 May 1945 – 6 November 1945
Stuart Shadrick Murray was born in Delia, Texas, on 22 March 1898. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the class of 1919 and spent most of the years before the Second World War in submarines. In the early 1920s he took part in building the submarine base at Pearl Harbor. A very tall man, he was known to shipmates as Sunshine and as the Gentle Giant.
His first commands were the small submarines R-17, L-8, R-13, and S-9. He also served in the battleships Arkansas and New York and taught at the Naval Academy. During the 1930s he commanded S-44, served at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, and commanded Porpoise. He was later damage-control officer in the heavy cruiser Portland and a submarine detailer in the Bureau of Navigation.
At the outbreak of the Pacific war he commanded Submarine Division 15 at Manila and took part in the defense of the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies. He then served as chief of staff to the submarine commander in the Southwest Pacific. In 1943 he became chief of staff to Charles A. Lockwood, Commander, Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet. For planning and directing submarine operations in Japanese-controlled waters from May through November 1943, he received the Legion of Merit. He afterward served as Commandant of Midshipmen at the Naval Academy through 1944 and into 1945.
On 14 May 1945 Murray relieved William M. Callaghan as captain of Missouri. The new battleship flew the flag of William Frederick Halsey, Jr., Commander, Third Fleet. Under Murray that summer, Missouri operated with the fleet against Japan and took part in the bombardment of targets on Hokkaido and Honshu. He received a second Legion of Merit for his command of the ship in those operations.
President Harry S. Truman chose Missouri as the place where Japan would surrender. His daughter Margaret had christened the ship. On the morning of 2 September 1945, in Tokyo Bay, Allied representatives and a Japanese delegation assembled on board. Murray had prepared the ship and drilled the crew to receive the party, eleven Japanese officials led by Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, with General Yoshijiro Umezu signing for the armed forces. General Douglas MacArthur presided over the ceremony. Chester William Nimitz signed the Instrument of Surrender for the United States, while Halsey was present with his flag in Missouri.
After the ceremony Missouri returned to the United States. On Navy Day, 27 October 1945, President Truman visited the ship in New York and Murray received him aboard. Murray left command of Missouri on 6 November 1945.
He later commanded the Submarine Force, Atlantic Fleet, and closed his active career as Naval Inspector General. He retired in 1956 as a vice admiral. Murray died of cancer on 19 September 1980 in Arlington, Virginia, at the age of 82.