The Nation - News from Aug. 15, 1988

Japanese entrants at an international yachting regatta in Hawaii said that U.S. race officials had asked them not to fly their naval ensign, the same Rising Sun flag flown by Japanese forces that attacked nearby Pearl Harbor in 1941. “The race officials told us to take it down before they would measure the boat,” helmsman Yasuhide Adachi said. New Zealand, Australia and Britain were flying their own naval ensigns, and Ken Morrison, race director of the Hawaii International Ocean Racing Series, said that there was “no official policy on the flying of battle flags as long as they complied with race rules.” But the request may have been a precautionary move. Eight years ago, a member of the Waikiki Yacht Club shot and wounded a Japanese-American yachtsman who had flown the Rising Sun flag across the finish line in a race from Pearl Harbor.