Japanese Instrument of Surrender

• 1. Preparation And Delegates

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  General Douglas MacArthur's staff, headed by Colonel LeGrande A. Diller, faced a daunting task in war-torn Manila during 1945. Resources were scarce, yet an enterprising staff member discovered rare parchment hidden in the basement of a monastery. This fragile paper was given to MacArthur's printer for the draft of the Instrument of Surrender. The United Kingdom initially invited governments of the British Dominions to send representatives as subordinates to its own delegation. Australia objected to this arrangement and demanded to sign separately from the UK. MacArthur supported Australia's demand but recommended that Canada, the Netherlands, and France also sign independently. Japan's Higashikuni Cabinet struggled to find delegates willing to accept such an unpleasant task. Prime Minister Higashikuni belonged to the Imperial family and could not attend. Prince Fumimaro Konoe refused to go despite his status. Mamoru Shigemitsu and Yoshijirō Umezu finally accepted the Emperor's personal appeal to serve as the two signatories. Eleven other Japanese delegates joined them, with three each from the Army, Navy, and Foreign Ministry. All eleven names were submitted to the Allies in advance, though only the two signatories were revealed to the press on the morning of the signing. The eleven delegates left Tokyo by car early on the 2nd of September 1945. They boarded the USS Missouri at Yokohama and sailed out to anchor in Tokyo Bay.

• 2. The Surrender Ceremony

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  The ceremony aboard the deck of the USS Missouri lasted exactly 23 minutes and was broadcast throughout the world. At 9:04 a.m., Japanese foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed first by command and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese Government. General Yoshijirō Umezu, Chief of the Army General Staff, then signed the document by command and in behalf of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters at 9:06 a.m. American General of the Army Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender on behalf of the Allied Powers at 9:08 a.m. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz signed for the United States at 9:12 a.m. General Hsu Yung-chang represented China at 9:13 a.m. Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser signed for the United Kingdom at 9:14 a.m. Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko spoke for the Soviet Union at 9:16 a.m. General Sir Thomas Blamey signed for Australia at 9:17 a.m. Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrave represented Canada at 9:18 a.m. Général de Corps d'Armée Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque signed for France at 9:20 a.m. Lieutenant Admiral Conrad Helfrich represented the Netherlands at 9:21 a.m. Air Vice-Marshal Leonard M. Isitt signed for New Zealand at 9:22 a.m. Standing behind the table were Generals Wainwright and Percival, both former prisoners of the Japanese.

• 3. Symbolic Flags And Artifacts

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  Captain Stuart Murray of the USS Missouri explained that one special flag had flown from Commodore Matthew Perry's flagship in 1853, 54 when he led the U.S. Navy's Far East Squadron into Tokyo Bay. This historic flag was displayed backward on the veranda deck with stars visible in the upper right corner. The cloth of the 31-star flag was so fragile that conservators sewed a protective backing on it to preserve its integrity. A replica of this historic flag can be seen today on the Surrender Deck of the Battleship Missouri Memorial in Pearl Harbor. The original flag remains on display at the Naval Academy Museum alongside the table and tablecloth upon which the instrument was signed. An original bronze plaque marking the location of the signing is also preserved there, though it was replaced by two replicas in 1990. These artifacts serve as tangible links between the opening of Japan's ports in the mid-19th century and the formal end of hostilities in 1945.

• 4. Documentary Discrepancies

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  The Canadian representative Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrave signed below his line instead of above it on the Japanese copy of the document. Everyone after him had to sign one line lower than intended due to this clerical error. The mistake was attributed to Cosgrave being blind in one eye from a World War I injury. When General Richard K. Sutherland noticed the discrepancy, he crossed out the pre-printed name titles of the Allied nations. He rewrote the titles by hand in their correct relative positions. The Japanese initially found this alteration unacceptable until Sutherland initialed each change as an abbreviated signature. The representatives did not complain further once the corrections were made. This handwritten adjustment ensured that all subsequent signatures aligned properly with the printed text despite the initial positioning error.

• 5. Archival Distribution

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  On the 6th of September 1945, Colonel Bernard Theilen arrived in Washington D.C. with the Allied copy of the Instrument and other documents including copies of Hirohito's rescript. President Harry S. Truman received these items during a formal White House ceremony the following day. Following a ceremony led by General Jonathan Wainwright, the documents were exhibited at the National Archives alongside regional instruments signed in the Philippines, Korea, and South-east Asia. On the 1st of October 1945, the documents were formally received into the holdings of the National Archives. They are now housed in the National Archives Building in Washington D.C. The Japanese copy resides at the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in Tokyo. It was last publicly displayed in 2015 as part of an exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of the signing. MacArthur ordered 11 full-sized watermarked facsimiles bound in blue leather for distribution among the Allied nations. Some copies were later bound in red leather for presentation to his personal guests at the ceremony.

• 6. Signing Pens Legacy

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  American general Jonathan Wainwright and British lieutenant-general Arthur Percival received two of the six pens used by MacArthur to sign the instrument. Wainwright's pen was donated to the West Point Museum at the United States Military Academy. Percival's pen went to the Cheshire Military Museum. The pen of MacArthur's aide Courtney Whitney remained with the Whitney family who still owns it today. All of the pens used by MacArthur were black except the last one which was bright red and given to his wife. A replica of the red pen sits on the Missouri by the plaque marking the signing spot. MacArthur left two black pens on the table for others to use if they desired. Admiral Bruce Fraser signed with these black Waterman pens but tried to give them to his witnesses. His aides immediately retrieved these pens from Fraser's witnesses and returned them to MacArthur. Jimmy Doolittle reportedly whispered that he saw the British still lend-leasing their equipment. One of Nimitz's pens now resides in the Nanjing Museum while another is preserved at the United States Naval Academy Museum.