Nine Allied governments supplied representatives to sign Japan’s Instrument of Surrender.
The nine were the United States, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. Their representatives signed the document aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945.
General Douglas MacArthur signed for the Allied powers, followed by Admiral Chester Nimitz for the United States. Representatives of the other Allied governments then added their signatures. The ceremony formally ended the hostilities of World War II involving Japan, although separate postwar treaties later addressed the legal state of war with individual countries.
The number can be confused with the Japanese delegation. Eleven Japanese representatives were present, but only Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijirō Umezu signed the instrument. Thus, nine refers to the Allied governments represented as signatories, not to the total number of people at the ceremony or the number of Japanese delegates.