Six pens were used by MacArthur to sign the Japanese Instrument of Surrender.
General Douglas MacArthur used multiple pens while signing the document aboard USS Missouri on September 2, 1945. Two of the pens were later given to General Jonathan Wainwright and Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, who had each been involved in an earlier Japanese surrender in the Pacific.
MacArthur’s aide Courtney Whitney received another pen, while a red pen associated with MacArthur’s wife was also among the pens used. The surviving pens were dispersed among museums and private collections, giving the signing ceremony an unusual group of historical souvenirs.
The number six is sometimes confused with the number of pens prominently shown in popular accounts or with the two pens given to surrender witnesses. Those are subsets or descriptions of the surviving objects, not the full number used by MacArthur during the signing.