In which body of water was Japan’s 1945 surrender ceremony held?

Japan’s 1945 surrender ceremony was held in Tokyo Bay.

On 2 September 1945, the battleship USS Missouri lay at anchor in Tokyo Bay while Japanese and Allied representatives signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender. The ceremony formally ended hostilities between Japan and the Allied powers in World War II.

Tokyo Bay was selected because it placed the ceremony close to Japan’s capital while keeping it aboard an Allied warship. The bay also held a large concentration of Allied naval vessels during the opening stage of the occupation.

The location is sometimes confused with Pearl Harbor because Missouri is now preserved there as a museum ship. Pearl Harbor was not the site of the surrender ceremony. Another nearby geographical detail is that Missouri anchored close to the area associated with Commodore Matthew Perry’s 1853 arrival in Tokyo Bay, which gave the ceremony additional historical symbolism.