Japan signed its formal surrender aboard USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.
The ceremony took place on Missouri’s deck in Tokyo Bay at about 9 a.m. Japan Standard Time. Japanese representatives signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, formally ending hostilities with the Allied powers in World War II.
USS Missouri was an Iowa-class battleship commissioned by the United States Navy in 1944. Its selection gave the ceremony a prominent American setting, while the surrounding bay held hundreds of Allied vessels. The ship later became especially famous because it hosted the surrender ceremony, not because it had fought in every major Pacific campaign.
The ceremony lasted about 23 minutes. General Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender for the Allied powers, followed by representatives of the United States, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. A common mix-up is confusing the August 15 announcement of surrender with the September 2 signing aboard Missouri.