General Order No. 1 was the U.S. military directive ordering Japanese forces to surrender to designated Allied commanders.
The United States Joint Chiefs of Staff prepared the order, and President Harry Truman approved it on August 17, 1945. General Douglas MacArthur issued it to Japan’s representative after the surrender decision, and Japanese Imperial General Headquarters distributed it to Japanese forces on September 2.
The order required Japanese units to stop fighting, reveal their military deployments, preserve equipment, and await disarmament instructions. It also defined which Allied commanders would receive Japanese surrenders in different regions of the former Japanese empire.
One important consequence concerned Korea. Japanese forces north of the 38th parallel were instructed to surrender to Soviet forces, while those south of it surrendered to U.S. forces. This wartime administrative line later became the boundary between the Soviet- and American-occupied zones of Korea, helping set the stage for the division of the peninsula.