What was the title of Mamoru Shigemitsu when he signed Japan’s surrender in 1945?

Mamoru Shigemitsu was Japan’s Foreign Minister when he signed the 1945 surrender.

Shigemitsu signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on behalf of the Japanese government aboard USS Missouri on 2 September 1945. He was the civilian leader of Japan’s delegation and signed before General Yoshijiro Umezu, the chief of the Imperial General Staff.

Emperor Hirohito had appealed to Shigemitsu to undertake the unpleasant task of signing. The Japanese delegation included eleven representatives, but only Shigemitsu and Umezu signed the instrument itself. Their signatures represented both the civilian government and the armed forces.

Shigemitsu had previously served as a diplomat and foreign minister during Japan’s wartime period. He had lost a leg in an attempted assassination in 1932 and used a prosthetic limb. After the war, he was convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, served a prison sentence, and later returned to political life. He again became foreign minister in the 1950s.