Where was Japan’s formal surrender of its forces in Southeast Asia signed on September 12, 1945?

Japan’s formal surrender of its forces in Southeast Asia was signed at the Singapore Municipal Building on September 12, 1945.

The ceremony took place after British-led Allied forces returned to Singapore. Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of the South East Asia Command, accepted the surrender from General Seishiro Itagaki, who signed on behalf of Field Marshal Hisaichi Terauchi, commander of Japan’s Southern Army Group.

The building was later renamed City Hall and became one of Singapore’s major civic landmarks. The 1945 ceremony was separate from the main surrender ceremony aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, which formally ended Japan’s war against the Allied powers as a whole.

Singapore’s ceremony covered Japanese forces in a regional command that included Southeast Asia. Other local surrender ceremonies were held elsewhere, including Nanjing, Penang, Labuan, Kuala Lumpur, and Padang.