The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed aboard USS Missouri during the 1945 surrender ceremony.
The ceremony took place on the battleship’s deck in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. The ship was part of the United States Navy’s postwar fleet in Japanese waters, and its deck provided a prominent setting for the international ceremony. Allied vessels gathered nearby as representatives arrived from Tokyo and Yokohama.
USS Missouri was an Iowa-class battleship commissioned in June 1944. It had served in the Pacific during the final year of World War II, including operations around Okinawa and Japan. The ship later became a museum in Pearl Harbor, where the surrender site is marked and preserved.
The ship is sometimes confused with USS Iowa because both belonged to the same battleship class. USS Missouri was the vessel used for the signing, while General Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender on behalf of the Allied powers. The ceremony began shortly after 9 a.m. Japan Standard Time and lasted about 23 minutes.