Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz signed Japan’s surrender document for the United States on September 2, 1945.
Nimitz signed at 9:12 a.m., after General Douglas MacArthur had accepted the document on behalf of the Allied powers. As Commander in Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas, Nimitz was one of the central American commanders of the Pacific War.
His signature followed those of the Japanese representatives and MacArthur. Other Allied signatories then represented China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.
Nimitz had directed major American naval strategy throughout the Pacific, including the campaigns that followed Pearl Harbor. He shared the fleet command structure with General Douglas MacArthur, whose forces operated primarily across the Southwest Pacific. The surrender ceremony therefore brought together the principal American naval and army commanders of the Pacific conflict.