The Japanese Instrument of Surrender ceremony was held aboard USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.
The Missouri was an Iowa-class battleship of the United States Navy. It was anchored in Tokyo Bay, where Japanese representatives formally signed the document that ended hostilities with the Allied powers.
The choice of ship carried symbolic meaning. Missouri was commissioned in June 1944 and was one of the newest and largest American battleships. President Harry S. Truman was from Missouri, and the ship’s deck provided a prominent setting for the internationally broadcast ceremony.
The event is sometimes confused with the announcement of Japan’s surrender on August 15, which marked the public acceptance of the Allied terms. The ceremony aboard Missouri was the later legal and military formalization of that surrender.