Which Canadian colonel accidentally signed one line too low on the Japanese surrender document?

Lawrence Moore Cosgrave accidentally signed one line too low on the Japanese surrender document.

Cosgrave was Canada’s representative at the surrender ceremony aboard USS Missouri. On the Japanese copy of the document, he signed on the line intended for France rather than the line labeled for Canada. The error was corrected by General Richard K. Sutherland, who crossed out and rewrote the country labels.

The correction meant that later Allied representatives also had to sign below their originally printed positions. New Zealand’s representative, Air Vice-Marshal Leonard Isitt, ultimately had his name and country written in the bottom margin because the available signing lines had shifted.

The mistake did not invalidate the surrender. Cosgrave signed the Allied copy correctly, and the Japanese delegation accepted the amended document. His error remains one of the best-known small incidents from the otherwise carefully choreographed ceremony.