Which Canadian representative signed below his line on Japan’s surrender document?

Lawrence Moore Cosgrave signed below his line on Japan’s surrender document.

Cosgrave was the Canadian representative at the ceremony aboard USS Missouri on 2 September 1945. He accidentally signed beneath the space intended for his name on the Japanese copy of the instrument. Because the mistake shifted later signatures downward, Allied officer Richard K. Sutherland corrected the printed labels by hand.

The correction did not invalidate the surrender. Sutherland crossed out and rewrote the relevant titles, then initialed the alterations. The Japanese representatives accepted the amended document, and the ceremony proceeded to its conclusion.

Cosgrave was a Canadian Army colonel and a veteran of the First World War. He had lost sight in one eye during that conflict, a detail sometimes mentioned in accounts of the signing error. The episode is a small but memorable example of how a highly planned international ceremony still contained an ordinary clerical mistake.