Which Japanese general signed second for Japan at the 1945 surrender ceremony?

Yoshijiro Umezu signed second for Japan at the 1945 surrender ceremony.

Umezu was Chief of the Army General Staff and signed on behalf of the Imperial Japanese General Headquarters. His signature followed that of Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, who signed for the Emperor and the Japanese government. Umezu signed at about 9:06 a.m. on the deck of USS Missouri.

His presence reflected the surrender document’s two-part Japanese representation. The civilian government had to accept the Allied terms, but Japan’s military command also had to acknowledge the order to cease resistance. Umezu was the highest-ranking Japanese military officer at the ceremony.

Umezu did not speak for every individual Japanese unit still fighting across Asia and the Pacific. Separate local surrender ceremonies followed in places including the Philippines, Korea, and Southeast Asia. The formal document in Tokyo Bay, however, represented the Japanese government and imperial headquarters as a whole.