Which Japanese general signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender for Japan’s armed forces?

Yoshijirō Umezu signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender for Japan’s armed forces.

Umezu was chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff during the final years of World War II. At the September 2, 1945, ceremony aboard USS Missouri, he signed the surrender document as the representative of Japan’s military. Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed immediately before him for the Japanese government.

The distinction mattered because the surrender ceremony represented both Japan’s civil authority and its armed forces. Umezu’s position made him the senior military signatory, while Shigemitsu’s office represented the cabinet and state. General Douglas MacArthur then signed for the Allied powers, followed by representatives of the participating Allied nations.

Umezu is sometimes confused with other senior Japanese commanders, including Tomoyuki Yamashita and Hideki Tōjō. Neither signed the surrender instrument aboard Missouri. Umezu later faced the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and died in Sugamo Prison in 1949 while serving a life sentence.