Yoshijirō Umezu signed the surrender instrument for Imperial General Headquarters in 1945.
Umezu was chief of the Army General Staff and represented the Japanese military command at the ceremony aboard USS Missouri on September 2. He signed after Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, who represented the emperor and Japanese government.
The surrender instrument used separate wording for the civilian government and Imperial General Headquarters. That distinction reflected Japan’s wartime structure, in which the military command had its own authority and institutions. Umezu’s signature therefore documented the military’s submission as well as the government’s acceptance.
Umezu reportedly opposed surrender before the emperor intervened and the government accepted the Allied terms. After signing, he was arrested and tried at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. He was convicted of Class-A war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment, dying in prison in 1949.