Which Soviet general signed Japan’s surrender document in Tokyo Bay in 1945?

Kuzma Derevyanko signed Japan’s surrender document for the Soviet Union in Tokyo Bay in 1945. He was a lieutenant general in the Red Army and represented the Soviet government at the ceremony aboard USS Missouri.

Derevyanko signed at approximately 9:16 a.m. Japan Standard Time on September 2, 1945. He was the fourth Allied national representative to sign, following Douglas MacArthur for the Allied powers, Chester Nimitz for the United States, and Hsu Yung-chang for China.

The Soviet Union had declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, and Soviet forces invaded Japanese-held territories in Manchuria, Korea, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. That military intervention occurred during the final weeks of the Pacific War and shortly before the Japanese surrender. Derevyanko’s name is less familiar than those of MacArthur or Nimitz, but his signature made the Soviet Union one of the Allied governments formally represented on the surrender document.