Who accepted the Japanese surrender in Singapore on September 12, 1945, for Southeast Asia Command?

Lord Louis Mountbatten accepted the Japanese surrender in Singapore on September 12, 1945, for Southeast Asia Command.

Mountbatten was the Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia Command. At Singapore’s Municipal Building, he received the formal surrender of Japanese forces in Southeast Asia from General Seishiro Itagaki, who signed on behalf of Field Marshal Hisaichi Terauchi.

This ceremony followed Japan’s main surrender aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2. Although the global conflict had formally ended, Japanese forces across Asia and the Pacific surrendered in separate regional ceremonies as Allied commanders took control of occupied territories.

The Singapore ceremony was connected to Operation Tiderace, the British plan to retake Singapore after Japan’s surrender. Allied troops arrived in early September, and the surrender instrument was finalized on September 12. The municipal building was later renamed City Hall and remains an important site in Singapore’s wartime history.