Who led Japan’s delegation at the surrender ceremony aboard USS Missouri?

Mamoru Shigemitsu led Japan’s delegation at the surrender ceremony aboard USS Missouri. He signed the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of the Japanese government as foreign minister.

Shigemitsu arrived aboard the battleship with the Japanese representatives shortly before the ceremony began. He wore formal diplomatic attire and signed the document after General Douglas MacArthur had opened the proceedings. General Yoshijiro Umezu, Japan’s chief of the Army General Staff, signed separately for the Japanese armed forces.

Shigemitsu had held important diplomatic posts before and during the war. He had also signed Japan’s surrender of the Chinese puppet government of Nanjing in 1945, before Japan’s own surrender. After the war, he was convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, served part of his sentence, and later returned to Japanese politics. His role on Missouri is distinct from that of Umezu, the Japanese army officer who also signed.