Who signed Japan’s surrender first for the Japanese government in Tokyo Bay in 1945?

Mamoru Shigemitsu signed Japan’s surrender first for the Japanese government in Tokyo Bay in 1945.

Shigemitsu was Japan’s foreign minister when the surrender ceremony took place aboard USS Missouri on September 2, 1945. He signed the Instrument of Surrender at about 9:04 a.m., acting by command of and on behalf of Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese government.

General Yoshijirō Umezu, chief of the Imperial General Headquarters, signed next for the Japanese armed forces. The two men were Japan’s official signatories, although nine additional Japanese delegates attended the ceremony. Shigemitsu wore a formal morning coat and used a cane after losing a leg in an earlier assassination attempt.

After the war, Shigemitsu was convicted of war crimes and imprisoned. He was released in 1950 and later returned to political life, again serving as Japan’s foreign minister during the early postwar period.