Who was Japan's foreign minister and first Japanese signatory at the 1945 surrender ceremony?

Mamoru Shigemitsu was Japan’s foreign minister and first Japanese signatory at the 1945 surrender ceremony.

Shigemitsu signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender aboard USS Missouri on September 2, 1945. He signed “by command and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese Government,” making him the civilian representative of the Japanese state at the ceremony.

General Yoshijirō Umezu signed immediately afterward on behalf of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters. The two men were chosen after other possible representatives declined or were unable to attend. Emperor Hirohito personally appealed to them to perform the formal task.

Shigemitsu had served as Japan’s foreign minister during the final weeks of the war. He was recognizable at the ceremony because he wore a formal morning coat and used a cane, having lost a leg in an earlier assassination attempt. After the war, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East convicted him of war crimes, although he was later released on parole.