Who was the first Japanese representative to sign the surrender instrument in Tokyo Bay in 1945?

Mamoru Shigemitsu was the first Japanese representative to sign the surrender instrument in Tokyo Bay in 1945.

Shigemitsu was Japan’s foreign minister and signed “by command and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese Government.” He signed at approximately 9:04 a.m. on September 2, 1945, aboard USS Missouri.

General Yoshijirō Umezu signed next, representing Japanese Imperial General Headquarters. The distinction mattered because the ceremony represented both the civilian government and the military command structure that had directed Japan’s wartime forces.

Shigemitsu had previously served as a diplomat and had signed Japan’s surrender at the ceremony while using a prosthetic leg. He had lost his right leg in 1932 when a Korean independence activist bombed a diplomatic event in Shanghai. After the war, he was convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East but was later paroled.