On September 2, 1945, Japanese representatives signed the Instrument of Surrender on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, formally ending World War II. Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed for the government and General Yoshijiro Umezu for the armed forces. General Douglas MacArthur signed for the Allies at four minutes past nine in the morning.
The ceremony closed a war that had already stopped in practice, because Emperor Hirohito had broadcast Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration on August 15, two weeks before the delegation came aboard. The formal document still mattered. Fighting had already stopped. It put the surrender in writing, said who would carry it out, and handed authority over Japan to MacArthur as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. Nine nations signed. One of them was China, represented by General Xu Yongchang.
Two dates come up here, and they are worth keeping apart. August 15 is the day most Japanese remember, and it is V-J Day in Britain and Australia. September 2 is the date on the signed document, and it is the one recognised in the United States and in China, where September 3 was later fixed by law as Victory Day.
The document ran to eight paragraphs. It ordered all Japanese forces to cease hostilities and to release Allied prisoners, and it declared that the authority of the emperor and his government would be subject to the Supreme Commander. The state of war with Japan did not formally end until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect on April 28, 1952.