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    • Victory over Japan Day

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      Despite Emperor Hirohito famous radio broadcast, in which he informed the Japanese people of Japan's acceptance of the terms of the Postdam Declaration, occurred on August 15th, 1945, the formal signature of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender happened on September 2nd of that same year, at the deck of the USS Missouri at the Tokyo Bay.

      The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed initially by Japan's Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, followed by other representatives:

      • General Yoshijirō Umezu, Chief of the Army General Staff
      • Major General Yatsuji Nagai
      • Katsuo Okazaki (Foreign Ministry)
      • Rear Admiral Tadatoshi Tomioka
      • Toshikazu Kase (Foreign Ministry)
      • Lt. General Suichi Miyakazi
      • Rear Admiral Ichiro Yokoyama
      • Saburo Ota (Foreign Ministry)
      • Captain Katsuo Shiba (Navy)
      • Colonel Kaziyi Sugita

       

      US General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, acting as Commander in the Southwest Pacific and Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, accepted the surrender to the Allied Powers, signing the document as Supreme Commander. Other Allied representatives were

      • Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz for the United States
      • General Hsu Yung-chang for China
      • Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser for the United Kingdom
      • Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko for the Soviet Union
      • General Sir Thomas Blamey for Australia
      • Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrave for Canada
      • Général de Corps d'Armée Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque for France
      • Lieutenant Admiral C. E. L. Helfrich for the Netherlands
      • Air Vice-Marshal Leonard M. Isitt for New Zealand

       

      United States President Harry S. Truman, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and President of China Chiang Kai-shek defined the terms of surrender on the Potsdam Declaration, issued on July 26th, 1945. Those terms included.

      • The elimination "for all time of the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest";
      • The occupation of "points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies";
      • That Allied Powers shall limit the "Japanese sovereignty to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku, and such minor islands as we determine," as had been announced in the Cairo Declaration in 1943;
      • That "the Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives";
      • That "we do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners".

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