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On September 2, 1945, a delegation of highranking Japanese officers and government officials boarded the USS Missouri. Two atomic bombings, three years of military failure and a full-scale Soviet invasion of Manchuria had brought the final Axis power of World War Two to its knees. As Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, General Douglas MacArthur and representatives of the Allied powers looked on, Japanese minister Mamoru Shigemitsu solemnly signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender. The most devastating conflict in human history had been brought to an end. Stepping before a battery of microphones, MacArthur announced to the world: “It is the earnest hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion, a better world shall emerge from the carnage of the past, dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfilment of his most cherished wishes for freedom, tolerance and justice.”
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