Japan Surrenders 1945 Author:Richard Herbert The documents reproduced in this booklet are part of the Federal Government's permanently valuable records administered by the Naational Archives and Records Service of the General Services Administraton. These archival holdings date from the days of the First Continental Congress and consist of the basic records of the legislative, judicial, a... more »nd ececutive branches of our governmant. From time to time, we reproduce various documents in a publication aimed at reaching a much wider audience than would normally consult the records for research or use in the ordinary processes of government. This publiucation is the successor to the 1945 booklet The End of the War in the Pacific: Surrender Documents in Facsimile. It attempts to present its material in a more objective manner than the earlier work, wjich was written when the memory of the attack on Pearl Harbor was still fresh in mind and the war criminals were still punished. The passage of more than 30 years, however, only heightens the importance of the surrender documents, which remain among the most significant records of the 20th century. They range from simple paragraphs in English typed on standard military notepaper to elaborately lettered Japanese credentials affixed with the great seal of a defeated Emperor.« less