Surrender on the Missouri, September 1945 and HMS Black Prince at Hong Kong and Shanghai, 1945/1946

Posted: June 25th, 2026 | No Comments »

A series of sadly anonymous photos with Japan officially signing the Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2,1945. However, they appear to have been taken by a crew member (one assumes an officer given the level of access) on the the Royal Navy Dido-class light cruiser HMS Black Prince. On 16 January 1945, Black Prince sailed East as part of the British Pacific Fleet. She saw action off Okinawa and in the final bombardments of the Japanese mainland before withdrawing to Sydney and then to Hong Kong in October 1945. She remained in Hong Kong for five weeks. About 300 of the ship’s company went ashore to serve as guards in a POW camp for the Japanese.

On the 22nd November Black Prince arrived in Shanghai. Black Prince then spent nine-weeks on the Huangpu (one of only a couple of Royal Navy ships greatly outnumbers by the Americans – the other being the the mine laying cruiser HMS Apollo) over the Christmas period in 1945/1946.

After the Japanese surrender, Black Prince remained in the Far East, back to Hong Kong, back to Australia, and was finally transferred to the Royal New Zealand Navy on 25 May 1946. She became rather dated and unpopular with crews, was placed in reserve, and eventually towed to Japan to be scrapped in 1962.

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