On Sept. 2, 1945, the deadliest war in history officially ended on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri with Japan’s unconditional surrender.

More than 3,000 service members and dignitaries — most of them Missouri crew members — jammed onto every bit of available real estate to watch the signing. Upwards of 250 allied ships were in Tokyo Bay. More than 1,000 fighters and bombers flew over late in the ceremony in a show of force.

It was history being made on an unprecedented scale. A total of 75 million or more people had perished in World War II.

For the first time in its history, Japan was surrendering to a foreign power, the Navy said. When the 11-member Japanese delegation came aboard the Missouri, crew members described it as being so quiet that a pin drop could have been heard.

Radioman Don Fosburg turned 19 that day. But like so many Missouri crew, he didn’t fully comprehend the huge significance of the moment.

“Probably the thing that impressed me the most was the fact that (the war) was over. Everything was over. … Most of the remarks were, ‘Are we going to go home? Are we going to leave?’ I don’t think anyone realized how important it became (until) years later. I know I didn’t,” Fosburg, now 94, said in the new documentary film “Surrender on the USS Missouri.”

The nearly hourlong film by Tim Gray, president of the World War II Foundation, premiered online Tuesday and will be aired on PBS channels around the country.

Fosburg, who lives in Whittier, Calif., is one of several wartime Missouri crew members featured. At the time of the surrender, the Missouri had 189 officers and over 2,700 crew.

In a Zoom Q&A hosted Tuesday by the Battleship Missouri Memorial, Fosburg reflected on the fact that only about 18 are still alive.

“It’s hard to believe that everyone is gone. I mean, 18 of us left?” commented Fosburg, whose memory is still sharp. The interaction was part of the Battleship Missouri Memorial’s “Mo-Joe” series of events.

What’s not conveyed in the usual photos and video of the surrender — but is in the film — are some of the smaller moments before, during and after the momentous event.

“Tokyo Bay was quite a sight. The bay was filthy,” Fosburg recalled. The water — there was even a dead body floating by the ship. You looked at the shoreline and it was devastation. You could see ships that were ruined.”

He said not that many Japanese representatives came aboard and there was no communication between the one-time enemies — or love lost.

“The Japanese soldiers, one of them came up alongside the ship and we threw stuff at him. I mean, we weren’t exactly fond of what had just happened” in the war, Fosburg said.

He lost a best friend and multiple cousins, with one killed on Corregidor in the Philippines. “Your attitude was a little different than it’s become now,” he said.

A good portion of the film focuses on imagery from around the time of the surrender, but it also includes the broader wartime story with commentary from Fosburg and other crew members such as Tony DeFilippis and Jerry Pedersen, who was part of a Marine detachment.

The last American battleship to be commissioned, the 887-foot Missouri entered the war late and had a very close call with a kamikaze on April 11, 1945. During fighting for Okinawa, the last major battle of World War II, a Zero pilot crashed into the side of the battleship, but the Missouri sustained only minor damage.

The Missouri the following month was named Adm. William F. “Bull” Halsey’s Third Fleet flagship.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander for the Allied powers, presided over the 23-minute surrender ceremony, slowly intoning, “We are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored.”

MacArthur also said: “It is my earnest hope and indeed the hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past — a world founded upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish — for freedom, tolerance and justice.”

Daniel Martinez, chief historian for the Pearl Harbor National Memorial, says in the film that “a lot of people have been critical of MacArthur,” but in that moment, when he was chosen to be master of ceremonies, the Allied commander, with that voice and with those words “brought a dignity and peace to the Japanese who had come up this deck (and were) humbled in losing the war.”

Fosburg remembered what was then of greater importance to most of those aboard the Missouri — going home. Crew members went back to work and the battleship sailed from Tokyo Bay on Sept. 6, 1945, bound for Hawaii.

They did get a day of relaxation on an island along the way, “with two cans of warm beer — and that was our celebration,” Fosburg said.