Lord Mountbatten was Supreme Commander in Southeast Asia

Eric Walton, 83, from Mansfield, who was confidential clerk and note taker for Lord Mountbatten, took notes at proceedings in Rangoon, Burma in 1945.

Mr Walton is giving his handwritten notes to Derbyshire County Council for safekeeping.

He was present when Japanese generals negotiated a ceasefire with Lord Mountbatten's chief of general staff.

'Wide significance'

But Mr Walton plays down his role in the historic encounter, saying it was just another day of work for him.

"The meeting was held in Government House in Burma and I was seated next to the interpreter and my job was to take the minutes.

"There were three sessions and after each one I was put in a separate room and typed a draft.

The son of a miner, Mr Walton was a clerk for a solicitor's firm in Chesterfield when World War II broke out.

"I had been attending meetings and taking notes for Lord Mountbatten's staff so it was merely an extension of what I was expected to do."

Mr Walton, who has lived for most of his life in Chesterfield, has donated his original notebook and a typescript to the county record office in Matlock.

Margaret O'Sullivan, the Derbyshire county archivist, said: "It is a personal collection of papers and photographs and it is an historic event that had a wide significance."