He called for his men to stop firing. The fire on both sides died. He pulled off his shirt, tied it to a stick and walked slowly out into the open waving it. Within an hour his force were taken prisoner and the mopping up of the area begun. The American troops were more concerned about taking care of the people from the towns than rounding up Japanese. Some were not taken into custody for several days.

Offshore one of the hottest naval battles of the war was being fought. Nearly every remaining Japanese surface ship was now arrayed against five American attack submarines and the three rocket boats. The Japanese heavy battle force was steaming north to support the ground troops when they were sighted by the five American submarines. The Erie and Harrisburg lead the attack, the Cleveland, Peoria and Scranton initially pulled back to a safe distance. Although they had torpedoes they were considered too big to be really effective as attack boats. The two smaller subs went in for the attack and it soon became apparent that they could not carry the battle without help. The larger boats moved in and began torpedo attacks but soon everyone was short on torpedoes and there were still many Japanese targets. The battle would become very unorthodox when the Scranton and Cleveland, out of torpedoes and with two Japanese carriers in sight, surfaced and made a joint successful rocket attack on the carriers. Both carriers were out of commission and sinking by the time the two submarines returned to the depths. After seeing the effectiveness of the rocket attack the Peoria surfaced and hit the remainder of the fleet with her bay of rockets. Two destroyers and a cruiser were sunk, several other ships were badly damaged.

11/14/46 – Washington D.C.

The new provisional Japanese government had just announced that effective immediately their forces would declare a cease fire. A new German government had done the same several hours earlier and the Free Italian government would follow suit before the day was over. The Allied governments responded to all that they would honor the cease fire for a week but nothing short of unconditional surrender would be accepted. The parties had till November 21 to accept or reject. Rejection would mean further air attacks.

The surrenders were signed within three days. The formal occupation of Japan began immediately. It would never be allowed to rearm and its would remain under Allied control. As an independent nation it had ceased to exist. There would be no immediate Allied occupation of Germany and Italy, small military units were sent to each to oversee the disarming of the military and the establishment of the new government. The relief efforts on the West Coast and establishing order in the previously occupied areas of Western Europe had priority.

Relief convoys to Russia began the day after the cease fire. For the first time in nearly eight years the world was not at war. In the back of everyone’s mind was the question, how long would last? There was unity in the hope it would be a very long time.