When the Shooting Stopped: August 1945

But the journey from Oahu to Tokyo was a long, sanguinary slog, Averaging an advance of just three miles per day. The American toll paid on that road reached some 108,000 battle deaths, more than one-third of the U.S. wartime total. However, by the summer of 1945 on both the American homefront and on the frontline there was growing hope. The devastating impact of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August seemed sure to force Tokyo into accepting the Allies' demands for surrender announced at the Potsdam Conference in July. What few understood, though, was the vast gap in the cultural ethos of East and West at the time. In fact, most of the Japanese cabinet refused to surrender, and vicious dogfights were still waged in the skies above Japan.

This new history tells the story of the final weeks of the war, detailing the last brutal air, land and sea battles with evocative first-hand accounts from the pilots and sailors caught up in those extraordinary events. Award-winning author Barrett Tillman then expertly details the first weeks of a tenuous peace and the emerging battle lines for the forthcoming Cold War as Soviet forces concluded their invasion of Manchuria. When the Shooting Stopped retells those dramatic events of August 1945, drawing on accounts from all sides to relive the days when the war finally ended and the world was forever changed.