Volume 73, Number 3 (2020) Summer 2020

The cover reproduces The First Wave on Japan, a 1945 watercolor painting by Standish Backus Jr. It depicts Higgins boats carrying Marines of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Regiment ashore at Fort No. 2 on the Futtsu Peninsula, Tokyo Bay, Japan. The landing represented the first test of whether the Japanese actually would abide by the terms that had been negotiated or would resist. In “Conditional Surrender: Conflict Termination in the Pacific, 1945,” Richard J. Shuster and Takuya Shimodaira describe the series of developments and the behind-the-scenes efforts that—despite the Allies’ public stance demanding “unconditional surrender” and the stubborn determination of most of the Japanese leadership to fight to the bitter end—led to peaceful surrender and the official termination of World War II in August–September 1945.