END OF FIGHTING

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 201, 25 August 1945, Page 5

END OF FIGHTING

BURMA CAMPAIGN

British Officer Meets Jap

Representatives

Rec. 10.30 a.m. LONDON, Aug. 24. Fighting has finished throughout Burma, says Reuter's correspondent with the British forces. A senior British officer this afternoon met Japanese officer representatives in the Sittang river area. The conference lasted two hours, after which a statement was issued reporting that the officers had agreed on. means of stopping useless bloodshed between the opposing forces during the period from the cease-fire order to the actual signing of the instrument of surrender in South-east Asia.

Four Spitfires flew low over the Japanese headquarters near Shwegyin at dawn on Monday and dropped leaflets, ordering the Japanese to release a British officer, whom they had captured on Sunday, says the Associated Press special correspondent in a delayed despatch.

The officer, who was a member of the guerillas, visited the Japanese headquarters on his own initiative to try to arrange surrender and was promptly taken prisoner. The rest of the party, waiting at a distance, saw the officer disappear in the direction of the Japanese. After a lapse of time he failed to return and they signalled their headquarters on a portable radio. Leaflets were immediately printed, ordering the instant release of the officer unharmed.

General Count Terauchi. in a message to Delhi broadcast by Saigon radio, announced that the Japanese surrender envoy, Lieutenant-General Numata, Chief-of-Staff of the Japanese forces in the southern region, would land on Mingaladon airfield, Rangoon, between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on Sunday. This is 72 hours later than Admiral Mountbatten named. The Chief-of-Staff of the South-east Asia Command, Lieutenant-General F. A. M. Browning, is Jikely to take Lieutenant-General Numata's surrender.