In 1946, the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Following the rapid conclusion of Operation Downfall, the Soviet Union's advancement onto the home islands had been limited to Hokkaid? where the Democratic People's Republic of Japan was declared the following year. From the capital city of Sapporo, North Japan as it was known glared with unrelenting hatred upon its capitalist southern neighbour, leading to the the bitterest of the proxy conflicts that traumatised South-east Asia during the Cold War.