Confirmed in his rank of lieutenant general in April 1945, in late May Stopford's XXXIII Indian Corps HQ was redesignated as the new HQ British Twelfth Army. The Twelfth Army now took responsibility for finishing the final stages of the campaign in Burma, allowing the HQ Fourteenth Army to return to India, to plan for future operations, specifically the recapture of Malaya. The battle under Stopford's command would become known as the Battle of the Sittang Bend. The remaining Japanese in the Irrawaddy Valley, numbering roughly 30,000 troops, attempted to cross the Pegu Yoma Hills and the Sittang River, into the supposed safety of the Karen Hills, bordering Thailand. Given Lieutenant General Messervy's IV Corps, with three divisions under command, the Twelfth Army inflicted severe losses upon the Japanese troops, a significant number of whom were suffering from starvation or otherwise ill. As it turned out, this was to be the last major land action fought by the Western Allies during World War II as, in mid-August, the Japanese surrendered in Tokyo. Stopford gave orders for all offensive operations to cease, and soon began negotiations with the Japanese, which culminated in their surrender at Rangoon in mid-September. The following month, at another ceremony, General Heitarō Kimura, commander of the Japanese Burma Area Army, handed over to Stopford his sword.