Exhausted, Mochinaga returned home to find it destroyed in a bombing raid. Foreseeing the end of the war and fearing the inevitable American occupation of Japan that might involve purging propagandists as well as food shortages, Mochinaga fled with his pregnant wife to Japan-occupied Manchuria where they both had family. There, he got a job at Man-Ei as a graphic artist. Less than a month after moving to Manchuria, Japan surrendered.