a few hundred yards of the destroyer. In mid-December, Waller participated in the invasion of Mindoro as a unit of the covering force of battleships, escort carriers, cruisers, and destroyers. On 15 December, this force repulsed a heavy kamikaze attack in the Sulu Sea. Waller again downed one and helped to destroy another Japanese attacker. One of the planes, a twin-engined "Betty," was attempting a suicide run on Waller before heavy antiaircraft fire splashed her. Early in January 1945, Waller shifted the scene of her operations to Lingayen Gulf, as American forces were landing there. While thus engaged, she scored hits on two suicide boats and poured some 3,000 rounds of ammunition at both air and surface targets. While she did not down a single plane, she damaged a countless number at the height of the heavy Japanese suicide raids. February and March 1945 again found Waller escorting and screening the vital Allied transports and cargo vessels. When American forces splashed ashore at Basilan, Waller was off the beaches as flagship of the task group and received additional fire-support assignments at Tawi Tawi and Jolo, in the Sulu Archipelago, during April. Indonesia and China, May – December 1945 A joint Australian-American effort against Borneo kept Waller busy from May to July. Waller participated in this campaign by escorting convoys to Tarakan Island, Brunei Bay, and Balikpapan, as well as by covering minesweeping operations in the Miri-Lulong area, below Brunei Bay. She then rejoined the 3d Fleet early in August to be in readiness for the projected invasion of the Japanese home islands. But while en route toward Honshū, escorting a convoy, Waller received the most welcome news that the Japanese had accepted the unconditional surrender terms of the Potsdam Declaration. Returned to the 7th Fleet once more, Waller entered Shanghai, China, on 19 September for a tour with the reconstituted Yangtze Patrol force and was one of the first American warships to make port at that Chinese city. A fortnight later, the destroyer neutralized a Japanese suicide-boat garrison base when a 21-man landing force from the ship assisted local Chinese authorities in disarming an estimated 2,700 Japanese at Tinghai. While returning to Shanghai on 9 October, Waller fouled a Japanese-moored "Shanghai"-type contact mine. Three officers and 22 men were wounded, and the ship sustained enough structural damage to warrant a drydocking at Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Works at Shanghai. Following