Posted on 08/08/2007 6:06:01 AM PDT by mainepatsfan
1945 : Soviets declare war on Japan; invade Manchuria
On this day in 1945, the Soviet Union officially declares war on Japan, pouring more than 1 million Soviet soldiers into Japanese-occupied Manchuria, northeastern China, to take on the 700,000-strong Japanese army.
The dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima by the Americans did not have the effect intended: unconditional surrender by Japan. Half of the Japanese inner Cabinet, called the Supreme War Direction Council, refused to surrender unless guarantees about Japan's future were given by the Allies, especially regarding the position of the emperor, Hirohito. The only Japanese civilians who even knew what happened at Hiroshima were either dead or suffering terribly.
Japan had not been too worried about the Soviet Union, so busy with the Germans on the Eastern front. The Japanese army went so far as to believe that they would not have to engage a Soviet attack until spring 1946. But the Soviets surprised them with their invasion of Manchuria, an assault so strong (of the 850 Japanese soldiers engaged at Pingyanchen, 650 were killed or wounded within the first two days of fighting) that Emperor Hirohito began to plead with his War Council to reconsider surrender. The recalcitrant members began to waver.
I think that Churchill & Roosevelt were both worried about casualties to their own troops. Having the Soviets take on the bulk of the German Army was a double-edged strategy.
There were quite a few of FDR’s inner circle that were fellow travellers or sympathizers. A book by the name of “FDR’s Folly” gives a pretty good account of the leanings of the big wheels in that administration. It describes how FDR’s policies not only did not help cure the Depression, but actually made it worse.
There were quite a few of FDR’s inner circle that were fellow travellers or sympathizers. A book by the name of “FDR’s Folly” gives a pretty good account of the leanings of the big wheels in that administration. It describes how FDR’s policies not only did not help cure the Depression, but actually made it worse.
Then they made a serious miscalulation in the last few months of the war, letting the Russians take and hold half of Europe, instead of themselves racing east as fast as they could go.
FDR and his "helpers" put the US solidly on the path to its current policy of domestic socialism, as well as its internationalism which have questionable American "national interest" - e.g., Clinton's Bosnia, from which the US will never recover.
The history of the Soviet-Japanese conflict in WW2 goes beyond this incident in 1945. Before the war officially began, the Soviets (under the great Gen. Vassily Zhukov) destroyed the vaunted Kwantung Army that was based in Manchuria/Inner Mongolia.
What year was that, when Zhukov destroyed the Japanese army in Manchuria? I do not recall that bit of history. I do recall the Japanese handing the Russians a defeat in 1905.
Military history is a subject that my son and I, are both into fairly well.
Battle of Nomonhan/Khalkin Gol where Zhukov first made his name at the expense of the Kwantung Army.
The official name is the Second Russo-Japanese War. The first one, of course, was the 1905 war, primarily a naval one.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khalkhin_Gol
“I do not recall that bit of history.”
Not surprising as these battles never got much attention in the West despite the fact that almost 45000 Imperial Japanese Army soliders were killed during the Kwantung Army’s anhilation by the great Zhukov’s forces.
Yeah, the British & US Forces operating in NW Europe were puny when compared to the German & Soviet force ratios in Eastern Europe. Taking your armed forces across the Atlantic & keeping them supplied tends to limit your force structure.
You need to explain. I was discssing the general apathy toward the Second Russo-Japanese War; do you have anything to say about why it has been ignored by HISTORIANS?
Which made the Japanese think twice about getting involved in a war against the Soviets.
At Yalta FDR gave lots of Eastern Europe to Stalin in exchange for the Soviet Union joining in the war against Japan with whom they had a neutrality pact. They promised to go to war against Japan three months after the end of the war against Nazi Germany. The Germans surrendered on May 8, 1945. August 8 was exactly three months to the day after the end of the war in Europe.
Using the atomic bomb when we did prevented the Soviet Union from dividing Japan the way they divided Germany and Europe.
To note on Manchuria, FDR gave away China's right to full restitution/indemity for Manchuria. This FDR did without informing or consulting the Chinese government, and was in direct contradiction to the agreements in the Cairo Declaration.
I was not happenstance that the Communist Chinese used Manchuria as their strong point to defeat the Nationalists and eventually control the Chinese mainland.
Just a guess, but the general secrecy from the Soviet side of The Cold War might have something to do with it. Soviet first-hand sources were probably unavailable to Western historians. I don't think Joseph Stalin would have looked too kindly on Zhukov being interviewed by a Brit or an American for instance.
As I see it, there was no reason to let Russia get involved with China or Japan at all. Russia had not participated in the war against Japan and Russian participation was not needed and, in fact, the atom bomb was not needed. Japan was an island nation which had been deprived of all access to the seas, and had to surrender on whatever terms. We only had to wait another couple of months.
“The **** the Japanese would have been looking at in another six or seven weeks would have been considerably worse than more atomic bombs”
Invasion of the mainland would have been exponentially worse for the japanese, and of course would have killed tens of thousands of americans as well in the process (if not more), if the experiences in the islands is any guide.
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