Good points. We also need to remember that 80 percent of the deaths in World War II worldwide happened on the Eastern Front. The Soviets lost more men at Stalingrad than we lost in the entire war. At Tehran, Stalin promised to start an offensive within a week of the Allied landing in Normandy, to take pressure off the invasion; the Sovie…
Good points. We also need to remember that 80 percent of the deaths in World War II worldwide happened on the Eastern Front. The Soviets lost more men at Stalingrad than we lost in the entire war. At Tehran, Stalin promised to start an offensive within a week of the Allied landing in Normandy, to take pressure off the invasion; the Soviet 1944 offensive began on June 10, four days after D-Day and did remove the pressure. At Yalta, he promised to enter the war with Japan 90 days after the Germans surrendered. On August 9, the Soviets invaded Manchuria. The record of the Japanese Supreme War Council for that day makes no mention of the fact that Nagasaki had been bombed. All eyes were on the Soviets, because they knew they had no defenses in Manchuria or in northern Japan, having sent everything to Kyushu to oppose the coming US invasion. The Soviets planned to invade Hokkaido from Sakhalin at the end of September, a good 5-6 weeks before Operation Coronet, the Kyushu invasion (which would likely have failed in the face of the kamikazes and the Japanese beach defenses - I spoke to a Marine who was part of the Marine leadership of the 6th division, who all visited the beach they would have hit after the surrender in September. They all agreed, after talking to their opposite numbers and looking at the defenses, that they would never have gotten off the beach). Had that invasion happened, the Soviets would have taken Hokkaido and Honshu already.
We believe Japan surrendered because of the A-bombs because that was what they told us. In fact they were happy to surrender to us, rather than to the tender mercies of the Russians, who hadn't forgotten the events of 1905 and whose "mercies" in Germany after the surrender they had knowledge of.
Good points. We also need to remember that 80 percent of the deaths in World War II worldwide happened on the Eastern Front. The Soviets lost more men at Stalingrad than we lost in the entire war. At Tehran, Stalin promised to start an offensive within a week of the Allied landing in Normandy, to take pressure off the invasion; the Soviet 1944 offensive began on June 10, four days after D-Day and did remove the pressure. At Yalta, he promised to enter the war with Japan 90 days after the Germans surrendered. On August 9, the Soviets invaded Manchuria. The record of the Japanese Supreme War Council for that day makes no mention of the fact that Nagasaki had been bombed. All eyes were on the Soviets, because they knew they had no defenses in Manchuria or in northern Japan, having sent everything to Kyushu to oppose the coming US invasion. The Soviets planned to invade Hokkaido from Sakhalin at the end of September, a good 5-6 weeks before Operation Coronet, the Kyushu invasion (which would likely have failed in the face of the kamikazes and the Japanese beach defenses - I spoke to a Marine who was part of the Marine leadership of the 6th division, who all visited the beach they would have hit after the surrender in September. They all agreed, after talking to their opposite numbers and looking at the defenses, that they would never have gotten off the beach). Had that invasion happened, the Soviets would have taken Hokkaido and Honshu already.
We believe Japan surrendered because of the A-bombs because that was what they told us. In fact they were happy to surrender to us, rather than to the tender mercies of the Russians, who hadn't forgotten the events of 1905 and whose "mercies" in Germany after the surrender they had knowledge of.