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Historians rethink key Soviet role in Japan defeat

69 points by MikeCapone 16y ago

deleted 16y ago
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sdm 16y ago
People always like to forget that the USSR was one of our key allies in WWI. In Europe, they faced over 80% of the German forces -- leaving the other allies (UK, Colonies, and finally the US) to deal with the remainder. Likewise, their vital role against Japan is generally not mentioned outside of stuffy university military history courses. Good to see it getting some mainstream love.
- zeteo 16y ago
  The USSR had a decisive role not only in defeating Germany and Japan, but also in shaping the very outburst of the war. E.g., Pearl Harbor was arguably a consequence of the battle of Khalkin-Gol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol#Aftermath http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol#Afterma... And Hitler would have never invaded Poland if it wasn't for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact#Initial_invasions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact...
  - pella 16y ago
    >And Hitler would have never invaded Poland if it wasn't for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact It is not true .. "In 1934, Hitler himself had spoken of an inescapable battle against both Pan-Slavism and Neo-Slavism, the victory in which would lead to "permanent mastery of the world", though he stated that they would "walk part of the road with the Russians, if that will help us."" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact#Background http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact...
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      What he said in 1934 and what actually happened though are two different things. You can't equate the one which happened to what would have happened if that had not been the case. History only happens once, alternative branches are ruthlessly pruned by the things that actually happen and we have no way of knowing what would have happened for any of the other branches. The fact that he said it in 1934 but waited until one week after the signing of the pact gives some doubt about whether or not he would have done it if the Russians hadn't signed.
      - varjag 16y ago
        He had good history of attacking places without Russian approval, so most likely he would have attacked Poland either way. The pact with USSR was tactically advantageous, but unlikely deciding.
        jacquesm 16y ago
        The German invasion of Poland is commonly seen as the start of World War II, which other places do you refer to?
        varjag 16y ago
        I used past tense relative to our times, sorry. Does it really matter though that France turn wasn't before Poland? Anyway, in 1938 Germany and Poland partitioned Czechoslovakia in the same way Poland would be handled year later. At this event Polish minister Beck said that Czechoslovakia is not a real country anyway, giving tacit approval to total German occupation. No one however would claim German incursion could be avoided if not Polish participation. It was nearly identical situation in 1939, only the scale was bigger and some shots finally fired.
        jacquesm 16y ago
        I don't think we're going to agree on that one. Poland was desperately trying to avoid being crushed by either Germany or Russia at that point and tried to save its own hide at the expense of Czechoslovakia. It's not as though Poland would have invaded Czechoslovakia itself, the way Germany and Russia made their pact. Not quite idential. Incidentally, I was in Prague 2 days ago, what a beautiful city it is.
- anateus 16y ago
  Although someone who's geopolitically dogmatic might say it's the same thing, it was the Russian Empire rather than the then non-existent USSR that was the US's ally in WWI.
  - balding_n_tired 16y ago
    given that he left France out, one assumes this is a case of a missing I.
pella 16y ago
Soviet invasion of Manchuria (1945) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria_(1945) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria_(1... ---- Soviet–Japanese War Importance and consequences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War_(1945)#Importance_and_consequences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War_(19...
dimka 16y ago
I think that historical importance of Soviet roll in that was was purposely minimized to morally excuse nuclear bombing of civilian targets and to lessen the sentiments towards the people of soviet union who played the key roll in fighting Germany. This is very important to keep the general population afraid of commies.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Even today people reject well researched stuff like this out of hand within minutes of being confronted with it. WWII was a complicated affair, no part of it (beginning, middle, ending) will benefit from a simplistic view. For each of the parties there is a different viewpoint, and some of those viewpoints have been repeated so often and so loud that for many people to consider that there might have been an alternative is hard if not impossible to accept.
- duffbeer703 16y ago
  I always found the bleating moral outrage over the nuclear attack more than a little grating and ignorant. As horrific as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, the fates of Tokyo and other cities were little better. The B-29s dropped white phosphorous, napalm, avgas, etc in specific patterns intended to create a firestorm -- a phenomenon pioneered by the British in places like Hamburg and Dresden. The flames were so intense that subsequent waves of bombers were lifted in flight, and the glow could be seen for hundreds of miles. Over 100k are estimated to have died. A million+ were homeless. This isn't something that was covered up/deempathized, nor was the atomic bombing. Obliteration of the enemy from the air was heralded during and after the war.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    It was far more effective against Japan, especially because they used wood and paper as building materials. The crews of the bombers at the tail end of those bombing runs could even smell the stench of burning human flesh. Far from covering it up, this kind of thing was a massive boost to the career of Curtis LeMay, the man later charged with commanding the Air Force's nuclear arsenal as commander of SAC.
philwelch 16y ago
Sun Tzu advocated never completely encircling one's enemy, but rather leaving them a clear cut opportunity to retreat, so that instead of fighting for their lives the enemy will instead fold under pressure and choose to retreat. In a sense, this was a vital part of the strategy of the Western allies. The US and UK were little different from Japan or Germany or Russia in their pursuit of total war (okay, Russia was arguably more brutal even there), but in its treatment of defeated enemies, either as prisoners of war or as occupied territory, the Western allies were consistently magnanimous and benevolent compared to the Soviets or the Axis. That's a great way to get high-value individuals (the German rocket scientists like Von Braun) or even entire countries to prefer to surrender to you. Of course, as the article illustrates, it helps when you have brutal allies like the Soviets prone to rape and plunder everything they conquer for magnanimous treatment of one's enemies to really encourage surrender. As the Mongols discovered, it also helps to be absolutely ruthless with enemies who resist while benevolent towards enemies who surrender quickly.
- zeteo 16y ago
  I don't think that was a conscious decision of the Western Allies, but rather a consequence of the freedom of the press. Gruesome stuff was quickly exposed to public reaction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanese_war_dead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanese...
  - philwelch 16y ago
    Using aircraft carriers to win naval battles wasn't a conscious decision either (the US was just completely out of battleships), but it sure worked out nicely. Still, the press in WWII was not interested in making the government look bad. They were active participants in keeping many secrets throughout the war, including the fact that FDR was crippled from polio. "Total war", which is unknown to this country since WWII, means the entire civilization participates in the war effort, and while the press had the legal freedom to criticize the government and reveal their secrets, it would have been unconscionable at the time for them to do anything that could impede the war effort. Even more importantly, it's hard to imagine the US matching the degree of Japanese, German and Soviet atrocities against POW's and occupied territories during the war. Souvenir taking against policy is one thing--deliberate plundering, torture, murder, and rape as policy is quite another.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
I don't buy it. I'm sure it played a role in Japan's eventual surrender, but I don't think it was as pivotal as it's being made out to be. The Japanese knew full well the limitations of the Soviet's naval and air capabilities, and they knew that the Soviet's had zero chance of mounting an invasion of their home islands was extremely limited. Whereas they knew first hand the threat the US/UK forces posed through the experience of loss of many territories (including Japanese home territory), air raids, and naval blockades. Faced with the option of losing all their territorial advances in China and Korea and then having to cope with ineffectual air and naval attacks from the Soviets, I think Japan would have been ok with playing that game out as long as possible. In contrast, the Japanese knew they were almost certainly doomed if the US/UK had the conviction to press home their invasion of the home islands. They thought they could play for time by upping the ante through conscripting the entire population and fighting to the death in the ultimate scorched Earth policy. They thought they could raise the stakes enough to make a negotiated surrender an option, or stretch out the war long enough for some magical degree of luck to fall their way (e.g. Truman, a freshly minted president, making different choices than FDR, or a kamikaze run becoming super lucky and taking out an admiral or two and several key aircraft carriers, that sort of thing). The use of the atomic bombs made it clear that the US was not only willing to slaughter the Japanese as much as was necessary to get an unconditional surrender, but they could do so far more easily and rapidly than they had been doing prior (which was such that it would have brought about the annihilation by bombing of all major cities in Japan and the starvation of the entire population of Japan within the next year or two by mid 1945). Given that, they knew the game was up and let go of their last bit of denial that they could get lucky and eke out anything other than wholesale surrender. The Soviets may have killed several tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers in Manchuria, but I doubt this weighed more heavily on the Japanese than the routine losses of soldiers and civilians they were taking from the US/UK forces (which amounted to tens of thousands per day, on average) on their doorstep and on their home islands.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  I think the article makes a different case, not the Soviet military was what they feared, but this: ""The Soviet entry into the war played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender because it dashed any hope that Japan could terminate the war through Moscow's mediation," said Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, whose recently published "Racing the Enemy" examines the conclusion of the Pacific war and is based on recently declassified Soviet archives as well as U.S. and Japanese documents.. "The emperor and the peace party (within the government) hastened to end the war expecting that the Americans would deal with Japan more generously than the Soviets," Hasegawa, a Russian-speaking American scholar, said in an interview."" So even if the actual effect of the Russian attacks may have been small the fact that a country that seemed neutral to Japan suddenly joined the allies and attacked made a material difference in Japan's perception of the situation, in turn leading to a quicker end of the war than would have been the case otherwise.
SkyMarshal 16y ago
>Despite the death toll from the atomic bombings — 140,000 in Hiroshima, 80,000 in Nagasaki the Imperial Military Command believed it could hold out against an Allied invasion if it retained control of Manchuria and Korea, which provided Japan with the resources for war, according to Hasegawa and Terry Charman, a historian of World War II at London's Imperial War Museum. My understanding is it was not the US's intent to invade mainland Japan. After taking strings of Pacific Islands from the Japanese, ending with the Iwo Jima bloodbath, I thought it was decided to drop nukes on Japan till they surrendered, instead of invading them (one, to spare American lives, and two to scare the Soviets). I'm sure that the Soviet army pushing the Japanese out of resource-rich Manchuria would have played a key role in Japan's eventual surrender had the atomic bomb never been invented, but saying that "The Soviet entry into the war played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender" is a bit of a stretch. The Soviets may have cut off Manchuria, but Japan still had resources from Korea. And the Soviet Army was separated from the Japanese mainland by sea as well, where they would have been particularly vulnerable had they tried to cross and invade. Compared to the US razing entire mainland Japanese cities with a single bomb, at will... Sorry, don't buy it.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  Keep in mind, the availability of nuclear weapons was unknown until they came into use. Also, it was unknown how effective they would prove in practice. The plan of record was to invade the Japanese home islands, using carpet bombing and chemical weapons to gain as much advantage as possible. Also, the production of atomic bombs was constrained to around 3 or so bombs per month by late 1945. Which is significant but would have been only comparable (rather than greatly superior) to the destructive power of the conventional strategic bombing campaign. Even without atomic bombs Japan would have been utterly devastated by the end of 1945 had the war continued (every city destroyed, most of its shipping destroyed, most civilians starving and/or homeless).
- jcnnghm 16y ago
  The US did intend to invade the mainland with Operation Downfall. In fact, they ordered so many Purple Hearts in preparation for the attack, that in 2003, there were still 120,000 left from the order. All military casualties since WWII have been awarded these surplus Purple Hearts. There was also talk at the top that has since been declassified about the usage of nuclear weapons tactically. As I recall the plan was to stockpile bombs if the Hiroshima/Nagasaki plan didn't work so that they could be dropped tactically to make way for the ground invasion. Keep in mind that if the casualty rate was only 5% of what it had been taking Okinawa, almost 300,000 US troops would have been killed. In short, there is no doubt that the United States was going to invade mainland Japan. The Japanese were planning to repel the invasion. If the Japanese didn't surrender, millions of Japanese would have been killed in the invasion.
jleyank 16y ago
If the US Navy had carried through on mining Japan's home waters, it would have been irrelevant who occupied Manchuria or Korea. Nothing would have reached Japan. If carried out, naval blockade would have slaughtered gobs and gobs of folks through 45-46. As I recall, there was only one un-incinerated city left (Kyoto) after the two atomic strikes, so "bouncing the rubble" would have been inefficient. Slaughtering concentrations of defenders, however, would have been gruesome and it WAS being planned for.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  Even aside from that very little was reaching Japan, the allies were sinking incredible tonnage of shipping. Japan would have been starving by the end of 1945. By the end of the war the allies were sinking an average of 100+ merchant vessels a month, that rate takes a heavy toll on the ability to transport even the basics needed to keep the population of the home islands alive, let alone to run the machinery of war.
count 16y ago
This isn't new - it's part of the premise of 'The Rising Sun', a book about WW2 from the Japanese perspective. It was written in 1970 by John Toland. Awesome book, if you're into history.
duffbeer703 16y ago
I love how "historians" now troll the media with revisionist re-writings of history with glaring and obvious gaps. The US submarine fleet had so decimated the Japanese merchant marine by 1945 that they essentially ran out of targets. That wasn't news, and the ability for Japan's colonies to supply the home islands had been in decline for over a year. I'm sure that even a group as disconnected from reality as the Imperial Military Command had figured this out, and gutted the army in Manchuria long before the Soviet land-grab. The Japanese faced veteran Soviet armored armies with no tanks and a few dozen effective aircraft. IMO the pressure placed on Imperial Japan by the firebombing and nuking of Japan's cities, the impending total destruction of the overseas possessions and destruction of the Navy was enough to flip some key individuals in the General Staff or the Emperor to stop the insanity. The Japanese surrender IMO is all about internal politics and is something we are unlikely to ever understand fully.
ww520 16y ago
The Soviet general beating the Japanese army in Khalkin Gol in 1939 was Zhukov, who later went on to beat the German advance in the Eastern front, and led the counter offenses to turn the tide. Zhukov was probably one of the greatest generals in Soviet.
- DCoder 16y ago
  No, he was a guy who - carried out his orders blindly and without thinking ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Rzhev http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Rzhev where he blindly sent several hundred thousand troops into fortified German position - if you send your forces up the same road for two months straight without gaining any advances, wouldn't you at least try to find an alternate route that the enemy doesn't expect you to use? ) , - was very hungry for fame and glory (I can't find references now, but it was his initial reports to higher command during the first few days after 1941-06-22 that led Stalin to believe the German invasion was already mostly contained and delayed Russian defense deployments. In addition, Stalin demoted Zhukov later, citing "attributes others' achievements to himself" as a significant reason.), and - was generally vain, sadistic and incompetent. Several high ranking officials and civilians reported his attitude towards his subordinates as nothing less than disgusting. - He was also in charge of Totsk nuclear testing ( http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.html http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.... ), where he had over 40k soldiers split into two teams and engage each other moments after a nuke had been detonated above the battlefield. Also, he had nothing to do with the German defeat at Stalingrad - he was still too busy headbutting Rzhev: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Velikiye_Luki_(1943) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Velikiye_Luki_(1943) For more details, I suggest looking up Viktor Suvorov's "Shadow of Victory". And other Suvorov's books for a different view of WWII in general.
  - Ardit20 16y ago
    What does being "hungry for fame and glory", "vain, sadistic and incompetent. Several high ranking officials and civilians reported his attitude towards his subordinates as nothing less than disgusting." or "in charge of Totsk nuclear testing" has anything to do with being a great guy because he beated the Nazis. God knows what would happened if they had managed to occupy Russia! Besides, war is all about fame and glory.
DifE-Q 16y ago
"arguing that fear of Soviet invasion persuaded the Japanese to opt for surrender to the Americans, who they believed would treat them more generously than the Soviets." Well you can't argue with this statement. The soviets would have treated them far worse. However, according to the Japanese - it was the bomb that drove them to surrender. Additionally, though the Soviets were right next door, the U.S. had Japan essentially blockaded and completely surrounded. We would never had allowed the Soviets to close in and conquer Japan; nor did the Soviets have the ability to mount an invasion of mainland Japan. This blockade of Japan, and the fact that their forces in Asia were essentially cut-off, led to the weakening and thus capitulation of those Japanese forces when it came time for the Soviets to attack. The Soviets essentially attacked a weaken and already beaten Japanese army in Asia - a small feat, not a great decisive one.
clutchski 16y ago
In "People's History of the US", Howard Zinn adds another angle to this story. He suggests that the Americans, knowing an overwhelming Soviet invasion was imminent, used nuclear weapons to force the Japanese surrender to immediately. Then the US would be the only power negotiating the terms of surrender and could guarantee they'd be favourable to American economic interests. Fascinating read, it's highly suggested.

69 points by MikeCapone 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

sdm 16y ago

People always like to forget that the USSR was one of our key allies in WWI. In Europe, they faced over 80% of the German forces -- leaving the other allies (UK, Colonies, and finally the US) to deal with the remainder. Likewise, their vital role against Japan is generally not mentioned outside of stuffy university military history courses. Good to see it getting some mainstream love.

zeteo 16y ago
The USSR had a decisive role not only in defeating Germany and Japan, but also in shaping the very outburst of the war. E.g., Pearl Harbor was arguably a consequence of the battle of Khalkin-Gol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol#Aftermath http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol#Afterma... And Hitler would have never invaded Poland if it wasn't for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact#Initial_invasions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact...
- pella 16y ago
  >And Hitler would have never invaded Poland if it wasn't for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact It is not true .. "In 1934, Hitler himself had spoken of an inescapable battle against both Pan-Slavism and Neo-Slavism, the victory in which would lead to "permanent mastery of the world", though he stated that they would "walk part of the road with the Russians, if that will help us."" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact#Background http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact...
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    What he said in 1934 and what actually happened though are two different things. You can't equate the one which happened to what would have happened if that had not been the case. History only happens once, alternative branches are ruthlessly pruned by the things that actually happen and we have no way of knowing what would have happened for any of the other branches. The fact that he said it in 1934 but waited until one week after the signing of the pact gives some doubt about whether or not he would have done it if the Russians hadn't signed.
    - varjag 16y ago
      He had good history of attacking places without Russian approval, so most likely he would have attacked Poland either way. The pact with USSR was tactically advantageous, but unlikely deciding.
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        The German invasion of Poland is commonly seen as the start of World War II, which other places do you refer to?
        varjag 16y ago
        I used past tense relative to our times, sorry. Does it really matter though that France turn wasn't before Poland? Anyway, in 1938 Germany and Poland partitioned Czechoslovakia in the same way Poland would be handled year later. At this event Polish minister Beck said that Czechoslovakia is not a real country anyway, giving tacit approval to total German occupation. No one however would claim German incursion could be avoided if not Polish participation. It was nearly identical situation in 1939, only the scale was bigger and some shots finally fired.
        jacquesm 16y ago
        I don't think we're going to agree on that one. Poland was desperately trying to avoid being crushed by either Germany or Russia at that point and tried to save its own hide at the expense of Czechoslovakia. It's not as though Poland would have invaded Czechoslovakia itself, the way Germany and Russia made their pact. Not quite idential. Incidentally, I was in Prague 2 days ago, what a beautiful city it is.
anateus 16y ago
Although someone who's geopolitically dogmatic might say it's the same thing, it was the Russian Empire rather than the then non-existent USSR that was the US's ally in WWI.
- balding_n_tired 16y ago
  given that he left France out, one assumes this is a case of a missing I.

pella 16y ago

Soviet invasion of Manchuria (1945) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria_(1945) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria_(1... ---- Soviet–Japanese War Importance and consequences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War_(1945)#Importance_and_consequences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War_(19...

dimka 16y ago

I think that historical importance of Soviet roll in that was was purposely minimized to morally excuse nuclear bombing of civilian targets and to lessen the sentiments towards the people of soviet union who played the key roll in fighting Germany. This is very important to keep the general population afraid of commies.

jacquesm 16y ago
Even today people reject well researched stuff like this out of hand within minutes of being confronted with it. WWII was a complicated affair, no part of it (beginning, middle, ending) will benefit from a simplistic view. For each of the parties there is a different viewpoint, and some of those viewpoints have been repeated so often and so loud that for many people to consider that there might have been an alternative is hard if not impossible to accept.
duffbeer703 16y ago
I always found the bleating moral outrage over the nuclear attack more than a little grating and ignorant. As horrific as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, the fates of Tokyo and other cities were little better. The B-29s dropped white phosphorous, napalm, avgas, etc in specific patterns intended to create a firestorm -- a phenomenon pioneered by the British in places like Hamburg and Dresden. The flames were so intense that subsequent waves of bombers were lifted in flight, and the glow could be seen for hundreds of miles. Over 100k are estimated to have died. A million+ were homeless. This isn't something that was covered up/deempathized, nor was the atomic bombing. Obliteration of the enemy from the air was heralded during and after the war.
- philwelch 16y ago
  It was far more effective against Japan, especially because they used wood and paper as building materials. The crews of the bombers at the tail end of those bombing runs could even smell the stench of burning human flesh. Far from covering it up, this kind of thing was a massive boost to the career of Curtis LeMay, the man later charged with commanding the Air Force's nuclear arsenal as commander of SAC.

philwelch 16y ago

Sun Tzu advocated never completely encircling one's enemy, but rather leaving them a clear cut opportunity to retreat, so that instead of fighting for their lives the enemy will instead fold under pressure and choose to retreat. In a sense, this was a vital part of the strategy of the Western allies. The US and UK were little different from Japan or Germany or Russia in their pursuit of total war (okay, Russia was arguably more brutal even there), but in its treatment of defeated enemies, either as prisoners of war or as occupied territory, the Western allies were consistently magnanimous and benevolent compared to the Soviets or the Axis. That's a great way to get high-value individuals (the German rocket scientists like Von Braun) or even entire countries to prefer to surrender to you. Of course, as the article illustrates, it helps when you have brutal allies like the Soviets prone to rape and plunder everything they conquer for magnanimous treatment of one's enemies to really encourage surrender. As the Mongols discovered, it also helps to be absolutely ruthless with enemies who resist while benevolent towards enemies who surrender quickly.

zeteo 16y ago
I don't think that was a conscious decision of the Western Allies, but rather a consequence of the freedom of the press. Gruesome stuff was quickly exposed to public reaction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanese_war_dead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mutilation_of_Japanese...
- philwelch 16y ago
  Using aircraft carriers to win naval battles wasn't a conscious decision either (the US was just completely out of battleships), but it sure worked out nicely. Still, the press in WWII was not interested in making the government look bad. They were active participants in keeping many secrets throughout the war, including the fact that FDR was crippled from polio. "Total war", which is unknown to this country since WWII, means the entire civilization participates in the war effort, and while the press had the legal freedom to criticize the government and reveal their secrets, it would have been unconscionable at the time for them to do anything that could impede the war effort. Even more importantly, it's hard to imagine the US matching the degree of Japanese, German and Soviet atrocities against POW's and occupied territories during the war. Souvenir taking against policy is one thing--deliberate plundering, torture, murder, and rape as policy is quite another.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

I don't buy it. I'm sure it played a role in Japan's eventual surrender, but I don't think it was as pivotal as it's being made out to be. The Japanese knew full well the limitations of the Soviet's naval and air capabilities, and they knew that the Soviet's had zero chance of mounting an invasion of their home islands was extremely limited. Whereas they knew first hand the threat the US/UK forces posed through the experience of loss of many territories (including Japanese home territory), air raids, and naval blockades. Faced with the option of losing all their territorial advances in China and Korea and then having to cope with ineffectual air and naval attacks from the Soviets, I think Japan would have been ok with playing that game out as long as possible. In contrast, the Japanese knew they were almost certainly doomed if the US/UK had the conviction to press home their invasion of the home islands. They thought they could play for time by upping the ante through conscripting the entire population and fighting to the death in the ultimate scorched Earth policy. They thought they could raise the stakes enough to make a negotiated surrender an option, or stretch out the war long enough for some magical degree of luck to fall their way (e.g. Truman, a freshly minted president, making different choices than FDR, or a kamikaze run becoming super lucky and taking out an admiral or two and several key aircraft carriers, that sort of thing). The use of the atomic bombs made it clear that the US was not only willing to slaughter the Japanese as much as was necessary to get an unconditional surrender, but they could do so far more easily and rapidly than they had been doing prior (which was such that it would have brought about the annihilation by bombing of all major cities in Japan and the starvation of the entire population of Japan within the next year or two by mid 1945). Given that, they knew the game was up and let go of their last bit of denial that they could get lucky and eke out anything other than wholesale surrender. The Soviets may have killed several tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers in Manchuria, but I doubt this weighed more heavily on the Japanese than the routine losses of soldiers and civilians they were taking from the US/UK forces (which amounted to tens of thousands per day, on average) on their doorstep and on their home islands.

jacquesm 16y ago
I think the article makes a different case, not the Soviet military was what they feared, but this: ""The Soviet entry into the war played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender because it dashed any hope that Japan could terminate the war through Moscow's mediation," said Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, whose recently published "Racing the Enemy" examines the conclusion of the Pacific war and is based on recently declassified Soviet archives as well as U.S. and Japanese documents.. "The emperor and the peace party (within the government) hastened to end the war expecting that the Americans would deal with Japan more generously than the Soviets," Hasegawa, a Russian-speaking American scholar, said in an interview."" So even if the actual effect of the Russian attacks may have been small the fact that a country that seemed neutral to Japan suddenly joined the allies and attacked made a material difference in Japan's perception of the situation, in turn leading to a quicker end of the war than would have been the case otherwise.

SkyMarshal 16y ago

>Despite the death toll from the atomic bombings — 140,000 in Hiroshima, 80,000 in Nagasaki the Imperial Military Command believed it could hold out against an Allied invasion if it retained control of Manchuria and Korea, which provided Japan with the resources for war, according to Hasegawa and Terry Charman, a historian of World War II at London's Imperial War Museum. My understanding is it was not the US's intent to invade mainland Japan. After taking strings of Pacific Islands from the Japanese, ending with the Iwo Jima bloodbath, I thought it was decided to drop nukes on Japan till they surrendered, instead of invading them (one, to spare American lives, and two to scare the Soviets). I'm sure that the Soviet army pushing the Japanese out of resource-rich Manchuria would have played a key role in Japan's eventual surrender had the atomic bomb never been invented, but saying that "The Soviet entry into the war played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender" is a bit of a stretch. The Soviets may have cut off Manchuria, but Japan still had resources from Korea. And the Soviet Army was separated from the Japanese mainland by sea as well, where they would have been particularly vulnerable had they tried to cross and invade. Compared to the US razing entire mainland Japanese cities with a single bomb, at will... Sorry, don't buy it.

InclinedPlane 16y ago
Keep in mind, the availability of nuclear weapons was unknown until they came into use. Also, it was unknown how effective they would prove in practice. The plan of record was to invade the Japanese home islands, using carpet bombing and chemical weapons to gain as much advantage as possible. Also, the production of atomic bombs was constrained to around 3 or so bombs per month by late 1945. Which is significant but would have been only comparable (rather than greatly superior) to the destructive power of the conventional strategic bombing campaign. Even without atomic bombs Japan would have been utterly devastated by the end of 1945 had the war continued (every city destroyed, most of its shipping destroyed, most civilians starving and/or homeless).
jcnnghm 16y ago
The US did intend to invade the mainland with Operation Downfall. In fact, they ordered so many Purple Hearts in preparation for the attack, that in 2003, there were still 120,000 left from the order. All military casualties since WWII have been awarded these surplus Purple Hearts. There was also talk at the top that has since been declassified about the usage of nuclear weapons tactically. As I recall the plan was to stockpile bombs if the Hiroshima/Nagasaki plan didn't work so that they could be dropped tactically to make way for the ground invasion. Keep in mind that if the casualty rate was only 5% of what it had been taking Okinawa, almost 300,000 US troops would have been killed. In short, there is no doubt that the United States was going to invade mainland Japan. The Japanese were planning to repel the invasion. If the Japanese didn't surrender, millions of Japanese would have been killed in the invasion.

jleyank 16y ago

If the US Navy had carried through on mining Japan's home waters, it would have been irrelevant who occupied Manchuria or Korea. Nothing would have reached Japan. If carried out, naval blockade would have slaughtered gobs and gobs of folks through 45-46. As I recall, there was only one un-incinerated city left (Kyoto) after the two atomic strikes, so "bouncing the rubble" would have been inefficient. Slaughtering concentrations of defenders, however, would have been gruesome and it WAS being planned for.

InclinedPlane 16y ago
Even aside from that very little was reaching Japan, the allies were sinking incredible tonnage of shipping. Japan would have been starving by the end of 1945. By the end of the war the allies were sinking an average of 100+ merchant vessels a month, that rate takes a heavy toll on the ability to transport even the basics needed to keep the population of the home islands alive, let alone to run the machinery of war.

count 16y ago

This isn't new - it's part of the premise of 'The Rising Sun', a book about WW2 from the Japanese perspective. It was written in 1970 by John Toland. Awesome book, if you're into history.

duffbeer703 16y ago

I love how "historians" now troll the media with revisionist re-writings of history with glaring and obvious gaps. The US submarine fleet had so decimated the Japanese merchant marine by 1945 that they essentially ran out of targets. That wasn't news, and the ability for Japan's colonies to supply the home islands had been in decline for over a year. I'm sure that even a group as disconnected from reality as the Imperial Military Command had figured this out, and gutted the army in Manchuria long before the Soviet land-grab. The Japanese faced veteran Soviet armored armies with no tanks and a few dozen effective aircraft. IMO the pressure placed on Imperial Japan by the firebombing and nuking of Japan's cities, the impending total destruction of the overseas possessions and destruction of the Navy was enough to flip some key individuals in the General Staff or the Emperor to stop the insanity. The Japanese surrender IMO is all about internal politics and is something we are unlikely to ever understand fully.

ww520 16y ago

The Soviet general beating the Japanese army in Khalkin Gol in 1939 was Zhukov, who later went on to beat the German advance in the Eastern front, and led the counter offenses to turn the tide. Zhukov was probably one of the greatest generals in Soviet.

DCoder 16y ago
No, he was a guy who - carried out his orders blindly and without thinking ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Rzhev http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Rzhev where he blindly sent several hundred thousand troops into fortified German position - if you send your forces up the same road for two months straight without gaining any advances, wouldn't you at least try to find an alternate route that the enemy doesn't expect you to use? ) , - was very hungry for fame and glory (I can't find references now, but it was his initial reports to higher command during the first few days after 1941-06-22 that led Stalin to believe the German invasion was already mostly contained and delayed Russian defense deployments. In addition, Stalin demoted Zhukov later, citing "attributes others' achievements to himself" as a significant reason.), and - was generally vain, sadistic and incompetent. Several high ranking officials and civilians reported his attitude towards his subordinates as nothing less than disgusting. - He was also in charge of Totsk nuclear testing ( http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.html http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.... ), where he had over 40k soldiers split into two teams and engage each other moments after a nuke had been detonated above the battlefield. Also, he had nothing to do with the German defeat at Stalingrad - he was still too busy headbutting Rzhev: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Velikiye_Luki_(1943) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Velikiye_Luki_(1943) For more details, I suggest looking up Viktor Suvorov's "Shadow of Victory". And other Suvorov's books for a different view of WWII in general.
- Ardit20 16y ago
  What does being "hungry for fame and glory", "vain, sadistic and incompetent. Several high ranking officials and civilians reported his attitude towards his subordinates as nothing less than disgusting." or "in charge of Totsk nuclear testing" has anything to do with being a great guy because he beated the Nazis. God knows what would happened if they had managed to occupy Russia! Besides, war is all about fame and glory.

DifE-Q 16y ago

"arguing that fear of Soviet invasion persuaded the Japanese to opt for surrender to the Americans, who they believed would treat them more generously than the Soviets." Well you can't argue with this statement. The soviets would have treated them far worse. However, according to the Japanese - it was the bomb that drove them to surrender. Additionally, though the Soviets were right next door, the U.S. had Japan essentially blockaded and completely surrounded. We would never had allowed the Soviets to close in and conquer Japan; nor did the Soviets have the ability to mount an invasion of mainland Japan. This blockade of Japan, and the fact that their forces in Asia were essentially cut-off, led to the weakening and thus capitulation of those Japanese forces when it came time for the Soviets to attack. The Soviets essentially attacked a weaken and already beaten Japanese army in Asia - a small feat, not a great decisive one.

clutchski 16y ago

In "People's History of the US", Howard Zinn adds another angle to this story. He suggests that the Americans, knowing an overwhelming Soviet invasion was imminent, used nuclear weapons to force the Japanese surrender to immediately. Then the US would be the only power negotiating the terms of surrender and could guarantee they'd be favourable to American economic interests. Fascinating read, it's highly suggested.