What if the Soviets Were What Caused Imperial Japan to Surrender to the Allies?
The atomic bombs certainly helped make a difference, but Tokyo was also losing badly to the suddenly losing badly to the suddent Soviet onslaught in occupied China.
Key point: The Soviet Red Army was powerful and Moscow was preparing, with help from Washington, to invade Imperial Japan. Did Tokyo decide it would rather surrender to America than face an invasion by both the United States and the Soviet Union?
To the Soviet military, it is known as the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation. Although it had no official name to the Japanese, it has become known in the West as Operation August Storm. It was the greatest defeat in Japanese military history, yet few outside the circles of Japanese and Soviet history are even aware that it occurred. It ensured the end of World War II as much as the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did, yet it is often ignored in Western studies of th
Study this picture: Atomic weapons were scary, but so was the full-on might of the Red Army.
Key point: Historians will debate exactly what caused Tokyo to surrender. However, some of the credit must go to the surprise Soviet invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria.
To the Soviet military, it is known as the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation. Although it had no official name to the Japanese, it has become known in the West as Operation August Storm. It was the greatest defeat in Japanese military history, yet few outside the circles of Japanese and Soviet history are even aware that it occurred. It ensured the end of World War II as much as the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did, yet it is often ignored in Western studies of the war.