Good article on http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100815/ap_on_re_us/wwii_forgotten_battle . It is amazing to see it appear in an American newspaper, serving one of the most brainwashed populaces in the world. I must admit, it's true and unbelievably, miraculously printed in my local paper today. Wow! A praise of Soviet Union's Red Army. I'm shocked.
However, the point should have been not as much about fear of the Japanese but of the substance of the soviet contribution to the victory in Asia. I know from some recent memoirs of the soviet soldiers in China that there was strong desire of the Japanese to surrender to the soviets and therefore avoid the pitchforks of the Chinese peasants. It's a fact: Japanese occupation in China, Korea and elsewhere in the pacific Asia is still a very raw memory.
Soviet Army advanced (in some instances) 2000 km in two weeks through dry desert with no water, climbed steep Hinging Mountains, fought through rice fields, drove through towns and cities and went up the rivers in Manchuria. The largest field army of the Japanese Empire was destroyed, almost a million men and their tanks, artillery, planes.
That advance convinced Japan to surrender. Americans had plans to fight all through 1946. Soviet Union weighed in and the war was over. Atomic bomb had much lesser influence. American tried to bomb Germany and Japan into submission for years and could not do so. Why nuclear attack was to be perceived different by the government of Japan? Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan - they were bombed the hell out but until ground troops rolled in - there was no victory. Soviet Union rolled in its ground forces (fulfilling its ally obligation) - and Japan caved.
Memory eternal to all whose graves are all over China and Korea. They made it happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment