A Soviet Push Helped Force Japan to Surrender [View All]

[CHIMO]

A Soviet Push Helped Force Japan to Surrender

By Slobodan Lekic
The Associated Press

LONDON -- On Aug. 8, 1945 -- a week before Japan's surrender in World War II -- 1.5 million Soviet troops began a gigantic surprise attack against Japanese occupation forces in northern China and Korea, an area the size of Western Europe.

Within days, Tokyo's million-man army in the region had collapsed in one of the greatest military defeats in history.

"It was a massive campaign and a crushing blow for Japan, which was already in a bad way after fighting for almost four years in the Pacific War," said Nigel Steel, a World War II historian at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Historians say the now largely forgotten Red Army victory -- codenamed August Storm -- not only hastened the end of World War II but also set the stage for the Korean War and for the victory in 1949 of the Chinese communists in the civil war against the Nationalists.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/08/08/016.html

Another part of history.