As a B-29 lifted heavily off Tinian island early one 1945 August morning with an atomic bomb destined for Japan, a great tragedy of WWII was underway. Ultimately, it would cost the lives of at least 270 thousand Japanese, inflict years of suffering on a half million more, and strip a million-plus of nearly everything but the clothes on their backs. Sadly, more than two-thirds of the dead, and nearly all the others, were clearly noncombatants.

Some hours later, in a separate, smaller tragedy, the B-29 would drop its bomb not on its primary target—Japan's huge Kokura arsenal, obscured that day by clouds—but on Nagasaki, adding 40 to 80 thousand lives to the toll of Hiroshima three days before, raising total noncombatant atomic bombing deaths to somewhere between 120 and 220 thousands.

You might be thinking at this point: Did I read that right? What tragedy could Japan have sustained that day that killed more non-combatants than both atomic bombings?

It was neither atomic attack nor natural disaster, but rather the Soviet invasion of Japan's Manchurian puppet state in the wee hours that 9th of August. ^{There is an excellent Wikipedia article on the Soviet Manchurian offensive here} Though his generals had warned they couldn't be fully prepared for attack til the 11th, on hearing of Hiroshima Stalin demanded they move as soon as possible. Since they couldn't be ready by the 8th, he settled for the 9th, and they crossed Manchuria's borders a few minutes past midnight (in the Manchuria and Tokyo time zone), about the time the B-29 was preparing for takeoff.

Fortunately for Japan's colonists in Manchuria (and the Red Army's soldiers), already on August 8th Hiroshima's destruction had led Hirohito to direct the war must end with no more angling for soft terms, and Premier Suzuki had told Chief Cabinet Secretary Sakomizu to schedule the August 9th meetings that led finally to surrender on the 15th.

So although the Soviets attacked with one and a half million men, prepared for half a million casualties (implying more than a hundred thousand dead), and on Japan's side the plan was for its 713 thousand to beat a fighting retreat to a mountain redoubt and resist to the last man, orders from Tokyo on the 16th to capitulate prevented that looming apocalypse. In the end, Russian dead numbered less than 13 thousand, and 594 thousand Japanese troops remained, not only alive, but fit enough to be packed off as slaves for years of hard labor in Siberia.

Even so, 30 to 40 thousand Japanese military ^{The Red Army claimed 80 thousand Japanese soldiers killed. The discrepancy may reflect Japanese loss of records, or double-counting of drafted colonists.} and 180 thousand civilian colonists died in the fighting or its aftermath, and 60 thousand of the enslaved perished in Siberia. Though a million-plus colonists survived, they were allowed to return to Japan only after having endured a year of abuse, and confiscation of all their wealth.

Yet hardly any writings about the end of the war report what happened in Manchuria, except that the Soviets attacked and the Japanese there gave up in only a little over a week. Many go on to claim it was the Soviet attack and not the atomic bombs that led Tokyo to surrender. And most so claiming also claim President Truman knew it likely to have that result, making his not waiting for that criminal. Quite a few authors even insinuate that Truman used the bombs solely to intimidate the Russians, an even greater crime, and accuse him of deliberately prolonging the war until the bombs could be used.

But on what basis? Should Truman have believed Japan would throw up its hands as soon as the Red Army crossed the Manchurian border? Did they? No, even with two atomic bombings in the mix, Japan's hardliners argued for fighting on. And combat in Manchuria continued for a full week.

And do those writers condemning Truman for using the atomic bombs without waiting to see whether the Soviet attack might bring surrender ever symmetrically condemn Stalin for not waiting to see whether Hiroshima might bring it? No, though Stalin not only did not wait but hastened an action that killed more Japanese than the bombs, and were expected to cost his own nation perhaps a half million casualties and hundred thousand deaths.

We find a similar asymmetry regarding why the Potsdam Declaration did not bring Japanese surrender before the Hiroshima bombing. Those writers who gloss over the Manchurian toll blame Truman and Byrnes, alleging that they altered wording intentionally to ensure its rejection. ^{Revisionists also typically claim that since Japan's defeat was clearly certain from the early months of 1945, an earlier declaration clarifying surrender terms, including "assurances for the Emperor", could have brought surrender at that time on essentially the same terms finally accepted. Hirohito's closest political advisor Marquis Kido, however, opined in this post-war interview, that this might have had the opposite effect, by seeming to display flagging American resolve.} But the real responsibility lay with Stalin, who had slyly kept the Japanese awaiting his reply to their pleas that he receive a "special Imperial envoy" who would barter inducements for him to mediate on their behalf in peace negotiations. As shown by the alacrity with which he ordered attack after Hiroshima, nothing alarmed Stalin more than the prospect of Japanese surrender depriving him of a fig leaf for his harvest of the Far East spoils ceded at Yalta. As Foreign Minister Tōgō's post-war interviews show, it was because they could still hope that Stalin might agree to mediate that Japan's leaders chose to take a "no comment" stance in response to the Potsdam Declaration; had it not been for the duplicitous Soviet responses to the Japanese "peace feelers", a great many lives might have been saved.

Another strange aspect of the historiography of August '45 is what I see as general weaknesses in geopolitical analysis, especially failure to fully explore what the "Lessons of History" were for both U.S. and Japanese leaders in the war-end strategic context.

Lessons of History

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