What did the Soviet Union do after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima?
1 Answer
The Soviet Union was committed to joining the war against Japan once Hitler was vanquished, the Hiroshima bombing had nothing to do with their assault on Japanese territory in August 1945.
Explanation:
It is not remembered that the forces of the USSR and Japan had clashed in two major battles in 1938 and 1939 (Changufeng Hill and Khalkhyn Gol). Both expected war to resume at some time, but both had other priorities from 1941 onwards.
In the wartime meetings between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, the USSR was committed to joining in the war against Japan, but only once Nazi Germany was defeated. That promise came up in the Potsdam Summit in July 1945 and Japan was told to surrender unconditionally or else face war with the USSR. They didn't.
Starting immediately after Germany's surrender, the Soviets made a massive transfer of troops and equipment to their Far Eastern and Transbaikal Military Districts, activating three Fronts (Armies in US/UK useage) on August 2nd They launched their offensive on August 9th.
The Japanese had thinned out their defences in Manchuria in expectation of an Allied landing in Japan, but they still had a million men there and expected the frontier defences to hold for a while. The million and a half Soviet troops who crashed into them were hardened and experienced by their years of fighting against Germany, and went through those defences like knives through soft butter, then advanced onwards at a speed not matched until the US Army invaded Iraq in 1991.
The crushing of their troops on the Soviet frontier was as alarming to the Japanese cabinet as the Nagasaki bombing and the appearance of a massive Anglo-American naval fleet (the largest ever seen) off the coast of Honshu. The news of all three reached Tokyo on August 9th but it still took that cabinet four more days of quibbling before their decision to surrender was announced.
