How the Soviets Blitzed Japan in WW2 | Animated History

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Imagine being in Berlin, ending the war and then hearing: Comrade, we are going in Japan.

Most people don’t even know the Soviets fought the Japanese. The whole topic of the relations between the two countries even before WW2 is fascinating.

Many of the Soviets that fought in Manchuria against the Japanese were battle hardened from the Eastern Front Conflict against Germany, the largest military conflict in human history. They celebrated at the Reichstag and then at the Kremlin Victory Parade, but immediately afterwards were sent to Manchuria.

My grandfather served in the Soviet army during the attack on Manchuria. He said that the Chinese were absolutely intimidated by the Japanese and were afraid of their own shadow.

Ah yes, the Soviet invasion of Manchuraria. Often neglected when talking about the end of WWII. Thanks for covering it. You guys once again did a great job!

On a different note, the reason Japanese tanks where utterly horrible compared to other allied or axis(specifically German)tanks is because they didn't really focus on them as much, as they focused more on naval and aircraft production, so what do you do as an infantry soldier with no good tanks or antique AT weapons? you become the AT weapon.

Thank you for covering this operation! My grandfather was a lieutenant in the artillery units of the Red Army on this front as he was transferred from Karelia when Finland singed peace treaty in 1944 and now had to fight German forces in Lapland. It's quite interesting that the forces built up was gradual and started from early 1945. My grandfather father haven't talked much about the war, but from what my parents told he and several of his men were severely sick and some died as they drank from a water well that the Japanese soldiers had poisoned - cases like this were very common. As my dad told me, grandad never took part in victory day parades and did not go to veteran meetings and always kept his campaign medals stashed away. Most of his combat history we found out in an official file which we request ed from the military of defense archives, only after his death.

Thank you for mentioning Mongolian war effort. Mongolian people’s army sent almost it’s all power to battle Japanese. Even the numbers were small those people fought well.

Vasylevsky is a quite underrated general of WW2. And this whole offensive in general is a very underrated in historical sense as it was a very large contributor of Japan's surrender, not just the two atomic bombs.

One of the most important events of WW2 that is really overlooked It led to the creation of the DPRK (and the division of Korea) and Mao's victory in the chinese civil war, leading to the creation of the PRC The moment the soviets stepped into Manchuria the future of east Asia for the next 70 years (at least) was settled

My uncle was stationed in Manchuria as a young lieutenant. Two weeks before the Soviets attacked, he was recalled to Tokyo as he spoke fairly decent English . The upper command had correctly predicted that his linguistic abilities may be needed there very soon. His fate would have been very different otherwise.

Russian agression... What a strange collocation to use in the context of WW2

It’s been so hard to find anything about this campaign that isn’t 4.5 hours long told in the most boring way. Thank you armchair historian!

The second sino Japanese war was arguably as chaotic and interesting as the eastern front. The sheer amount of things Chiang Kai shek had to deal with ( the communists, the Japanese invasions, the loss of their capitals, rampant corruption, a famine, and the many warlords/cliques) was insane. I hope you can do more videos on China as there is a lot of unpack when looking at it.

I always thought it was General Zhukov who lead the invasion of Manchuria. Anyway great video. I really enjoy how you cover battles that arent discussed much. Keep up the great work!

Just finished up my college research paper and used your video as one of my sources, this video actually helped me reach the topic I ended up choosing! Love your videos, super informational and brings the history to life

My grandpa was a soviet tankman during this war. He was part of group of soviet forces that attacked japanese through Great Khingan mountains.

One thing that was inaccurately depicted was, the lunge mine. The lunge mine could NOT penetrate soviet or american armor, it could only damage the vehicle, but even that was not enough to destroy vehicles, you had to use several lunge mines to destroy one vehicle.

the battle of khalkin gol was a decisive defeat for Japan and is largely considered (by russian historians) to be a reason Japan decided to turn its attention to expanding southwards against allies, seeing that there will be no easy victory against USSR on land