Massively underrates the contribution of Britain and the Commonwealth standing alone for two years, the United States’ production (which included the Lend-Lease keeping the Soviet Union alive) and Japan, which didn’t get involved in the war against the Soviet Union and therefore wouldn’t feel important at all to the poster, but fought a massive war in the Pacific by itself. Depicting Germany as several times larger than the United States is absurd. Thinking the Soviets won the war almost single-handedly is just another flavor of the same nationalism.
I mean didn't china get fucked by the japenese? Resistance? The u.s had to bring in guns and stuff for the chinese and even I think put into power the modern regime in mao.
Please expand upon this if you have other information generally curious.
The Chinese did get fucked by the Japanese, but they also fucked back.
First of all, keep in mind that China was engaged in a Civil War since 1927, and basically retreated from Manchuria when the Japanese invaded in 1931 - I'll get back to this - and then fought back when Japan expanded it's invasion in 1937. I've had Americans "correct" me when I have said WW2 went from 1939 to 1945 because they thought it started in 1941. The reality is that China fought it for 8 to 14 years depending on which invasion you define as their starting point.
As for resistance, in 1931 to the end of the war, there were numerous anti-Japanese volunteer armies. These numbered up to about 300,000, which is pretty impressive when you consider that they weren't state-sanctioned militaries. You also had military commanders in 1931 refusing to follow orders surrendering Manchuria and fighting back against the Japanese.
In 1937, when Japan launched a full scale invasion, China stopped it's fucken' civil war in order to unite against the invaders. They fought more often on the retreat, as they were technologically outclassed and outgunned, but they employed scorched Earth tactics to overextend the Japanese army - destroying bridges and supplies behind them. They also engaged in guerilla raids against the Japanese supply lines. They even destroyed a dam on the Yellow River to halt the Japanese for three months and give themselves time to prepare defences.
Finally, the Chinese worked with the British building vital roads to establish supply lines through the jungles in Burma. Even when they weren't themselves fighting, they worked as a logistical force to help turn the tide against the Japanese.
All in all, the Chinese inflicted 1.5~2 million casualties against the Japanese and a similar amount against their proxies. They also bogged down some 1~3 million soldiers in China so they couldn't be redeployed to the Burma or Pacific campaigns.
The war in China made practically zero difference with regards to Pacific deployments.
If Japan had made peace with China instantly at the start of 1942, it wouldn’t matter because they didn’t have the merchant fleet to ship all those extra soldiers to Burma or New Guinea or the Solomons, never mind resupply them all once they were there. The IJA was already chronically malnourished and undersupplied as is.
The IJA had about 400~500 cargo ships and liners converted to troop transports. Yeah, they didn't have much of a merchant navy, but that was mainly because the IJA and IJN weren't on speaking terms (at times quite literally, the Imperial Japanese military was run by highly competent idiots), so the IJA just acquired it's own merchant navy in house.
As for the IJA being incredibly malnourished and under-supplied, they were doing the Russian thing of expecting their soldiers to fight like heroes and what do you mean they need food and ammo? Logistics was an afterthought, and armies were expected to be able to "gather" food from the towns and villages they captured. That said, this was usually a failure of last mile logistics, many mid-level officers ensured that roads and logistic routes could be secured, and the worst stories of soldiers chewing grass tend to be from besieged troops once those logistic lines were cut.
Then the Soviets drove Japans army out of china. And were threatening to invade Japan itself. Some even say the US nuclear bombs were used because they didn't want the Soviets to beat them to it twice.
The majority of the Kwantung Army that the Soviets destroyed had already been sent south to the Philippines and Okinawa in 1944, and the Soviets had as much a chance of successfully invading Japan as Germany had of successfully undertaking Operation Sealion because the Soviet Pacific Fleet had near non-existent naval landing support capabilities nor anywhere near enough landing craft to successfully transport enough divisions onto Hokkaido.
Wow, linking to the event I just explained wasn’t actually that significant. r/iamverysmart
The ~700,000 IJA troops remaining in Manchuria were third-rate border guard units. The 1,000,000+ that were properly equipped frontline units had already been destroyed or bypassed in the Philippines and Ryukyus, and most of the first-rate divisions Japan still was able to field were in the Home Islands and positioned in the south against the Americans and British, not the Soviets they allegedly feared so much.
They were getting fucked hard, but they were squirming into uncomfortable poses and giving teeth all the way until the Japanese army was erased by the Soviets.
The Soviets joined the war in the Pacific three days after the first bomb dropped and didn't stop their offensive until after they had already surrendered, causing the Japanese 20-80 thousand casualties.
Quickly routing and capturing the biggest active concentration of Imperial armed forces without a hitch despite their best resistance and refusal to surrender when officially ordered to is more than enough.
The army in Manchuria was an occupation force and under supplied while facing a veteran army recently freed from the pressure of fighting the Germans.
Besides, even if this is the case, the contributions to the war effort in the Pacific by the Soviets were minimal when compared to the Chinese and the Americans.
For example, around 100 thousand Americans and over 9 million Chinese died in the war.
Soviet dead numbered around 10,000 by their count.
China never really stopped fighting. Japan might have gotten Manchuria and cities, but they were never capable to seize the entire territory and specifically the rural areas. Be it chinese communists or KMT, they never stopped fighting
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u/InsideAardvark1114 9d ago
Posted on this, the 87th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.