[ealgeone]

The Russian invasion of and the colaspe of the Japanese army Manchuria had a very large effect on moving Japan towards surender. However, it was our nuking of Japan that triggered the Russian invasion as they to grab wanted some of the Japanese held land before Japan surrendered in the face endless nuke attacks.

I thought at Tehran and Yalta Russia's assistance in fighting Japan had been secured?

No doubt a combination of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in addition to the conventional bombing raids, combined with Russia's declaration played a very significant role in Japan's decision to surrender.

[RedWulf]

>I thought at Tehran and Yalta Russia’s assistance in fighting Japan had been secured?

As was typical with Stalin he was waiting until someone else did all the heavy lifting just as he did in Poland when he was allied with Hitler. In this case he was waiting for the invasion of Japan so Japan would remove troops from the mainland when the nukes forced his hand.

>No doubt a combination of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in addition to the conventional bombing raids, combined with Russia’s declaration played a very significant role in Japan’s decision to surrender.

Conventional bombing increased Japanese resistance. The reason nukes are effective is the shock effect where as bombing raids don’t carry nearly that level of shock.