In the event that the regime in Tokyo did surrender, would Japan’s vast overseas armies—in Manchuria, Korea, China, and elsewhere—also lay down arms? Or would they fight to the last man, as they had done in every battle of the war? Many Allied military commanders stated flatly that no Japanese ground force would ever willingly surrender, even if the government in Tokyo gave up—and predicted that they would have to be eradicated root and branch in whatever territory they occupied. If that was the case, the Americans badly wanted the Soviets to invade Manchuria and destroy Japan’s million-man
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