Japan from the cities began: ultimately, over 10 million fled into a forlorn countryside denuded of young men and already straining to feed the population of the home islands Within six months, one quarter of a million Japanese were dead from bombing; another 300,000 were wounded and millions were homeless War production went into steep decline as factories were burned out and raw materials were blocked from reaching the home islands by sea Japan responded with air and naval kamikaze attacks against the invasion fleet, most powerfully at Okinawa in mid-1945 Imperial General Headquarters feared that Okinawa would be used by the Allies as a base to bomb Japan and to threaten the Empire in northern China and Manchuria That revealed a basic unreality about the progress and looming end of the war that defied rational assessment of what Japan might expect from any future peace The military instead prepared for a final, cataclysmic bloodbath to greet any invasion of the home islands, to salvage national “honor”—which was no longer possible after the manner in which Japan had fought the war—and perhaps to influence surrender negotiations “People’s Volunteer Combat Corps” (“Kokomin giyo ˉ Sento ˉtai”) were established in June, many armed solely with bamboo sticks They were told that the Japanese must prepare for “the glorious death of one hundred million” to stop the enemy on the shores of the home islands American planners set November as the date for invasion of Kyushu Meanwhile, bombing continued until every major Japanese city and significant town was smoldering, millions were without shelter, the economy effectively shut down, and nearly every thought was about fire, starvation, and death The bombing torment of Japan might have begun much earlier than it did: the Soviet Union refused permission to the United States to fly bombers to Manchuria or Japan from bases in Siberia The benefit on the other side of the ledger was that Japan did not interfere with deliveries of Lend-Lease to Vladivostok, destined for transshipment to help kill Germans on the Eastern Front But by May 1945, the German war was over and the full fury of all the Allies, including the Soviet Union, was set to burn out and crush the last resistance by Japan On August 5, 1945, Moscow told Tokyo that it would not renew the joint neutrality pact signed in 1941 Some Japanese leaders were already considering capitulation when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on August and 9, 1945, respectively, and promised to bring down upon Japan a further “rain of death never equaled in history” if Tokyo did not surrender In the interim, the Red Army struck at Japanese forces in Manchuria on August 8, easily overwhelming them in two weeks of fighting during the Manchurian offensive operation of August 1945 The Soviet assault was on a massive scale, smashing outmoded Japanese armies in Manchuria and northern China The atomic bombs and the Soviet attack together persuaded Japan’s political leaders to surrender Because the enemy possessed such awesome weapons, the Western powers would not need to invade the home islands; and there was no withstanding the power of the reformed Red Army The great enemy Japan long feared at last joined the war in Asia The Soviet offensive into Manchuria provided additional psychological shock, piled atop the atomic bombings, and broke the back of the Japanese on 605