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August 10, 1945, the Japanese inform the allies that they intend unconditional surrender. The Emperor's public, formal statement was made August 15, and the surrender was signed September 2, but August 10 was the day Japan acknowledged it could not continue, and the day the western allies began to restrict their troop movements because of the anticipated surrender.

At the same time, the Soviet Union was sweeping through Japanese occupied Manchuria, and began attacking the Japanese Navy in and around Korea, setting the conditions for the Soviet invasion in Korea, which would result in establishing the 38th parallel as the boundary of Soviet vs. western controlled Korea. Not that anything important ever happened as a result of that.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 

"Malaysian Haze" Prompts State of Emergency Declaration (2005)
For a week in 2005, a choking, smog-like haze brought the central part of peninsular Malaysia to a standstill. Air quality was so poor that a state of emergency was declared in the district of Kuala Selangor and the country's major shipping center, Port Klang. Residents were instructed to stay home, and schools were closed. Only supermarkets and essential services remained open. Miraculously, Kuala Lumpur's main airport was unaffected.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY:

Russian Submarine K-141 Kursk Sinks in Barents Sea (2000)
While completing naval exercises with dummy torpedoes on August 12, 2000, the Russian submarine Kursk suffered two explosions two minutes and 15 seconds apart. The second explosion registered about a 3.5 on the Richter scale. The blasts destroyed the front hull, and all 118 crew members died. It was initially believed that the entire crew died quickly.

That's wild. Today an ROTC unit's professor of military science is normally a lieutenant colonel who has probably reached the end of his or her successful, but not really successful career. It is their "battalion" command, in lieu of commanding an actual battalion of soldiers. They will likely retire as lieutenant colonels, which is a respectable career, but probably not what they had in mind.

But it's also an opportunity to live on a college campus for a couple of years and enjoy a pretty chill assignment before taking that retirement pay.

August 10, 1945, the Japanese inform the allies that they intend unconditional surrender. The Emperor's public, formal statement was made August 15, and the surrender was signed September 2, but August 10 was the day Japan acknowledged it could not continue, and the day the western allies began to restrict their troop movements because of the anticipated surrender.

At the same time, the Soviet Union was sweeping through Japanese occupied Manchuria, and began attacking the Japanese Navy in and around Korea, setting the conditions for the Soviet invasion in Korea, which would result in establishing the 38th parallel as the boundary of Soviet vs. western controlled Korea. Not that anything important ever happened as a result of that.

The whole situation at the end of the Pacific war is fascinating to me.  Emperor Hirohito's official statement contains what I think is the greatest understatement of all time:  "The War situation has not necessarily turned in Japan's favor."  LoL, ya think?  

Then the 38th parallel was decided almost on a whim between the Soviets and the Americans based on realities on the ground.  The militant pro-American position would be that the US had been fighting the Japanese for four long years and thus earned the right to occupy all of the former Japanese Empire while the militant pro-USSR position would be that Korea is literally adjacent to the Soviet Union (Vladivostok is the prime Pacific port for the USSR and it is only a few kilometers from the North Korean border) and this is clearly an area of Soviet concern while Korea is thousands of miles from the US and should be of little or no concern to officials half a world away in Washington.  

Then there is the reality on the ground.  If it had come to a fight in 1945, it would have been nearly impossible for the US to take on the Soviet Army in North Korea due to the fact that Soviet logistics would have been relatively simple as a matter of using the existing Trans-Siberian RR and it's extension to what had formerly been known as Port Arthur to get troops, equipment, supplies, fuel, etc into the vicinity of Northern Korea.  That said, Korea is a peninsula and the Soviet Navy in 1945 was in no position to challenge the US Navy so as the conflict moved down the peninsula the logistics for the Soviets would have gotten more difficult (farther from their railheads) and the logistics for the Americans would have gotten easier (closer to ports that they could control).  Further, the peninsula is narrow enough that US carrier-based air assets could have patrolled it entirely from US Carriers in the Yellow Sea (W of Korea) and the Sea of Japan (East of Korea).  The USN had LOTS of carriers available in 1945 and the Soviets would have been unable to effectively challenge those operations.  

Finally, after four years of fighting the Japanese and Germans, nobody in the US and USSR really wanted to go to war so the US proposed a reasonable division at the 38th parallel and the Soviets accepted it.  It was supposed to be temporary . . .  That was 81 years ago and counting . . .

The whole situation at the end of the Pacific war is fascinating to me.  Emperor Hirohito's official statement contains what I think is the greatest understatement of all time:  "The War situation has not necessarily turned in Japan's favor."  LoL, ya think? 

Then the 38th parallel was decided almost on a whim between the Soviets and the Americans based on realities on the ground.  The militant pro-American position would be that the US had been fighting the Japanese for four long years and thus earned the right to occupy all of the former Japanese Empire while the militant pro-USSR position would be that Korea is literally adjacent to the Soviet Union (Vladivostok is the prime Pacific port for the USSR and it is only a few kilometers from the North Korean border) and this is clearly an area of Soviet concern while Korea is thousands of miles from the US and should be of little or no concern to officials half a world away in Washington. 

Then there is the reality on the ground.  If it had come to a fight in 1945, it would have been nearly impossible for the US to take on the Soviet Army in North Korea due to the fact that Soviet logistics would have been relatively simple as a matter of using the existing Trans-Siberian RR and it's extension to what had formerly been known as Port Arthur to get troops, equipment, supplies, fuel, etc into the vicinity of Northern Korea.  That said, Korea is a peninsula and the Soviet Navy in 1945 was in no position to challenge the US Navy so as the conflict moved down the peninsula the logistics for the Soviets would have gotten more difficult (farther from their railheads) and the logistics for the Americans would have gotten easier (closer to ports that they could control).  Further, the peninsula is narrow enough that US carrier-based air assets could have patrolled it entirely from US Carriers in the Yellow Sea (W of Korea) and the Sea of Japan (East of Korea).  The USN had LOTS of carriers available in 1945 and the Soviets would have been unable to effectively challenge those operations. 

Finally, after four years of fighting the Japanese and Germans, nobody in the US and USSR really wanted to go to war so the US proposed a reasonable division at the 38th parallel and the Soviets accepted it.  It was supposed to be temporary . . .  That was 81 years ago and counting . . .

Shoulda listened to Patton. Or maybe not.

The American people had no interest in starting a new war with an ally they were literally just fighting alongside. Maybe at a high level it could have been a good idea, but I doubt that, too. The Soviet war machine was in full gear. Unless we were prepared to nuke the Soviets, which we were not, a ground war in Asia and Europe would have been every bit as costly as the one we were just wrapping up. Democracies must convince their people that war is a good idea. The American public had no appetite for this.

Also, the Soviets--Stalin in particular--had long believed they had every right to meddle in China, and, by extension, Korea. Much more of a right than the "west" did, because of the shared borders.

Land war in China (and Korea) against the Soviets--not to mention, inevitably, Europe, where the Germans were decimated, the French were non-existent, and the English had already lost a third of their national wealth? Doesn't sound like a good idea to me.