[Beavor recounts how about 1,000 Japanese women and girls gathered at an aerodrome. When the Soviets arrived, they demanded girls as the spoils of war or threatened to burn down the hanger. Young single women volunteered to go out; older ones offered prayers for their sacrifice. Captured Japanese nurses were turned into comfort women.]

 

 

 

[Colonial life was good. Fukushima loved meeting young Japanese troops – who she would make pound cake and cream puffs for – and feasted with a local foreman. But even to her, it was clear Japanese occupation was not entirely benevolent: Her husband trained their German shepherd, Esu, to attack those wearing Chinese clothes.

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The human cost, too, would endure. Only in 1955 did Yoshie Fukushima learn the fate of her husband: He had died in a Soviet prison camp in 1946.]

 

 

 

 

"Liberators" are not to be trusted either:

 

 

[Nor would all the locals find their liberators congenial. One of Hastings’ sources, Xu Guiming, watched a Soviet soldier grab a local girl and attempt to rape her. As the girl resisted, the soldier’s companion shot her – and accidentally shot his comrade. Troops on a passing vehicle fired a burst, killing the murderer, leaving the three corpses on the street.

“The Russians were supposed to be our liberators, our brothers, but we quickly learned to regard them as enemies…they were no  more than wolves.”]