Khalkhin Gol (Mongolian Khalkhyn Gol - “Khalkha River”, Chinese) is a river in Mongolia and China.
The river is famous for the battles of the Red Army against Japan in April-September 1939
In 1932, the occupation of Manchuria by Japanese troops ended. The puppet state of Manchukuo was created in the occupied territory. The conflict began with the demands of the Japanese side to recognize the Khalkhin Gol River as the border between Manchukuo and Mongolia (the old border ran 20-25 km to the east). One of the reasons for this requirement was the desire to ensure the safety of the Halun-Arshan-Ganchzhur railway being built by the Japanese in this area. In 1935, clashes began on the Mongol-Manchurian border. In the summer of the same year, negotiations began between representatives of Mongolia and Manchukuo on border demarcation. By the fall, negotiations had reached a dead end. On March 12, 1936, the “Protocol on Mutual Assistance” was signed between the USSR and the MPR. Since 1937, in accordance with this protocol, units of the Red Army were deployed on the territory of Mongolia. In 1938, a two-week conflict had already occurred between Soviet and Japanese troops near Lake Khasan, which ended with the victory of the USSR. In 1939, tensions on the border increased. On May 11, 1939, a detachment of Japanese cavalry numbering up to 300 people attacked the Mongolian border outpost at the height of Nomon-Khan-Burd-Obo. On May 14, as a result of a similar attack with air support, the Dungur-Obo heights were occupied. On May 17, the commander of the 57th Special Rifle Corps, Divisional Commander N.V. Feklenko sent a group of Soviet troops to Khalkhin Gol, consisting of three motorized rifle companies, a company of armored vehicles, a sapper company and an artillery battery. On May 22, Soviet troops crossed Khalkhin Gol and drove the Japanese back to the border. During the period from May 22 to 28, significant forces are concentrated in the conflict area. The Soviet-Mongolian forces included 668 bayonets, 260 sabers, 58 machine guns, 20 guns and 39 armored vehicles. Japanese forces consisted of 1,680 bayonets, 900 cavalry, 75 machine guns, 18 guns, 6 armored vehicles and 1 tank. On May 28, Japanese troops, having numerical superiority, went on the offensive, with the goal of encircling the enemy and cutting them off from the crossing to the western bank of Khalkhin Gol.
The Soviet-Mongolian troops retreated, but the encirclement plan failed, largely thanks to the actions of the battery under the command of Senior Lieutenant Bakhtin. The next day, Soviet-Mongolian troops carried out a counter-offensive, pushing the Japanese back to their original positions. Although there were no clashes on the ground in June, an air war broke out in the skies. Already the first clashes at the end of May showed the advantage of Japanese aviators. So, in two days of fighting, the Soviet fighter regiment lost 15 fighters, while the Japanese side lost only one aircraft. The Soviet command had to take radical measures: on May 29, a group of ace pilots headed by Deputy Chief of the Red Army Air Force Yakov Smushkevich flew from Moscow to the combat area. Many of them were Geromi Soviet Union who had combat experience in the skies of Spain and China. After this, the forces of the parties in the air became approximately equal. At the beginning of June N.V. Feklenko was recalled to Moscow, and in his place, at the suggestion of the head of the operational department of the General Staff, M.V. Zakharov was appointed G.K. Zhukov . Soon after arriving in June 1939 in the area of military conflict, G.K. Zhukov, he proposed his plan of combat operations: conducting an active defense on the bridgehead beyond Khalkhin Gol and preparing a strong counterattack against the opposing group of the Japanese Kwantung Army. The People's Commissariat of Defense and the General Staff of the Red Army agreed with the proposals put forward by G.K. Zhukov. The necessary forces began to gather in the conflict area - the troops were transported along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Ulan-Ude, and then through the territory of Mongolia they followed in marching order. Brigade commander M.A., who arrived with Zhukov, became the chief of staff of the corps. Bogdanov. Corps Commissar J. Lkhagvasuren became Zhukov’s assistant in command of the Mongolian cavalry. To coordinate the actions of Soviet troops in the Far East and units of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army, the commander of the Far Eastern Army, Commander G.M., arrived from Chita to the area of the Khalkhin Gol River. Stern. Air battles resumed with new strength on the twentieth of June. As a result of the battles on June 22, 24 and 26, the Japanese lost more than 50 aircraft. In the early morning of June 27, Japanese aircraft managed to launch a surprise attack on Soviet airfields, which led to the destruction of 19 aircraft. In total, during the conflict, the USSR lost 207, Japan - 162 aircraft. Throughout June, the Soviet side was busy organizing defenses on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol and planning a decisive counter-offensive. To ensure air supremacy, new Soviet modernized I-16 and Chaika fighters were deployed here. So as a result of the battle on June 22
, which became widely known in Japan (During this battle, the famous Japanese ace pilot Takeo Fukuda, who became famous during the war in China, was shot down and captured), the superiority of Soviet aviation over Japanese aviation was ensured and it was possible to seize air supremacy. In total, Japanese air forces lost 90 aircraft in air battles from June 22 to 28. The losses of Soviet aviation turned out to be much smaller - 38 aircraft. At the same time - on June 26, 1939, the first official statement of the Soviet government was made regarding the events at Khalkhin Gol - on June 26, 1939, the words “TASS is authorized to declare...” were heard on Soviet radio. News from the shores of Khalkhin Gol appeared on the pages of Soviet newspapers . July. The offensive of the Japanese group By the end of June 1939, the headquarters of the Kwantung Army developed a plan for a new border operation called the “Second Period of the Nomonhan Incident.” In general terms, it was identical to the May operation of Japanese troops, but this time, in addition to the task of encircling and destroying Soviet troops on the eastern bank of the Khalkhin Gol River, Japanese troops were tasked with crossing the Khalkhin Gol River and breaking through the Red Army’s defenses on the operational sector of the front. On July 2, the Japanese group went on the offensive. On the night of July 2-3, the troops of Major General Kobasi crossed the Khalkhin Gol River and, after a fierce battle, captured Mount Ban Tsagan on its western bank, located 40 kilometers from the Manchurian border. Immediately after this, the Japanese concentrated their main forces here and began to extremely intensively build fortifications and build layered defenses. In the future, it was planned, relying on Mount Ban-Tsagan, which dominated the area, to strike in the rear of the Soviet troops defending on the eastern bank of the Khalkhin-Gol River, cut off and subsequently destroy them. Fierce fighting also began on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol. The Japanese, advancing with two infantry and two tank regiments (130 tanks) against one and a half thousand Red Army soldiers and two Mongolian cavalry divisions, numbering 3.5 thousand cavalry, initially achieved success. The defending Soviet troops were rescued from a difficult situation by a mobile reserve created in advance by Zhukov, which was promptly put into action. Zhukov, without waiting for the escort rifle regiment to approach, threw the 11th tank brigade of brigade commander M.P. Yakovlev, which was in reserve, into battle from the march, which was supported by a Mongolian armored division armed with 45-mm cannons. It should be noted that Zhukov in this situation, violating the requirements of the combat regulations of the Red Army, acted at his own peril and risk, and contrary to the opinion of Army Commander G. M. Stern. To be fair, it is worth noting that Stern subsequently admitted that in that situation the decision made turned out to be the only possible one. However, this act of Zhukov had other consequences. Through the special department of the corps, a report was transmitted to Moscow, which fell on the desk of I.V. Stalin, that division commander Zhukov “deliberately” threw a tank brigade into battle without reconnaissance and infantry escort. An investigative commission was sent from Moscow, headed by Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, Army Commander 1st Rank G.I. Kulik. However, after conflicts between the commander of the 1st Army Group G.K. Zhukov and Kulik, who began to interfere in the operational control of the troops, the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR reprimanded him in a telegram dated July 15 and recalled him to Moscow. After this, the head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army, Commissar 1st Rank Mekhlis, was sent from Moscow to Khalkhin Gol with instructions from L.P. Beria to “check” Zhukov. Fierce fighting broke out around Mount Ban Tsagan. On both sides, up to 400 tanks and armored vehicles, more than 800 artillery pieces and hundreds of aircraft took part in them. Soviet artillerymen fired at the enemy with direct fire, and at certain moments there were up to 300 aircraft on both sides in the sky above the mountain. The 149th Rifle Regiment of Major I.M. Remizov and the 24th Motorized Rifle Regiment of I.I. Fedyuninsky especially distinguished themselves in these battles. On the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol, by the night of July 3, Soviet troops, due to the numerical superiority of the enemy, retreated to the river, reducing the size of their eastern bridgehead on its bank, but the Japanese strike group under the command of Lieutenant General Masaomi Yasuoki did not complete the task assigned to it. The group of Japanese troops on Mount Ban Tsagan found themselves semi-surrounded. By the evening of July 4, Japanese troops held only the top of Ban Tsagan - a narrow strip of terrain five kilometers long and two kilometers wide. On July 5, Japanese troops began to retreat towards the river. In order to force their soldiers to fight to the last, by order of the Japanese command, the only pontoon bridge across Khalkhin Gol at their disposal was blown up. In the end, Japanese troops at Mount Ban Tsagan began a general retreat from their positions by the morning of July 5. According to some Russian historians, more than 10 thousand Japanese soldiers and officers died on the slopes of Mount Ban Tsagan. Almost all tanks and most of the artillery were lost. These events became known as the “Ban-Tsagan Massacre.” The result of these battles was that in the future, as G.K. Zhukov later noted in his memoirs, Japanese troops “no longer dared to cross to the western bank of the Khalkhin Gol River.” All further events took place on the eastern bank of the river. However, Japanese troops continued to remain on Mongolia, and the Japanese military leadership planned new offensive operations. Thus, the source of the conflict in the Khalkhin Gol region remained. The situation dictated the need to restore the state border of Mongolia and radically resolve this border conflict. Therefore, G.K. Zhukov began to plan an offensive operation with the goal of completely defeating the entire Japanese group located on the territory of Mongolia.
July August. Preparation for the counter-offensive of the Soviet troops The 57th Special Corps was deployed into the 1st Army (Front) Group under the command of G.K. Zhukov. In accordance with the resolution of the Main Military Council of the Red Army, for the leadership of the troops, the Military Council of the Army Group was established, consisting of the commander - corps commander G. K. Zhukov, division commissar M. S. Nikishev and chief of staff of the brigade commander M. A. Bogdanov. New troops, including the 82nd Infantry Division, urgently began to be transferred to the site of the conflict. The 37th tank brigade, armed with BT-7 and BT-5 tanks, was transferred from the Moscow Military District; partial mobilization was carried out on the territory of the Trans-Baikal Military District and the 114th and 93rd rifle divisions were formed. On July 8, the Japanese side again began active hostilities. At night, they launched an offensive with large forces on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol against the position of the 149th Infantry Regiment and a battalion of a rifle-machine-gun brigade, which were completely unprepared for this Japanese attack. As a result of this Japanese attack, the 149th Regiment had to retreat to the river, maintaining a bridgehead of only 3-4 kilometers. At the same time, one artillery battery, a platoon of anti-tank guns and several machine guns were abandoned. Despite the fact that the Japanese carried out this kind of sudden night attacks several more times in the future, and on July 11 they managed to capture the heights, as a result of a counterattack by Soviet tanks and infantry, led by the commander of the 11th Tank Brigade, brigade commander M.P. Yakovlev, were knocked out from above and thrown back to their original positions. The defense line on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol was completely restored. From July 13 to July 22, there was a lull in the fighting, which both sides used to build up their forces. The Soviet side took vigorous measures to strengthen the bridgehead on the eastern bank of the river, which was required for the offensive operation planned by G.K. Zhukov against the Japanese group. The 24th motorized rifle regiment of I. I. Fedyuninsky and the 5th rifle and machine gun brigade were transferred to this bridgehead. On July 23, the Japanese, after artillery preparation, began an attack on the right-bank bridgehead of the Soviet-Mongolian troops. However, after two days of fighting, having suffered significant losses, the Japanese had to retreat to their original positions. At the same time, intense air battles took place, so from July 21 to 26, the Japanese side lost 67 aircraft, the Soviet side only 20. Significant efforts fell on the shoulders of the border guards. To cover the border of Mongolia and guard crossings across Khalkhin Gol, a combined battalion of Soviet border guards was transferred from the Trans-Baikal Military District under the command of the chief of staff of the Kyakhta border detachment, Major A. Bulyga. In the second half of July alone, border guards detained 160 suspicious persons, among whom children of Japanese intelligence officers were identified. During the development of the offensive operation against Japanese troops, proposals were put forward both at the headquarters of the army group and at the General Staff of the Red Army to transfer combat operations from Mongolia to Manchurian territory, but these proposals were categorically rejected by the country's political leadership. Marshal of the Soviet Union M.V. Zakharov later recalled one of Stalin’s statements on this matter: “You want to start a big war in Mongolia. The enemy will respond to your detours with additional forces. The focus of the struggle will inevitably expand and become protracted, and we will be drawn into a long war.” As a result of the work carried out by both sides of the conflict, by the beginning of the Soviet counter-offensive, Zhukov’s 1st army group consisted of about 57 thousand people, 542 guns and mortars, 498 tanks, 385 armored vehicles and 515 combat aircraft, opposing it was a Japanese group - specially formed by imperial decree The Japanese 6th Separate Army under the command of General Ryuhe Ogisu (n.), consisted of the 7th and 23rd infantry divisions, a separate infantry brigade, seven artillery regiments, two tank regiments of the Manchu brigade, three regiments of the Bargut cavalry, two engineering regiments and other units, which in total amounted to more than 75 thousand people, 500 artillery pieces, 182 tanks, 700 aircraft. It should also be noted that the Japanese group included many soldiers who gained combat experience during the war in China. General Ogisu and his staff also planned an offensive, which was scheduled for 24 August. Moreover, taking into account the sad experience of the battles on Mount Ban Tsagan for the Japanese, this time an enveloping strike was planned on the right flank of the Soviet group. Crossing the river was not planned. During Zhukov’s preparation for the offensive operation of the Soviet and Mongolian troops, an operational plan was carefully developed and strictly followed.
tactical deception of the enemy. All troop movements in the front-line zone were carried out only in the dark, it was strictly forbidden to send troops into the initial areas for the offensive, reconnaissance on the ground by command personnel was carried out only in trucks and in the uniform of ordinary Red Army soldiers. To mislead the enemy in the early period of preparation for the offensive, the Soviet side at night, using sound installations, imitated the noise of the movement of tanks and armored vehicles, airplanes and engineering work. Soon the Japanese got tired of reacting to sources of noise, so during the actual regrouping of Soviet troops, their opposition was minimal. Also, throughout the preparation for the offensive, the Soviet side carried out active electronic warfare with the enemy. Knowing that the Japanese were conducting active radio reconnaissance and listening to telephone conversations, a program of false radio and telephone messages was developed to disinform the enemy. Negotiations were conducted only on the construction of defensive structures and preparations for the autumn-winter campaign. Radio traffic in these cases was based on an easily decipherable code. Despite the overall superiority in forces of the Japanese side, by the beginning of the offensive Zhukov managed to achieve almost three times superiority in tanks and 1.7 times in aircraft. To carry out the offensive operation, two-week reserves of ammunition, food and fuel and lubricants were created. More than 4 thousand trucks and 375 tank trucks were used to transport goods over a distance of 1300-1400 kilometers. It should be noted that one road trip with cargo and back lasted five days. During the offensive operation, G.K. Zhukov planned, using maneuverable mechanized and tank units, to encircle and destroy the enemy in the area between the state border of the MPR and the Khalkhin Gol River with unexpected strong flank attacks. At Khalkhin Gol, for the first time in world military practice, tank and mechanized units were used to solve operational problems as the main striking force of flank groups maneuvering to encircle. The advancing troops were divided into three groups - Southern, Northern and Central. The main blow was delivered by the Southern group under the command of Colonel M. I. Potapov, the auxiliary blow was carried out by the Northern group, commanded by Colonel I. P. Alekseenko. The central group under the command of brigade commander D.E. Petrov was supposed to pin down enemy forces in the center, on the front line, thereby depriving them of the ability to maneuver. The reserve, concentrated in the center, included the 212th airborne and 9th motorized armored brigades and a tank battalion. Mongolian troops also took part in the operation - the 6th and 8th cavalry divisions under the overall command of Marshal X. Choibalsan. The offensive of the Soviet-Mongolian troops began on August 20, thereby preempting the offensive of the Japanese troops, scheduled for August 24.
August. Strike by Soviet troops. Defeat the enemy
The offensive of the Soviet-Mongolian troops, which began on August 20, turned out to be a complete surprise for the Japanese command. At 6:15 a.m., a powerful artillery barrage and air raid on enemy positions began. At 9 o'clock the offensive of the ground forces began. On the first day of the offensive, the attacking troops acted in full accordance with plans, with the exception of a hitch that occurred when crossing tanks of the 6th Tank Brigade, since when crossing Khalkhin Gol, the pontoon bridge built by sappers could not withstand the weight of the tanks. The enemy offered the most stubborn resistance on the central sector of the front, where the Japanese had well-equipped engineering fortifications - here the attackers managed to advance only 500-1000 meters in a day. Already on August 21 and 22, the Japanese troops, having come to their senses, fought stubborn defensive battles, so G. K. Zhukov had to bring the reserve 9th motorized armored brigade into the battle.
Soviet aviation also performed well at this time. On August 24 and 25 alone, SB bombers made 218 combat group sorties and dropped about 96 tons of bombs on the enemy. During these two days, fighter jets shot down about 70 Japanese aircraft. In general, it should be noted that the command of the Japanese 6th Army on the first day of the offensive was unable to determine the direction of the main attack of the advancing troops and did not attempt to provide support to its troops defending on the flanks. By the end of August 26, the armored and mechanized troops of the Southern and Northern groups of Soviet-Mongolian forces had united and completed the complete encirclement of the Japanese 6th Army. After this, it began to be crushed by cutting blows and destroyed piece by piece.
In general, Japanese soldiers, mostly infantrymen, as G.K. Zhukov later noted in his memoirs, fought extremely fiercely and extremely stubbornly, to the last man. Often Japanese dugouts and bunkers were captured only when there was no longer a single living Japanese soldier there. As a result of the stubborn resistance of the Japanese, on August 23 on the Central sector of the front, G. K. Zhukov even had to bring his last reserve into battle: the 212th airborne brigade and two companies of border guards, although in doing so he took considerable risks (the commander’s closest reserve was the Mongolian armored brigade - located in Tamtsak-
Bulak 120 kilometers from the front). Repeated attempts by the Japanese command to carry out counterattacks and release the group encircled in the Khalkhin Gol area ended in failure. On August 24, the regiments of the 14th Infantry Brigade of the Kwantung Army, which approached the Mongolian border from Hailar, entered into battle with the 80th Infantry Regiment covering the border, but neither that day nor the next day they were able to break through and retreated to the territory of Manchukuo. Go. After the battles of August 24-26, the command of the Kwantung Army, until the very end of the operation on Khalkhin Gol, no longer attempted to relieve its encircled troops, having accepted the inevitability of their death. The Red Army captured about 200 guns, 100 vehicles, 400 machine guns and 12 thousand rifles as trophies. The last battles continued on August 29 and 30 in the area north of the Khaylastyn-Gol River. By the morning of August 31, the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic was completely cleared of Japanese troops. However, this was not yet the complete end of the border conflict (in fact, the undeclared war of Japan against the USSR and its ally Mongolia). So, on September 4 and 8, Japanese troops made new attempts to penetrate the territory of Mongolia, but they were driven back beyond the state border by strong counterattacks. Air battles also continued, which stopped only with the conclusion of an official truce. Through its ambassador in Moscow, Shigenori Togo, the Japanese government appealed to the USSR government with a request to cease hostilities on the Mongolian-Manchurian border. On September 15, 1939, an agreement was signed between the Soviet Union, the Mongolian People's Republic and Japan on the cessation of hostilities in the Khalkhin Gol River area, which came into force the next day. The conflict ended in 1942, in May, with the signing of a final settlement agreement. Moreover, it was a compromise settlement, largely in favor of the Japanese - based on the old map. For the Red Army, which suffered defeats in the Soviet-
on the German front, then there was enough a difficult situation. Therefore, the settlement was pro-Ponese. But it only lasted until 1945.
It is generally accepted that the Soviet victory at Khalkhin Gol played a decisive role in Japan’s non-aggression against the USSR. A remarkable fact is that when German troops stood near Moscow in December 1941, Hitler furiously demanded that Japan attack the USSR in the Far East. It was the defeat at Khalkhin Gol, as many historians believe, that played a major role in the abandonment of plans to attack the USSR in favor of an attack on the United States. In Japan, the defeat, and the simultaneous signing of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, led to a government crisis and the resignation of the cabinet of Hiranuma Kiichiro, and subsequently to the triumph of the so-called “maritime party”, which defended the idea of expansion towards Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. which inevitably led to a clash with America. The new Japanese government signed an armistice agreement with the USSR on September 15, 1939, and on April 13, 1941, concluded a Soviet-
Japanese Neutrality Pact. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, which triggered the United States' entry into World War II. "Golden Star"
At the height of the conflict, on August 1, 1939, the highest award of the USSR was established - the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union (the title existed since 1934, but heroes did not receive insignia). The fate of the winners
Khalkhin Gol became the beginning of the military career of G.K. Zhukov. The previously unknown corps commander, after the victory over the Japanese, headed the country's largest Kiev Military District. The commander of the aviation of the 1st Army Group, Ya. V. Smushkevich, and the commander of the Far Eastern Army, G. M. Stern, were awarded the Gold Star medals for the battles at Khalkhin Gol. " After the end of the conflict, Ya. V. Smushkevich was appointed head of the Red Army Air Force, G. M. Stern commanded the 8th Army during the Soviet-Finnish War. In June 1941, both military leaders were arrested and executed a few months later. Rehabilitated in 1954. The chief of staff of the 1st Army Group, brigade commander M.A. Bogdanov, did not receive any awards for Khalkhin Gol, and ended the Great Patriotic War as a division commander and the rank of major general. According to researchers who consider the military abilities of G.K. Zhukov to be overrated (B.V. Sokolov, Viktor Suvorov, etc.), it was he who played a key role in developing the operation plan, but there is no evidence of this version. Feklenko N.V. .
Khalkhin Gol (May - September 1939)
In March 1936, several minor skirmishes occurred on the Mongol-Manchu border. In response to this, on March 12, a protocol on mutual assistance was signed between the USSR and the MPR, and Stalin, in an interview with an American journalist, warned: “If Japan decides to attack the Mongolian People’s Republic, encroaching on its independence, we will have to help the Mongolian People’s Republic.” On May 31, speaking at a session of the Supreme Council, Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, confirmed "that we will defend the border of the Mongolian People's Republic as decisively as our own border."
In accordance with the mutual assistance agreement, in September 1937, a “limited contingent” of Soviet troops consisting of 30 thousand people, 265 tanks, 280 armored vehicles, 5,000 cars and 107 aircraft was introduced into Mongolia. The headquarters of the corps of Soviet troops, which received the name 57th Special, settled in Ulaanbaatar. The corps was commanded by N.V. Feklenko. However, the Japanese continued to prepare for an attack on the Mongolia. It was no coincidence that the Japanese command chose the area near the Khalkhin Gol River for the invasion - two railways led here from Manchuria, the nearest station was only 60 km from the intended combat area. But from the Soviet railway station Borza to Khalkhin Gol there were more than 750 km, and the stretch of communications made it very difficult to concentrate the Soviet-Mongolian troops and supply them with ammunition and food.
We have to admit that on the eve of the conflict, both the command of the Mongolian border corps and the commander Feklenko showed unforgivable carelessness. The state border across the Khalkhin Gol River was actually not guarded, and there were no stationary observation posts on the western bank - only sometimes Mongolian horse patrols passed through here. The command staff of the 57th Special Corps of the threatened area was not studied. There was no reconnaissance on the ground. The soldiers were distracted by wood harvesting for long periods of time.
The Japanese acted differently. Long before the attack, they carried out reconnaissance of the future combat area, published excellent maps, and made many reconnaissance flights not only in the border zone, but also over Mongolian territory. Field trips were conducted with the command staff of units and formations intended for the operation. The troops were trained taking into account the conditions of the given area.
Since January 1939, the Japanese have resumed provocations in the Khalkhin Gol region - they raid Mongolian territory, fire at border guards, and attack guard posts. And in mid-May they begin to deploy full-scale military operations.
On May 11, about two hundred Japanese-Manchus, accompanied by a truck and a Pickup, armed with light machine guns and 50-mm mortars, violated the border, attacked a Mongol outpost of twenty people and pursued them to the Khalkhin Gol River. Here reinforcements approached the border guards; a battle ensued that lasted about 12 hours. The intruders were repulsed.
On May 14, three hundred Japanese-Manchu horsemen again invaded the territory of the MPR, occupied Dungur-Obo and reached the Khalkhin Gol River.
On May 15, border guards observed up to seven hundred enemy horsemen, seven armored vehicles, one tank and vehicles with infantry in the Dungur-Obo area.
Japanese aircraft repeatedly violate the border, shelling and bombing Mongolian border posts. So, on May 15, five Japanese bombers raided the location of the 7th outpost (west of Dungur-Obo) and dropped 52 bombs. As a result, 2 cyriks were killed and 19 wounded.
All these events clearly indicated that the Japanese were launching a serious operation, but the command of the 57th Special Corps continued to regard them as “petty border trifles.” Although fighting had been going on at Khalkhin Gol for the fifth day with regular Japanese-Manchu troops supported by aviation, on May 15 the command of the special corps went to logging 130 km from Ulaanbaatar. And only the order of the People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov on the 16th forced Feklenko to finally take measures to bring the troops into combat readiness.
The 6th Cavalry Division of the MPR was sent to the Khalkhin Gol River, as well as the operational group of the 11th Tank Brigade - consisting of a rifle and machine-gun battalion, a company of armored vehicles and a 76-mm battery - under the command of Senior Lieutenant Bykov. On May 20, he sent reconnaissance to the eastern shore of Khalkhin Gol, which was met with heavy rifle and machine gun fire and, after a 4-hour battle, retreated back. However, the next day, the vanguard of Bykov’s detachment, together with the Mongolian cavalry, managed to push the enemy into the territory of Manchuria, reach the border and take up defense.
Meanwhile, the Japanese ambassador in Moscow was summoned to the Kuznetsky Most to the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, where Molotov, on behalf of the Soviet government, made an official statement to him: “We have received information about the violation of the border of the Mongolian People's Republic by Japanese-Manchu troops who attacked Mongolian units in the area Nomon-Kan-Burd-Obo, as well as in the Dongur-Obo area. IN military units MPR there are wounded and killed. Japanese-Manchurian aircraft also took part in this invasion of the Mongolian People's Republic. I must warn that there is a limit to all patience, and I ask the ambassador to tell the Japanese government that this will not happen again. This will be better in the interests of the Japanese government itself.” The Japanese ambassador immediately transmitted the text of this statement to Tokyo. However, there was no response.
On May 25, the Japanese began to concentrate large forces from the 23rd Infantry Division and Manchu cavalry in the Nomonhan-Burd-Obo area. At dawn on May 28, the Japanese-Manchus launched a surprise attack and, having pushed back the Mongolian cavalry regiment and the left-flank company of Bykov's detachment, deeply enveloped our left flank, threatening the crossing. Bykov himself, who was trying to organize a counterattack, came under heavy machine-gun fire and barely escaped capture by abandoning an armored car stuck in the mud. The Mongol-Soviet units retreated in disarray to the Sandy Hills, 2-3 km from the crossing, where they detained the enemy.
At this time, the 149th Infantry Regiment of Major Remizov, which arrived in vehicles from Tamtsak-Bulak, without waiting for the concentration of all forces, entered the battle on the move. The regiment's units acted uncoordinated, without interaction with artillery. Control of the battle was poorly organized, and with the onset of darkness it was completely lost.
The firefight continued throughout the night. The next morning the battle resumed and continued with varying degrees of success. On the right flank, Bykov's company could not hold on to the occupied heights and retreated, mistakenly fired upon by their own artillery. But on the left flank, our flamethrower tanks, supported by infantry, defeated the Japanese reconnaissance detachment of Lieutenant Colonel Azuma, who was killed.
By evening the battle finally died down. One gets the impression that both sides considered themselves losers - exhausted by continuous two-day battles, having suffered significant losses, the Japanese hastily withdrew their troops beyond the border line, but the Soviet units also retreated to the western bank of Khalkhin Gol (the commander of the 57th Special Corps, Feklenko, reported to Moscow that that he had to withdraw “under enemy pressure,” and explained the defeat by complete air supremacy of enemy aircraft). Moreover, our intelligence discovered the very fact of the Japanese retreat only 4 days later. Following the results of the May battles, which can hardly be called successful, Feklenko was removed from his post; G.K. Zhukov was appointed to replace him.
Having information about the strengthening of enemy aviation in the conflict zone and increasing its activity, the Soviet command also increased its air forces: at the end of May, the 22nd Fighter Aviation Regiment and the 38th Air Force arrived from Transbaikalia to help the 100th mixed air brigade stationed on the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic. bomber, but it was not possible to immediately turn the situation around.
On May 27, an I-16 squadron consisting of eight aircraft was in an ambush at a forward airfield in the area of Mount Khamar-Daba with the task of taking off and destroying an enemy air force when an airborne enemy appeared. In total, during this day the squadron made four alert sorties. There were no encounters with the enemy in the first three, but two pilots burned out the engines of their cars. During the fourth flight, the squadron commander's engine did not start. He ordered the pilots who started the engines to take off before him. The pilots took off and headed for the front line. The squadron commander, having started the engine, was the last to take off. Six I-16 fighters followed the border one at a time, gaining altitude along the route. Over Khalkhin Gol, these single planes, being at an altitude of 2000-2200 m, met with two flights of enemy fighters that were in formation. The forces were too unequal, our pilots found themselves in a deliberately losing position, so after the first attack, they turned around and began to leave for their territory, and the enemy, being higher up, pursued them to the airfield and even shot them after landing. As a result, two of the six pilots died (including the squadron commander), one was wounded, and two more burned out their engines.
That same evening, the command of the 57th Special Corps had an unpleasant conversation over a direct line with the People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov, who expressed Moscow's dissatisfaction with the losses of Soviet aviation.
But the next day, May 28, was truly “black” for our pilots. In the morning, an order was received for twenty I-15bis fighters to fly “to the area of operation of ground forces,” but only the first flight managed to take off when the order was given to “stop the flight.” Since there was no radio contact with the trio that had already taken off, the pilots did not receive warning that they were left alone, they continued to carry out their mission and were attacked by superior enemy forces over Khalkhin Gol - none of them returned from this unequal battle.
Three hours later, another I-15 squadron was taken by surprise by an attack from behind the clouds and lost seven out of ten fighters in the short-lived battle, shooting down only one enemy aircraft.
Thus, the score of the May battles was 17:1 in favor of Japanese aviation. After such a defeat, Soviet fighters did not appear over Khalkhin Gol for more than two weeks, and “Japanese bombers bombed our troops with impunity.”
Moscow responded immediately, taking emergency measures to strengthen our aviation in the conflict zone. Already on May 29, a group of the best Soviet aces, led by Deputy Chief of the Red Army Air Force Smushkevich, flew to Mongolia. In just three weeks, they managed to do an incredible amount - combat training for flight personnel was established, supplies were radically improved, a whole network of new takeoff and landing sites was created, and the size of the air group was increased to 300 aircraft (versus 239 Japanese). And when the next round of air battles began over Khalkhin Gol, the Japanese met a completely different enemy.
Our pilots took revenge for the May defeats already on June 22: after a fierce two-hour battle, the Japanese were forced to flee, missing 30 aircraft (they themselves, however, admitted the loss of only seven aircraft, but experts who worked with documents claim that, as a rule, The Japanese side in official reports underestimated the figures of their own losses by about half). And although our losses that day were also high - 17 aircraft - it was an undoubted victory, the first since the beginning of the war in the air.
On June 24, there were three more clashes with the enemy, and twice the Japanese did not accept the battle, scattering and retreating to their territory after the first attack. Their attempt to intercept a group of Soviet bombers returning from a mission also ended in vain - the airborne gunners were able to fight off the fighters. On the same day, a Japanese pilot was captured for the first time after jumping with a parachute from a downed plane over our territory. Another “samurai” in a similar situation chose to shoot himself in the temple.
But Major Zabaluev, commander of the 70th Fighter Aviation Regiment, was luckier. On June 26, during another air battle, he had to make an emergency landing behind Japanese lines. Bargut horsemen were already rushing to the downed plane when Captain Sergei Gritsevets landed his I-16 next to the commander’s vehicle, literally dragged it into his cockpit, squeezing it into the narrow space between the armored back and the side, and took off in front of the confused enemies 1 .
Convinced that they would not be able to cope with Russian aviation in air battles, the Japanese decided to destroy it on the ground by launching a surprise attack on our airfields. Early in the morning of June 27, 30 Japanese bombers, covered by 74 fighters, attacked the airfields in Tamtsak-Bulak and Bayin-Burdu-Nur. In the first case, the approach of enemy bombers was detected in time, and the fighters of the 22nd Air Regiment managed to take off to intercept - after the battle, the Japanese were missing five aircraft, having shot down only three of ours. But during a raid on the airfield of the 70th Fighter Regiment, they managed to achieve tactical surprise, since the telephone line connecting the airfield with air observation posts was cut by Japanese saboteurs. As a result, 16 Soviet aircraft were destroyed on the ground and during takeoff, but the Japanese had no losses. On the same day, they also carried out a raid on the rear airfield in Bain-Tumen, shooting down one fighter on takeoff.
The Japanese command tried to inflate their tactical success and pass it off as the complete defeat of Soviet aviation, announcing the destruction of one and a half hundred aircraft - but it seems that even the Japanese themselves did not really believe these victorious reports. Despite some successes, they lost their previous air supremacy - the “unpunished bombing” of ground troops stopped, air battles from now until the end of July continued with varying success, and the scales gradually tipped in our favor.
According to the plan of the Japanese command, in the “second period of the Nomonkhan incident” it was supposed to strike the western bank of Khalkhin Gol, to the rear of the Soviet-Mongolian troops.
The strike group under the command of Major General Kobayashi, consisting of the 71st and 72nd infantry regiments, reinforced with artillery, had the task of crossing the river in the area of Mount Bain-Dagan and moving south, cutting off our units’ escape route from the eastern bank. The 26th Infantry Regiment, mounted on vehicles, was supposed to operate on the approaching flank of the strike group and prevent the approach of Soviet reserves, and if our units retreated, pursue them. The crossing and advancement of the strike group was ensured by the 23rd Engineer Regiment.
The pinning group under the command of Lieutenant General Yasuoka, which, in addition to infantry and cavalry, included both tank regiments, was supposed to act against Soviet units on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol in order to prevent their breakthrough from the “cauldron”, and then completely destroy .
Fighting on July 2-3, 1939 (until 10.00 am)
The Japanese launched their offensive on the night of July 2–3. At 9 o'clock in the evening, Soviet units, which were in combat guard, were attacked by tanks and infantry. In a stubborn battle, Lieutenant Aleshkin's battery knocked out up to ten Japanese tanks, but the rest broke through to the firing position and began to crush the guns and iron the cracks with the soldiers hiding in them. However, light Japanese tanks were unable to inflict significant damage. Having broken the rules of the guns and plowed the trenches, they began to leave. Then the artillerymen jumped out of cover and opened fire on the retreating tanks, knocking out several more vehicles. Turning around, the tanks again attacked the battery. This was repeated three times. Finally, the attack was repulsed.
The next day, the first duel took place between Soviet and Japanese tank crews. Despite their numerical superiority, the Japanese were never able to advance a single step, losing seven tanks against three Soviet ones. The enemy suffered even heavier losses in a collision with the reconnaissance battalion of the 9th motorized armored brigade - our BA-10 cannon armored cars acted exemplarily, shooting the advancing enemy formations from cover, destroying 9 tanks and not losing a single armored vehicle. These events cannot be called anything other than a defeat - on July 3 alone, during unsuccessful attacks, the Japanese lost more than half of their armored vehicles on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol (44 tanks out of 73). Soon both of their tank regiments were withdrawn to the rear.
At first, the offensive of Kobayashi’s strike group developed much more successfully. Having crossed the river at dawn on July 3 and broken the weak resistance of the 15th Mongolian Cavalry Regiment, the Japanese quickly moved south, getting behind the main Soviet-Mongolian forces, which were fighting defensive battles on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol. The situation was becoming threatening. Scattered counterattacks by armored cars and tankers, at the cost of heavy losses, made it possible to stop the enemy's advance towards the crossings and gain time until the main reserves arrived.
At about 11.30, the 11th Tank Brigade launched a counteroffensive - on the move, without preliminary reconnaissance, without information about the enemy, without infantry support. Having suffered terrible losses - more than half of the tanks and personnel - the brigade broke through the Japanese defenses, only a short distance from reaching their crossing. Together with the tankers, the 24th motorized rifle regiment and a detachment of Mongolian cavalry were supposed to advance, but the motorized riflemen lost their way during the march and attacked an hour and a half late, and the cavalry was scattered by enemy artillery and aircraft. At 15.00, the armored battalion of the 7th motorized armored brigade arrived and was thrown into battle from the march, however, met with concentrated fire from anti-tank guns shooting at the armored cars at point-blank range, it was forced to retreat, having lost 33 armored vehicles out of 50. In the evening, another, now general, was organized. attack, but the Japanese, surrounded on three sides, pressed against the river, were able to fortify themselves on Mount Bain-Tsagan, created a layered defense and put up stubborn resistance, repelling all attacks. We have to admit that the control of the battle that day left much to be desired - the arriving Soviet reserves rushed to the offensive one by one, interaction between them was organized only in the evening, when all units had already suffered heavy losses and were bled to death as a result of uncoordinated attacks.
Fighting during the day on July 3, 1939
The firefight continued until the morning. The next day, the Japanese began to withdraw their troops back to the right bank of Khalkhin Gol. Huge crowds gathered near the only bridge, filled with infantry and equipment, along which our aviation and artillery were working. According to Soviet sources, “the only pontoon bridge built by the Japanese for the crossing turned out to be blown up prematurely by them. Panicked, Japanese soldiers and officers rushed into the water and drowned in front of our tank crews. In the area of Mount Bayin-Tsagan, the enemy lost thousands of soldiers and officers, as well as a huge amount of weapons and military equipment abandoned here.” However, the Japanese themselves admit the loss of only 800 people (10% of the strike force), claiming that they allegedly managed to evacuate all the heavy equipment and blew up the bridge only after completely completing the crossing.
After the defeat at Bayin-Tsagan, the Japanese command tried to take revenge on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol. On the night of July 7-8, the enemy managed to push back our right-flank battalions, which were able to regain a foothold only 3-4 km from the river. On July 11, the Japanese captured the Remizov height, but their further advance was stopped by artillery fire and tank counterattacks. On the night of July 12, taking advantage of a command mistake, a Japanese detachment managed to penetrate deeply into our defenses, taking the crossing under machine-gun fire, but by the morning it was surrounded in one of the pits and destroyed after a fierce battle. This pit was later nicknamed the “samurai grave.”
In the second half of July - early August, the calm was interrupted three more times by short-term battles, in which the opponents suffered significant losses, but did not achieve any significant results. Meanwhile, both sides continued to build up their forces, transferring fresh reinforcements to the combat area.
The struggle for air supremacy continued, during which the initiative finally passed to Soviet aviation. In July, our pilots attacked enemy airfields on the territory of Manchukuo several times. So, on July 27, two I-16 squadrons carried out an attack on the Ukhtyn-Obo airfield, taking the enemy by surprise and shooting down 4 Japanese fighters and 2 gas tankers on the ground with impunity. On July 29, the baptism of fire of the I-16 cannons, which took part in a raid on an enemy airfield in the area of Lake Uzur-Nur, took place. And again the enemy was taken by surprise. The attack aircraft destroyed 2 enemy aircraft in the parking lots and damaged nine more. On the same day, a second strike was carried out - with even more impressive results: this time they were lucky to “catch” the Japanese during landing, when they were completely helpless, and shoot down three fighters at once, another one was burned on the ground. And again our pilots returned from a combat mission without losses. On August 2, during another attack on a Japanese airfield in the Jinjin-Sume area, Colonel Katsumi Abe’s plane was shot up on takeoff, and six aircraft on the ground were destroyed at once, not counting the damaged ones.
In the air battles of early August, our pilots also acted more and more confidently, inflicting irreparable losses on the enemy - several more Japanese aces were killed during these days. And given the double numerical superiority over the enemy achieved by this time, it is quite possible to talk about the conquest of air superiority by Soviet aviation, which will be confirmed by its actions during the general offensive.
Particular attention was paid to disinformation to the enemy in order to create the impression that our units were going on the defensive. For this purpose, the “Memo to a Soldier in Defense” was sent to the troops. False reports about the construction of defensive structures and requests for engineering equipment were transmitted. A powerful sound broadcasting station that arrived at the front imitated the driving of stakes, creating the full impression of large defensive works. All troop movements took place only at night. To accustom the Japanese to the noise of tanks, 10-12 days before the offensive, several vehicles with their silencers removed were constantly running along the front. All these measures turned out to be very effective, allowing them to mislead the enemy and take them by surprise.
On the eve of the offensive, thorough reconnaissance of the front line of the Japanese defense was carried out, during which the command staff dressed in Red Army uniforms for camouflage purposes, and the tank crews dressed in combined arms uniforms. Data on the enemy's battle formations and defensive structures was clarified by aerial reconnaissance with photographing of the area and night searches, accompanied by the capture of "tongues".
Although Soviet propaganda inflated the importance of party-political work at the front so much that over time this phrase began to evoke only a smile, nevertheless, the ideological factor should not be underestimated: party-political work undoubtedly strengthened the offensive impulse of the Soviet troops. Many people took part in the ideological campaign famous writers who visited Khalkhin Gol, including Konstantin Simonov, who did not mince words:
“We will forget all pity in battle, We will find these snakes in holes, They will pay for your grave with an endless Japanese cemetery!” “Here you go, get it! Once it’s war, it’s war: We won’t leave a single Japanese for seed!”
At dawn on August 20, 150 SB bombers, covered by 144 fighters, dealt a crushing blow to the Japanese front line, troop concentrations and artillery positions. Bombing was carried out from a height of 2000 m at maximum speeds, leaving the target with a left turn. The successful actions of the Soviet bombers forced the enemy to open anti-aircraft fire, which made it possible to detect the location of its firing points and launch a massive assault strike on them. As a result, Japanese anti-aircraft artillery was temporarily suppressed, and the second echelon of bombers attacked enemy positions from medium altitudes without interference, without encountering serious opposition: Japanese fighters did not appear over the battlefield.
At 6.15, Soviet artillery opened fire. Artillery preparation lasted 2 hours 45 minutes. 15 minutes before its end, a second air raid was carried out. This time, the Japanese interceptors arrived in time and, breaking through the fighter cover, attacked our bombers over the target, damaged three vehicles (all of them returned safely to the airfield), but were unable to prevent targeted bombing.
Fighting August 20, 1939
At 9 o'clock in the morning, Soviet troops went on the offensive along the entire front. The greatest successes on this day were achieved by the Southern Group, which captured the Big Sands despite the fact that it acted without tank support: the 6th Tank Brigade, delayed at the crossing due to poorly prepared exits and entrances, was 4 hours late and did not participate in the offensive. The central group also basically completed the task of the day, not only engaging the enemy in battle, but also moving forward 0.5-1 km. The most serious difficulties faced the Northern Group, which was never able to break through the Japanese defenses, underestimating the enemy’s strength. The command assumed that no more than two Japanese companies were defending at the “Finger” height and expected to take it on the move - but unexpectedly ran into desperate resistance: only during the battles did it become clear that the Japanese had created a powerful stronghold here, which lasted four days.
All day on August 20, Soviet bomber aircraft worked on the enemy's front line and artillery positions, ensuring the advancement of ground troops. And our fighters not only successfully covered the bombers over the battlefield, but also repeatedly stormed Japanese airfields, which forced the enemy to evacuate their aircraft further from the front line. We can say that on this day our pilots for the first time completely dominated the air.
The next morning, the Japanese tried to turn the situation around by launching massive attacks on Soviet airfields, but they were unable to repeat their June success - the enemy bombers were promptly detected by VNOS posts and met by Soviet fighters. Only the first of three waves was able to break through to the target, but it bombed hastily and ineffectively; the other two were scattered by fighters while still approaching.
Having failed to suppress our aviation, the Japanese command tried to redirect their bombers to attack the advancing ground forces, but both strike groups were intercepted by fighters above the front line and, having dropped bombs anywhere, hastily left the battle.
Combat operations August 21-22, 1939
These days became a turning point not only in the air, but also on the ground. As early as August 21, the troops of the Southern Group, reinforced by the 6th Tank Brigade, which finally entered the battle, completely captured the Big and Small Sands and cut off access to the east for the Japanese-Manchurian units operating south of the Khaylastyn-Gol River. In the northern direction, the 9th Motorized Armored Brigade, bypassing the “Finger” height blocked by our troops, reached the spurs of Mount Nomonkhan-Burd-Obo, threatening to close the encirclement ring.
On August 22, units of the Southern Group defeated Japanese reserves in the Small Sands area and began to eliminate individual resistance centers. We had to storm every trench, every firing point: the guns hit point blank, flamethrower tanks burned out dugouts and trenches, and then the infantry moved forward.
By the evening of August 23, the “Finger” height finally fell. This strong point was a well-fortified area with a diameter of up to one and a half kilometers with all-round defense, reinforced with anti-tank artillery, wire barriers and dugouts with concrete floors. The “samurai” had to be knocked out with bayonets and grenades; no one surrendered. At the end of the fighting, more than six hundred enemy corpses were removed from the trenches and dugouts. The encirclement of the Japanese group was completed.
The next day, the Japanese tried to break through the ring from the outside, large forces attacked the positions of the 80th Infantry Regiment in the Big Sands area, but were repulsed. The attack was repeated on August 25 - with the same result. The surrounded units also made attempts to escape from the “cauldron”. At dawn on August 27, a large Japanese detachment (up to a battalion) tried to retreat east along the valley of the Khaylastyn-Gol River, but was met by artillery fire, partly destroyed, and partly retreated back. On the same day, another group tried to leave the encirclement the same way, but history repeated itself: having come under heavy fire, the Japanese fled to the northern bank of Khaylastyn-Gol, where they were finished off by the 9th Motorized Armored Brigade.
Japanese pilots tried unsuccessfully to help their doomed troops. The August aviation losses were so great that the enemy had to bring all available reserves into battle - even units flying hopelessly outdated biplanes were transferred to Khalkhin Gol. But the war in the air was already hopelessly lost - as, indeed, on the ground.
By the morning of August 28, all pockets of resistance south of Khaylastyn-Gel were eliminated. On the northern shore, the Japanese had the last, most fortified defense node - Remizov Hill. Blocked on all sides, after a powerful artillery bombardment, the height was taken by Soviet troops. However, the fighting here dragged on for another day - holed up in “fox holes” and dugouts, the Japanese fought to the last man. On August 30, the liquidation of individuals and small groups who tried to escape from encirclement or infiltrate the formations of Soviet troops continued. And only by the morning of August 31, the operation was completed and the territory of Mongolia was completely cleared of the Japanese-Manchu invaders.
According to the official Soviet version, the fighting on the Khalkhin Gol River ended by September 1, 1939. But in reality, clashes on the border continued for another half a month. In addition to daily skirmishes, the Japanese attacked our positions three times - on September 4, 8 and 13. The most intense battle was on the 8th, when in the area of the Eris-Ulin-Obo heights, two Japanese battalions managed to encircle our company. However, help arrived on time, and the enemy was first driven back by Soviet tanks and infantry, and then surrounded and destroyed (the Japanese lost 450 people killed that day alone).
Even more intense fighting took place in the air. Soviet fighters patrolling the border repeatedly engaged in battles with the enemy.
In the first days of September alone, five air battles took place, in which the Japanese again suffered serious losses. Then it began to rain for a week, but on September 14, as soon as the weather improved, the enemy tried to bomb advanced Soviet airfields, but was unsuccessful. The next day the Japanese repeated the raid with a larger force. Despite the fact that they managed to take our pilots by surprise - the VNOS posts warned of the approach of the enemy late, so the fighters had to take off under fire, immediately losing four - the operation again ended in failure for the Japanese: their bombers bombed inaccurately, without hitting them on the ground not a single plane, and meanwhile reinforcements were already rushing from neighboring airfields, attacking the hesitant enemy from all sides and not allowing them to leave the battle with impunity. As a result, even according to their own data (usually underestimated), the Japanese lost ten aircraft, and our pilots only six.
This air battle was the last. On the same day - August 15 - a ceasefire agreement was signed.
According to the agreement reached, on September 23, Soviet troops opened access to the Japanese funeral teams on the battlefield. According to the terms of the agreement, Japanese officers carried sabers, and soldiers carried bayonets, but without firearms. The exhumation and removal of corpses continued for a whole week. Black smoke hung over the Japanese positions on the other side of the border from morning until late at night - the “samurai” were burning the remains of their warriors.
Of the military personnel admitted to hospitals, according to incomplete data, 3,964 people were returned to duty, 355 people were dismissed from the Red Army and 720 died.
There were relatively few prisoners on both sides. At the end of hostilities, the USSR returned 88 people to Japan, and the Japanese freed 116 Soviet citizens.
Our losses in armored vehicles turned out to be very high - 253 tanks and 133 armored vehicles, not counting those recovered during the battles. Which is not surprising - after all, it was the tank units that bore the brunt of the fighting (it is no coincidence that among the Heroes of the Soviet Union awarded this title based on the results of the battles at Khalkhin Gol, there were most tankers). In this category, comparison with Japanese losses seems incorrect, since, unlike the Red Army, the enemy used its tanks very limitedly, and after the catastrophic losses suffered in early July, he completely withdrew both tank regiments to the rear.
As for aviation, Soviet sources cited the following figures.
Enemy losses:
| Period | Fighters | Scouts | Bombers | Transport aircraft | Total aircraft |
| 16.05-3.06 | 1 | - | - | - | 1 |
| 17.06-27.06 | 53 | - | - | - | 55 |
| 28.06-12.07 | 103 | - | - | - | 105 |
| 21.07-8.08 | 161 | 6 | - | - | 173 |
| 9.08-20.08 | 32 | - | - | 1 | 33 |
| 21.08-31.08 | 146 | 22 | 35 | 5 | 208 |
| 1.09-15.09 | 68 | 2 | 1 | - | 71 |
| Total | 564 | 32 | 44 | 6 | 646 |
Soviet losses (from 22.05 to 16.09)
| Combat | Non-combat | Total | |
| I-16 | 83 | 22 | 105 |
| I-16P | 4 | - | 4 |
| I-15bis | 60 | 5 | 65 |
| I-153 | 16 | 6 | 22 |
| SB | 44 | 8 | 52 |
| TB-3 | - | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 207 | 42 | 249 |
The Soviet figures for losses of enemy aircraft are clearly overestimated, which, however, is completely natural - at all times and in all wars, enemy losses are calculated according to the principle: “why should we feel sorry for him, the adversary?” In this sense, Soviet pilots are still surprising with their modesty - the Germans or the same Americans lie much more shamelessly, and the Japanese postscripts cannot even be called fantastic - they are simply anecdotal. Thus, the “samurai” claim that, having lost 162 aircraft at Khalkhin Gol, they themselves shot down 1,340 Soviet aircraft and destroyed another 30 on the ground (that is, twice as many as we actually had there). In a word, everything is like in that old joke: “Out of forty tanks that broke through to our shore, eighty were destroyed.”
1 In fairness, it must be said that Japanese pilots several times risked their lives to land in the depths of Mongolian territory to pick up their downed pilots.
Fighting on the Mongolian-Manchurian border between Soviet-Mongolian and Japanese troops, during which Soviet troops under the command carried out a classic deep offensive operation with encirclement and complete defeat of the enemy. Tanks, aircraft, and artillery were actively involved in the battle.
Late 30s The 20th century was characterized by a great increase in international tension. At the same time, militarized Germany and Japan pursued an active policy to expand their territories at the expense of neighboring states. The Soviet Union was also quite active in this regard. His interests in the Far East collided with the interests of Japan.
The name of the great battle that took place in Mongolia between the two powers, “Khalkin Gol,” is replaced by many Western historians with the term “Incident at Nomon Khan” (named after the border mountain), allegedly provoked by the Soviet side in order to show its military strength.
This is probably not entirely true. Undoubtedly, during the battles in the Far East, the USSR worked out schemes for conducting deep offensive operations, which it intended to use in the coming big war in Europe. One should not have any illusions about the sincerity of the friendship of the Soviet government with countries oppressed and captured by all sorts of aggressors. Indeed, among the new “friends” of the Stalinist regime, in addition to the future “16th Soviet republic” of Mongolia (by the way, recognized by that time only by the Soviet Union), Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, and Western Ukraine soon turned out to be. Finland also experienced the power of friendly Soviet disposition. However, Japan's goals were no more noble. A militarized and aggressive power sought to secure a military foothold for itself, invaded foreign territories, and created a fortified military area here. The actions of the Japanese in relation to Outer Mongolia can be assessed as aggressive.
In the 30s The Japanese army invaded China, occupied the entire territory of Manchuria, creating here the puppet state of Manchukuo, headed by Emperor Pu Yi. Manchuria was turned by Japan into a springboard of aggression against the USSR, Mongolia and China. The first step of aggression was the Japanese invasion in July 1938 on Soviet territory near Lake. Hassan. This unremarkable border strip of land, cut by hills and river valleys, became the site of heated battles. Soviet troops won an important victory here in stubborn battles.
The Japanese believed that conquering the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic would provide them with major strategic benefits. The Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, General Itagaki, said that Mongolia “is very important from the point of view of the Japanese-Manchu influence of today, because it is the defensive flank of the Trans-Siberian Railway, connecting Soviet territories in the Far East and Europe. If Outer Mongolia were united with Japan and Manchukuo, then the Soviet territories in the Far East would be in a very difficult situation and it would be possible to destroy the influence of the Soviet Union in the Far East without much military effort. Therefore, the goal of the army should be to extend Japanese-Manchu rule to Outer Mongolia by any means necessary."
In Manchuria, on the borders with the Soviet Union and the Mongolian People's Republic, the Japanese created 11 fortified areas and placed strong military garrisons in settlements along the state borders; they built and improved highways. The main group of the Kwantung Army was concentrated in Northern and Northeastern Manchuria. By the summer of 1939, its number here had been increased to 350 thousand people; the group had more than a thousand artillery pieces, 385 tanks and 355 aircraft.
The Japanese command, in addition to the Harbin – Qiqihar – Hailar railway (formerly CER), began construction of a new strategic railway from Solun to Halun – Arshan and further to Ganchzhur. It was carried out bypassing the spurs of the Greater Khingan ridge and was supposed to run almost parallel to the Mongol-Manchu border, at a distance of only two or three kilometers from it in places.
The Japanese feared that the Khalun-Arshan-Ganchzhur railway might come under targeted fire from the dominant sandy heights on the eastern shore of Khalkhin Gol. In this regard, it was decided to seize part of the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic east of the river. By owning this territory, it was possible to eliminate the threat to the strategic railway, as well as reduce the possibility of a strike in the rear by Japanese troops concentrated in the Hailar fortified area. It could also become a good springboard for military operations against the Mongolian People's Republic and the Soviet Union.
Given the tension of the situation and the threat of a military attack, the USSR took diplomatic and military measures. Back on March 12, 1936, the Soviet-Mongolian Protocol on Mutual Assistance was signed. In accordance with this agreement, units of the Red Army were sent to Mongolia, from which the 57th Special Corps was formed. The Soviet government officially declared that "the border of the Mongolian People's Republic, by virtue of the mutual assistance agreement concluded between us, we will defend as resolutely as our own."
By the summer of 1939, the Soviet troops in the Far East included the 1st Separate Red Banner Army under the command of 2nd Rank Army Commander G. M. Stern, the 2nd Separate Red Banner Army of Corps Commander I. S. Konev, the Transbaikal Military District (commander Corps commander F. N. Remizov). The operational subordination of the 1st Separate Red Banner Army was the Pacific Fleet, the 2nd Separate Red Banner Army was the Red Banner Amur Flotilla, and the Transbaikal Military District was the 57th Special Corps, stationed on the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic.
The construction of many defensive areas in the most threatened areas was completed. A new operational formation was created from aviation units and formations - the 2nd Air Army. Rifle and cavalry formations included tank battalions and mechanized regiments.
The Japanese command chose the eastern protrusion of the republic in the area of the river as the target of attack. Khalkhin Gol. Mastering this area would give the Japanese a number of advantages. The Khalkhin Gol River, 100–130 m wide and 2–3 m deep, has steep slopes, is swampy in many places, and in some places was difficult to access for military equipment. A few kilometers east of it stretches a ridge of heights. Along with this, there are many sand pits in the river valley. The river flows into Khalkhin Gol here. Khaylastyn-Gol, cutting the area of upcoming hostilities into two parts.
On the Manchu side, two railways came close to this area, and the nearest railway station for supplying Soviet and Mongolian troops, Borzya, was 750 km away. Steppe and deserted area east of the river. Khalkhin Gol was guarded only by separate border patrols; the outposts were located 20–30 km from the state border.
In May 1939, the Japanese military command brought about 38 thousand soldiers, 135 tanks and 225 aircraft to the intended combat area. Soviet-Mongolian troops defending east of the river. Khalkhin-Gol, on a front 75 km away, consisted of 12.5 thousand soldiers, 186 tanks, 266 armored vehicles and 82 aircraft. In terms of the number of personnel and aviation, the enemy was three times larger than the forces of the Soviet-Mongolian troops.
To substantiate their claims to the territory located on the right bank of Khalkhin Gol, Japanese cartographers fabricated false maps on which the state border ran along the river - more than 20 kilometers west of its true location.
On May 11, 1939, Japanese units attacked the outposts of the Mongolian People's Army east of the river. Khalkhin Gol in the lake area. Buir-Nur. The Mongol warriors were forced to retreat to the river. The fighting lasted here for ten days, but it did not bring any success to the Japanese.
The Soviet command took urgent measures to strengthen the leadership of troops in the area of the outbreak of hostilities. In early June, the deputy commander of the Belarusian Military District for cavalry, divisional commander G.K. Zhukov, was sent there. He came to the conclusion that “with the forces that the 57th Special Corps in the Mongolia had, it would be impossible to stop the Japanese military adventure...” The Soviet High Command immediately decided to strengthen the corps. G.K. Zhukov was appointed its commander. Soon, fresh units and units began to arrive to help the Soviet-Mongolian troops in the Khalkhin Gol area. New fighters (Chaika and I-16) were received to strengthen the aviation group.
On June 20, the commander of the Kwantung Army ordered the offensive of the Japanese-Manchurian troops in the Khalkhin Gol area. On June 30, the commander of the Japanese 23rd Division, Lieutenant General Kamatsubara, in turn, ordered the troops to go on the offensive. The plan of the Japanese command boiled down to the following: going on the offensive throughout the entire area, pinning down the Soviet units from the front, and then using a strike group to bypass the left flank of the defense and cross the river. Khalkhin Gol, occupy the dominant heights of Bain-Tsagan in this area and strike in the rear of the Soviet-Mongolian units.
On the night of July 3, Japanese troops went on the offensive. Having crossed Khalkhin Gol, they developed a strike in the direction of Mount Bain-Tsagan. The battle lasted three days, about 400 tanks and armored vehicles, more than 300 guns and several hundred aircraft took part on both sides. Part of the Japanese group moved to the left bank of the river. Khalkhin Gol. Mount Bayin-Tsagan was occupied.
The Soviet command sent motorized units to this area: the 11th tank brigade of brigade commander M.P. Yakovlev, the 24th motorized rifle regiment of Colonel I.I. Fedyuninsky. By 19:00 on July 3, the enemy was attacked from three sides. The battle continued at night and all day on July 4th. All attempts by the Japanese to launch a counterattack and transfer new units across the river were repulsed. By the morning of July 5, the Japanese retreated (or rather, they fled) to the crossing. Their strike force, pressed against the river, was completely defeated. The enemy lost almost all the tanks, a significant part of the artillery, 45 aircraft and about 10 thousand soldiers and. On July 8, the Japanese tried to take revenge for this defeat by going on the attack. After a bloody four-day battle, the Japanese troops, having lost another 5.5 thousand people killed and wounded, were forced to retreat.
Despite the Bain-Tsagan disaster, the Japanese still hoped to change the course of events in their favor. A “general offensive” was planned for August 1939. Over the course of a month, the Japanese command transferred new units and formations to the battle area. On August 10, the 6th Army was formed from them, led by General Ogisu Rippo. This army, located on an area of 70 km along the front and 20 km in depth, consisted of 75 thousand people, 500 guns, 182 tanks, and more than 300 aircraft.
In turn, the USSR decided to provide military assistance to the MPR in large sizes. By mid-August, the Soviet-Mongolian troops numbered about 57 thousand people, they were armed with 500 tanks, 385 armored vehicles, 542 guns and mortars, 2255 machine guns and 515 combat aircraft.
On July 15, 1939, the 1st Army Group was formed (the group commander was G.K. Zhukov, already a corps commander). The Mongolian troops operating in the battle area were led by Marshal X. Choibalsan.
Much work was done to organize the rear. Thousands of vehicles from the supply station, which was, as already mentioned, at a great distance, were delivered over a short time 18 thousand tons of artillery ammunition, 6500 tons of aviation ammunition, 15 thousand tons of fuels and lubricants, 7 thousand tons of fuel, 4 thousand tons of food.
The plan of the Soviet-Mongolian command was based on the following idea: having pinned down the forces of the Japanese troops from the front, launch a pre-emptive bilateral strike on the flanks in the general direction of Nomon-Khan - Burd-Obo, and then encircle and destroy the enemy between the river. Khalkhin Gol and the state border. To implement this plan, three groups of troops were created. The main blow was delivered by the southern group of Colonel M.I. Potapov, which consisted of two divisions, tank, motorized armored brigades and several tank battalions, and the auxiliary one was delivered by the northern group led by Colonel I.V. Shevnikov. The central group under the command of brigade commander D.E. Petrov was tasked with pinning down the enemy from the front.
Preparations for the operation were carried out in the strictest secrecy with extensive use of operational disguise and disinformation. The unit commanders were brought up to date only 3-4 days before the operation, and the Red Army soldiers - on the night of August 20, on the eve of the offensive. During the preparation, measures were taken to create an impression on the enemy about the intended wintering of our units: stakes were driven in, wire barriers were built, and false demands were broadcast over the radio for the sending of stakes, wire, and winter uniforms. Moreover, orders were transmitted using a code known to the Japanese.
The Japanese command expected to launch a “general offensive” on August 24, 1939. Having anticipated the enemy by four days, the Soviet-Mongolian troops launched a decisive offensive on the morning of August 20. More than 150 bombers and powerful artillery attacked the enemy’s battle formations and artillery positions. About 100 Soviet fighters provided protection from enemy air strikes for part of the strike forces of the Soviet-Mongolian forces concentrated in the initial areas for the offensive.
After powerful aviation and artillery preparation, which lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes, Soviet tanks moved into the attack. Following them, Soviet-Mongolian infantry and cavalry units rushed towards the enemy along the entire front.
The air and artillery strike of the Soviet-Mongolian troops turned out to be so powerful and sudden that the enemy did not fire a single artillery shot for an hour and a half, and the aviation did not make a single sortie.
While the troops of the central sector pinned down the main Japanese forces with frontal attacks, the southern and northern strike groups of the Soviet-Mongolian troops broke through the enemy defenses on the flanks and quickly began to encircle the enemy in deep envelopment. The Japanese command threw against the Soviet-Mongolian troops a large number of tanks, artillery and aviation. Under their cover, infantry and cavalry increasingly began to launch counterattacks. A fierce battle broke out along the entire front.
Despite the desperate resistance of the enemy, by the end of the first day serious success had been achieved on the outer flanks of the southern and northern groups, where cavalry formations of the Soviet-Mongolian troops defeated units of the Japanese-Manchu cavalry and captured the designated lines along the state border.
Having assessed the current situation, the commander of the 1st Army Group, G.K. Zhukov, decided to commit all reserve forces to the battle in the northern direction. The mobile group under the command of Colonel I.P. Alekseenko, having gone on the offensive, reached Nomon-Khan - Burd-Obo by the end of August 23 and the next day entered into fire contact with units of the southern group. Japanese troops were completely surrounded. Attempts by the Japanese command to break through the encirclement from the outside with attacks from fresh reserves were unsuccessful.
The Soviet-Mongolian command began the systematic destruction of the encircled Japanese troops. Simultaneously with the external front of the encirclement, which consisted mainly of motorized armored, cavalry, aviation and partly rifle troops, which went over to the defense along the border, an internal front was formed of rifle units that delivered converging blows to the enemy.
Finding themselves in a cauldron, the Japanese troops desperately resisted, but on August 31, the last pockets of their defense were eliminated. After the complete defeat of its ground force, the Japanese command attempted to defeat Soviet aviation. However, this plan also failed. During the first half of September 1939, Soviet pilots conducted a series of air battles in which 71 Japanese aircraft were destroyed. A large group of the Kwantung Army ceased to exist. On September 16, the Japanese government was forced to admit the defeat of its troops and asked for a cessation of hostilities. In the battles at Khalkhin Gol, the Japanese lost about 61 thousand killed, wounded and prisoners, 660 aircraft, and a significant amount of military equipment. The trophies of the Soviet-Mongolian troops included 12 thousand rifles, 200 guns, about 400 machine guns, and more than 100 vehicles. The entire Japanese command was forced to resign. The commander of the Kwantung Army, General Ueda, and the chief of staff of the army, General Mosigan, were removed.
In terms of scale and nature, the operation at Khalkhin Gol was the largest operation for that time by modern armies equipped with the latest military equipment. At Khalkhin Gol, modern tanks and aircraft were used on a mass scale for the first time. In some battles, the number of vehicles numbered in the hundreds, and at decisive moments of the battle up to 300 aircraft took to the air. The creation of an external and internal front to eliminate the encircled enemy was a new contribution to the further development of military art.
The defeat of Japanese troops at Khalkhin Gol basically confirmed the correctness of the views existing in Soviet military theory on the conduct of offensive operations, and in particular deep operations. The August operation showed that its successful implementation is inextricably linked with skillful maneuvering of troops, the use of counterattacks, gaining air superiority, isolating the combat area from suitable enemy reserves and disrupting his communications. At the same time, the experience of Khalkhin Gol allowed us to draw conclusions about the need to increase the density of artillery.
The battles at Khalkhin Gol once again confirmed the growing role of reserves in the war and their timely and skillful use at decisive moments of hostilities. The introduction of mobile reserves, carried out by the commander of the army group G.K. Zhukov, made it possible to significantly speed up the complete encirclement of the enemy.
More than 17 thousand soldiers, commanders and political workers were awarded government awards, 70 of them received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, among them the commander of the army group G. K. Zhukov; pilots Ya. V. Smushkevich, G. P. Kravchenko and S. I. Gritsevets became twice Heroes of the Soviet Union.
The battles at Khalkhin Gol (Mongolian Khalkhin golyn bailaan or Mongol Khalkhin golyn dain, Japanese ノモンハン事件 Nomon-khan jiken) - an undeclared local armed conflict that lasted from spring to autumn 1939 near the Khalkhin Gol River in Mongolia near borders with Manchukuo between the USSR, the Mongolian People's Republic on the one hand and the Japanese Empire and Manchukuo on the other. The final battle took place in late August and ended with the complete defeat of the 6th Separate Army of Japan. An armistice between the USSR and Japan was concluded on September 16, 1939.
In Soviet historiography, these events are usually called a “military conflict.” At the same time, many Japanese historians admit that this was a real local war, with some authors calling it the “Second Russian-Japanese war"- by analogy with the war of 1904-1905.
In Japanese historiography, the term “Khalkin Gol” is used only to name the river, and the military conflict itself is called the “Nomon Khan Incident”, after the name of one of the heights in this area of the Manchurian-Mongolian border.
Background to the conflict
In 1932, the occupation of Manchuria by Japanese troops ended. A puppet state of Manchukuo was created on the occupied territory, which was planned to be used as a springboard for further aggression against China, Mongolia and the USSR.
According to the Soviet side, the conflict began with the demands of the Japanese side to recognize the Khalkhin Gol River as the border between Manchukuo and Mongolia, although the border ran 20-25 km to the east. The main reason for this requirement was the desire to ensure the safety of the Halun-Arshan-Ganchzhur railway, which was being built by the Japanese in this area bypassing the Greater Khingan to the USSR border in the area of Irkutsk and Lake Baikal, since in some places the distance from the road to the border was only two or three kilometers. According to the Soviet historian M.V. Novikov, to substantiate their claims, Japanese cartographers fabricated false maps with the Khalkhin-Gol border and “issued a special order to destroy a number of authoritative Japanese reference publications, on the maps of which the correct border in the Khalkhin River area was given.” Gol,” but the Russian historian K. E. Cherevko points out that the administrative border along the Khalkhin Gol channel was marked on a map published on the basis of Russian topographic surveys of 1906 and on the physical map of Outer Mongolia by the General Staff of the Republic of China in 1918.
In 1935, clashes began on the Mongol-Manchurian border. In the summer of the same year, negotiations began between representatives of Mongolia and Manchukuo on border demarcation. By the fall, negotiations had reached a dead end.
On March 12, 1936, the “Protocol on Mutual Assistance” was signed between the USSR and the MPR. Since 1937, in accordance with this protocol, units of the Red Army were deployed on the territory of Mongolia in the form of the 57th Special Corps, which was successively commanded by division commanders I. S. Konev and N. V. Feklenko. By May 1939, the strength of the corps was 5,544 people, including 523 commanders and 996 junior commanders.
In the summer of 1938, a two-week conflict occurred between Soviet and Japanese troops near Lake Khasan, which ended in victory for the USSR.
In 1939, following the change of Japanese government in January, border tensions increased. The slogan of expanding the Japanese empire “all the way to Lake Baikal” began to be put forward. Attacks by Japanese troops on Mongolian border guards became more frequent. At the same time, Japan accused Mongolia of deliberately violating the borders of Manchuria.
Hostilities
Border provocations
On January 16, 1939, in the area of the Nomon-Khan-Burd-Obo height, a group of 5 Japanese soldiers fired at a detachment of four MPR border guards from a distance of about 500 meters.
On January 17, at the height of Nomon-Khan-Burd-Obo, 13 Japanese soldiers attacked a detachment of three MPR border guards, capturing the head of the outpost and wounding another soldier. On January 29 and 30, Japanese and Bargut cavalrymen made new attempts to capture the guard detachments of the MPR border guards. And in February and March, the Japanese and Barguts carried out about 30 attacks on the MPR border guards.
On the night of May 8, a group of Japanese up to a platoon with a light machine gun tried to secretly occupy an island belonging to the MPR in the middle of the Khalkhin Gol River, but after a short firefight with the border guards of the MPR, they retreated, losing 3 soldiers killed and one captured (Takazaki Ichiro from the reconnaissance detachment of the 23rd Infantry Division) .
On May 11, a detachment of Japanese cavalry (up to 300 people with several machine guns) advanced 15 km deep into the territory of the MPR and attacked the Mongolian border outpost at the height of Nomon-Khan-Burd-Obo. As reinforcements approached the border, the Japanese were pushed back to their original line.
On May 14, a reconnaissance detachment of the 23rd Japanese Infantry Division (300 horsemen supported by a flight of five light dive bombers) attacked the 7th border outpost of the MPR and occupied the heights of Dungur-Obo. On May 15, the Japanese transported up to 30 trucks with two infantry companies, 7 armored vehicles and 1 tank to the occupied heights.
On the morning of May 17, the commander of the 57th Special Rifle Corps, Divisional Commander N.V. Feklenko, sent a group of Soviet troops to Khalkhin Gol, consisting of three motorized rifle companies, a sapper company and an artillery battery of the Red Army. At the same time, a division of MPR armored vehicles was sent there. On May 22, Soviet troops crossed Khalkhin Gol and drove the Japanese back to the border.
During the period from May 22 to 28, significant forces are concentrated in the conflict area. The Soviet-Mongolian forces included 668 bayonets, 260 sabers, 58 machine guns, 20 guns and 39 armored vehicles. Japanese forces under the command of Colonel Yamagata consisted of 1,680 bayonets, 900 cavalry, 75 machine guns, 18 guns, 6-8 armored vehicles and 1 tank.
On May 28, Japanese troops, having numerical superiority, went on the offensive, with the goal of encircling the enemy and cutting them off from the crossing to the western bank of Khalkhin Gol. The Soviet-Mongolian troops retreated, but the encirclement plan failed largely due to the actions of the battery under the command of Senior Lieutenant Yu. B. Vakhtin.
The next day, Soviet-Mongolian troops carried out a counter-offensive, pushing the Japanese back to their original positions.
Although there was not a single collision on the ground in June, an air war has developed in the skies since May 22. The first clashes showed the advantage of Japanese aviators. So, in two days of fighting, the Soviet fighter regiment lost 15 fighters, while the Japanese side lost only one aircraft.
The Soviet command took radical measures. On May 29, a group of ace pilots headed by Deputy Chief of the Red Army Air Force Ya. V. Smushkevich flew from Moscow to the combat area. 17 of them were heroes of the Soviet Union, many had combat experience of the war in Spain and China. They began training pilots and reorganized and strengthened the air surveillance, warning and communications system.
To strengthen air defense, two divisions of the 191st anti-aircraft artillery regiment were sent to the Trans-Baikal Military District.
At the beginning of June, Feklenko was recalled to Moscow, and G.K. Zhukov was appointed in his place at the suggestion of the head of the operational department of the General Staff M.V. Zakharov. Brigade commander M.A. Bogdanov, who arrived with Zhukov, became the chief of staff of the corps. Soon after arriving in June in the area of military conflict, the chief of staff of the Soviet command proposed a new combat plan: conducting an active defense on the bridgehead beyond Khalkhin Gol and preparing a strong counterattack against the opposing group of the Japanese Kwantung Army. The People's Commissariat of Defense and the General Staff of the Red Army agreed with Bogdanov's proposals. The necessary forces began to gather in the area of combat operations: the troops were transported along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Ulan-Ude, and then through the territory of Mongolia they followed in marching order for 1300-1400 km. Corps Commissar J. Lkhagvasuren became Zhukov’s assistant in command of the Mongolian cavalry.
To coordinate the actions of Soviet troops in the Far East and units of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army, the commander of the 1st Separate Red Banner Army, commander of the 2nd rank G. M. Stern, arrived from Chita to the area of the Khalkhin Gol River.
Air battles resumed with renewed vigor on June 20. In the battles of June 22, 24 and 26, the Japanese lost more than 50 aircraft.
In the early morning of June 27, Japanese aviation managed to launch a surprise attack on Soviet airfields, which led to the destruction of 19 aircraft (the Japanese lost 2 bombers and 3 fighters).
Throughout June, the Soviet side was busy organizing defenses on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol and planning a decisive counteroffensive. To ensure air supremacy, new Soviet modernized I-16 and Chaika fighters were deployed here, which for the first time in the world used combat unguided air-to-air missiles, later used to create multiple launch rocket systems. Thus, as a result of the battle on June 22, which became widely known in Japan (in this battle, the famous Japanese ace pilot Takeo Fukuda, who became famous during the war in China, was shot down and captured), the superiority of Soviet aviation over Japanese aviation was ensured and it was possible to seize dominance in the air. In total, Japanese air forces lost 90 aircraft in air battles from June 22 to 28. The losses of Soviet aviation turned out to be much smaller - 38 aircraft.
At the same time, on June 26, the first official statement of the Soviet government was made regarding the events at Khalkhin Gol. The words “TASS is authorized to declare...” were heard on Soviet radio. News from the shores of Khalkhin Gol appeared on the pages of Soviet newspapers.
By the end of June, the headquarters of the Kwantung Army developed a plan for a new border operation called the “Second Period of the Nomonhan Incident.” In general terms, it was identical to the May operation of Japanese troops, but this time, in addition to the task of encircling and destroying Soviet troops on the eastern bank of the Khalkhin Gol River, Japanese troops were tasked with crossing the Khalkhin Gol River and breaking through the Red Army’s defenses on the operational sector of the front.
On July 2, the Japanese group went on the offensive. On the night of July 2-3, the troops of Major General Kobayashi crossed the Khalkhin Gol River and, after a fierce battle, captured Mount Bayan-Tsagan on its western bank, located 40 kilometers from the Manchurian border. Immediately after this, the Japanese concentrated their main forces here and began to extremely intensively build fortifications and build layered defenses. In the future, it was planned, relying on Mount Bayan-Tsagan, which dominated the area, to strike in the rear of the Soviet troops defending on the eastern bank of the Khalkhin-Gol River, cut off and subsequently destroy them.
Fierce fighting also began on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol. The Japanese, advancing with two infantry and two tank regiments (130 tanks) against one and a half thousand Red Army soldiers and two Mongolian cavalry divisions numbering 3.5 thousand cavalry, initially achieved success. The defending Soviet troops were rescued from a difficult situation by a mobile reserve created in advance by Zhukov, which was promptly put into action. Zhukov, without waiting for the approach of the infantry cover, threw into battle directly from the march the 11th tank brigade of brigade commander M.P. Yakovlev, which was in reserve (up to 150 tanks T-37A, BT-5, BT-7 and OT-26) and 8 1st Mongolian armored division, equipped with BA-6 armored vehicles with 45 mm cannons. Soon they were supported by the 7th motorized armored brigade (154 armored vehicles BA-6, BA-10, FAI). It should be noted that Zhukov in this situation, violating the requirements of the combat regulations of the Red Army, acted at his own peril and risk and contrary to the opinion of Army Commander Stern. To be fair, it is worth noting that Stern subsequently admitted that in that situation the decision made turned out to be the only possible one. However, this act of Zhukov had other consequences. Through the special department of the corps, a report was transmitted to Moscow, which fell on the desk of I.V. Stalin, that division commander Zhukov “deliberately” threw a tank brigade into battle without reconnaissance and infantry escort. An investigative commission was sent from Moscow, headed by Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, Army Commander 1st Rank G.I. Kulik. However, after conflicts between the commander of the 1st Army Group Zhukov and Kulik, who began to interfere in the operational control of troops, the USSR People's Commissar of Defense in a telegram dated July 15 reprimanded Kulik and recalled him to Moscow. After this, the head of the Main Command was sent to Khalkhin Gol from Moscow. political management Red Army Commissar 1st Rank Mehlis with instructions from L.P. Beria to “check” Zhukov.
Fierce fighting broke out around Mount Bayan-Tsagan. On both sides, up to 400 tanks and armored vehicles, more than 800 artillery pieces and hundreds of aircraft took part in them. Soviet artillerymen fired direct fire at the enemy, and at some points there were up to 300 aircraft on both sides in the sky above the mountain. The 149th Rifle Regiment of Major I.M. Remizov and the 24th Motorized Rifle Regiment of I.I. Fedyuninsky especially distinguished themselves in these battles.
On the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol, by the night of July 3, Soviet troops, due to the numerical superiority of the enemy, retreated to the river, reducing the size of their eastern bridgehead on its bank, but the Japanese strike force under the command of Lieutenant General Masaomi Yasuoki did not complete its task.
A group of Japanese troops on Mount Bayan-Tsagan found themselves semi-surrounded. By the evening of July 4, Japanese troops held only the top of Bayan-Tsagan - a narrow strip of terrain five kilometers long and two kilometers wide. On July 5, Japanese troops began to retreat towards the river. In order to force their soldiers to fight to the last, by order of the Japanese command, the only pontoon bridge across Khalkhin Gol at their disposal was blown up. In the end, Japanese troops at Mount Bayan-Tsagan began a wholesale retreat from their positions by the morning of July 5. According to some Russian historians, more than 10 thousand Japanese soldiers and officers died on the slopes of Mount Bayan-Tsagan, although according to the Japanese themselves, their total losses for the entire period of hostilities amounted to 8,632 people. killed. The Japanese side lost almost all their tanks and most of their artillery. These events became known as the “Bayan-Tsagan Massacre.”
The result of these battles was that in the future, as Zhukov later noted in his memoirs, Japanese troops “no longer dared to cross to the western bank of the Khalkhin Gol River.” All further events took place on the eastern bank of the river.
However, Japanese troops continued to remain on Mongolia, and the Japanese military leadership planned new offensive operations. Thus, the source of conflict in the Khalkhin Gol region remained. The situation dictated the need to restore the state border of Mongolia and radically resolve this border conflict. Therefore, Zhukov began to plan an offensive operation with the goal of completely defeating the entire Japanese group located on the territory of Mongolia.
July August
The 57th Special Corps was deployed to the 1st Army (Front) Group under the command of Army Commander G. M. Stern. In accordance with the resolution of the Main Military Council of the Red Army, for the leadership of the troops, the Military Council of the Army Group was established, consisting of: commander of the 2nd rank G. M. Stern, chief of staff brigade commander M. A. Bogdanov, aviation commander corps commander Y. V. Smushkevich, corps commander G.K. Zhukov, divisional commissar M.S. Nikishev.
New troops, including the 82nd Infantry Division, urgently began to be transferred to the site of the conflict. The 37th Tank Brigade, armed with BT-7 and BT-5 tanks, was transferred from the Moscow Military District; partial mobilization was carried out on the territory of the Trans-Baikal Military District and the 114th and 93rd Rifle Divisions were formed.
On July 8, the Japanese side again began active fighting. At night, they launched an offensive with large forces on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol against the position of the 149th Infantry Regiment and a battalion of a rifle-machine-gun brigade, which were completely unprepared for this Japanese attack. As a result of this Japanese attack, the 149th Regiment had to retreat to the river, maintaining a bridgehead of only 3-4 kilometers. At the same time, one artillery battery, a platoon of anti-tank guns and several machine guns were abandoned.
Despite the fact that the Japanese carried out this kind of sudden night attacks several more times in the future, and on July 11 they managed to capture the heights, as a result of a counterattack by Soviet tanks and infantry, led by the commander of the 11th Tank Brigade, brigade commander M.P. Yakovlev, were knocked out from above and thrown back to their original positions. The defense line on the eastern bank of Khalkhin Gol was completely restored.
From July 13 to July 22, there was a lull in the fighting, which both sides used to build up their forces. The Soviet side took vigorous measures to strengthen the bridgehead on the eastern bank of the river, which was required to carry out the offensive operation planned by the chief of staff Bogdanov against the Japanese group. The 24th motorized rifle regiment of I. I. Fedyuninsky and the 5th rifle and machine gun brigade were transferred to this bridgehead.
On July 23, the Japanese, after artillery preparation, began an attack on the right-bank bridgehead of the Soviet-Mongolian troops. However, after two days of fighting, having suffered significant losses, the Japanese had to retreat to their original positions. At the same time, intense air battles took place. From July 21 to July 26, the Japanese side lost 67 aircraft, the Soviet side only 20.
Significant efforts fell on the shoulders of the border guards. To cover the border of Mongolia and guard the crossings across Khalkhin Gol, a combined battalion of Soviet border guards was transferred from the Trans-Baikal Military District under the command of the chief of staff of the Kyakhta border detachment, Major A. Bulyga. In the second half of July alone, border guards detained 160 suspicious persons, among whom dozens of Japanese intelligence officers were identified.
During the development of the offensive operation against Japanese troops, proposals were put forward both at the headquarters of the army group and at the General Staff of the Red Army to transfer combat operations from Mongolia to Manchurian territory, but these proposals were categorically rejected by the country's political leadership. Marshal of the Soviet Union M.V. Zakharov later recalled one of Stalin’s statements on this matter:
“You want to start a big war in Mongolia. The enemy will respond to your detours with additional forces. The focus of the struggle will inevitably expand and become protracted, and we will be drawn into a long war.”
As a result of the work carried out by both sides of the conflict, by the beginning of the Soviet counter-offensive, Zhukov’s 1st army group consisted of about 57 thousand people, 542 guns and mortars, 498 tanks, 385 armored vehicles and 515 combat aircraft, the Japanese group opposing it was specially formed by imperial decree the Japanese 6th separate army under the command of General Ryuhei Ogisu (Japanese), consisted of the 7th and 23rd infantry divisions, a separate infantry brigade, seven artillery regiments, two tank regiments of the Manchu brigade, three regiments of the Bargut cavalry, two engineering regiments and other units, which in total amounted to more than 75 thousand people, 500 artillery pieces, 182 tanks, 700 aircraft. It should be noted that most of the soldiers in the Japanese group had combat experience of the war in China.
General Ogisu and his staff also planned an offensive, which was scheduled for 24 August. Moreover, taking into account the sad experience of the battles on Mount Bayan-Tsagan for the Japanese, this time the enveloping strike was planned on the right flank of the Soviet group. Crossing the river was not planned.
During Zhukov’s preparation for the offensive operation of the Soviet and Mongolian troops, a plan for operational-tactical deception of the enemy was carefully developed and strictly followed. All troop movements in the front-line zone were carried out only in the dark, it was strictly forbidden to send troops into the initial areas for the offensive, reconnaissance on the ground by command personnel was carried out only in trucks and in the uniform of ordinary Red Army soldiers. To mislead the enemy in the early period of preparation for the offensive, the Soviet side at night, using sound installations, imitated the noise of the movement of tanks and armored vehicles, aircraft and engineering work. Soon the Japanese got tired of reacting to sources of noise, so during the actual regrouping of Soviet troops, their opposition was minimal. Also, throughout the preparation for the offensive, the Soviet side carried out active electronic warfare with the enemy. Knowing that the Japanese were conducting active radio reconnaissance and listening to telephone conversations, a program of false radio and telephone messages was developed in order to misinform the enemy. Negotiations were conducted only on the construction of defensive structures and preparations for the autumn-winter campaign. Radio traffic in these cases was based on an easily decipherable code.
Despite the overall superiority in the forces of the Japanese side, by the beginning of the offensive Stern managed to achieve almost three times superiority in tanks and 1.7 times in aircraft. To carry out the offensive operation, two-week reserves of ammunition, food and fuel and lubricants were created. More than 4 thousand trucks and 375 tank trucks were used to transport goods over a distance of 1300-1400 kilometers. It should be noted that one road trip with cargo and back lasted five days.
During the offensive operation, Zhukov, using maneuverable mechanized and tank units, planned to encircle and destroy the enemy in the area between the state border of the MPR and the Khalkhin Gol River with unexpected strong flank attacks. At Khalkhin Gol, for the first time in world military practice, tank and mechanized units were used to solve operational problems as the main striking force of flank groups maneuvering to encircle.
The advancing troops were divided into three groups - Southern, Northern and Central. The main blow was delivered by the Southern group under the command of Colonel M. I. Potapov, an auxiliary blow by the Northern group, commanded by Colonel I. P. Alekseenko. The central group under the command of brigade commander D.E. Petrov was supposed to pin down enemy forces in the center, on the front line, thereby depriving them of the ability to maneuver. The reserve, concentrated in the center, included the 212th airborne, 9th motorized armored brigades and a tank battalion. Mongolian troops also took part in the operation - the 6th and 8th cavalry divisions under general command Marshal X. Choibalsan.
The offensive of the Soviet-Mongolian troops began on August 20, thereby preempting the offensive of the Japanese troops, scheduled for August 24.
The balance of forces of the parties before the start of the offensive
the total number of Soviet and Mongolian troops was 35 infantry battalions, 20 cavalry squadrons, 216 field and 286 anti-tank guns, 40 mortars, 2255 heavy and light machine guns, 498 tanks, 346 armored vehicles, 581 aircraft;
The total number of Japanese troops was 25 infantry battalions, 17 cavalry squadrons, 135 field and 142 anti-tank guns, 60 mortars and bomb throwers, 1238 heavy and light machine guns, 120 tanks and armored vehicles, 450 aircraft.
The offensive of the Soviet-Mongolian troops, which began on August 20, turned out to be a complete surprise for the Japanese command.
At 6:15 a.m., powerful artillery preparation and air raids on enemy positions began. 153 bombers and about 100 fighters were launched into the air. At 9 o'clock the offensive of the ground forces began. On the first day of the offensive, the attacking troops acted in full accordance with the plans, with the exception of a hitch that occurred when crossing the tanks of the 6th Tank Brigade, since when crossing Khalkhin Gol, the pontoon bridge built by the sappers could not withstand the weight of the tanks.
The enemy offered the most stubborn resistance on the central sector of the front, where the Japanese had well-equipped engineering fortifications. Here the attackers managed to advance only 500-1000 meters in a day.
Already on August 21 and 22, the Japanese troops, having come to their senses, fought stubborn defensive battles, so Zhukov had to bring the reserve 9th motorized armored brigade into the battle.
Worked well at this time and Soviet aviation. On August 24 and 25 alone, SB bombers made 218 combat group sorties and dropped about 96 tons of bombs on the enemy. During these two days, fighters shot down about 70 Japanese planes in air battles.
In general, it should be noted that the command of the Japanese 6th Army on the first day of the offensive was unable to determine the direction of the main attack of the advancing troops and did not attempt to provide support to its troops defending on the flanks. By the end of August 26, the armored and mechanized troops of the Southern and Northern groups of Soviet-Mongolian forces had united and completed the complete encirclement of the Japanese 6th Army. After this, it began to be crushed by cutting blows and destroyed in parts.
In general, Japanese soldiers, mostly infantrymen, as Zhukov later noted in his memoirs, fought extremely fiercely and extremely stubbornly, to the last man. Often Japanese dugouts and bunkers were captured only when there was no longer a single living Japanese soldier there. As a result of the stubborn resistance of the Japanese, on August 23 on the Central sector of the front, Zhukov even had to bring his last reserve into battle: the 212th airborne brigade and two companies of border guards. At the same time, he took a considerable risk, since the commander’s closest reserve - the Mongolian armored brigade - was located in Tamtsak-Bulak, 120 kilometers from the front.
Repeated attempts by the Japanese command to carry out counterattacks and release the group encircled in the Khalkhin Gol area ended in failure. On August 24, the regiments of the 14th Infantry Brigade of the Kwantung Army, which approached the Mongolian border from Hailar, entered into battle with the 80th Infantry Regiment covering the border, but neither that day nor the next were able to break through and retreated to the territory of Manchukuo . After the battles of August 24-26, the command of the Kwantung Army, until the very end of the operation on Khalkhin Gol, no longer attempted to release its encircled troops, having accepted the inevitability of their death.
The Red Army captured 100 vehicles, 30 heavy and 145 field guns, 42 thousand shells, 115 heavy and 225 light machine guns, 12 thousand rifles and about 2 million rounds of ammunition, and much other military equipment as trophies.
The last battles continued on August 29 and 30 in the area north of the Khaylastyn-Gol River. By the morning of August 31, the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic was completely cleared of Japanese troops. However, this was not yet the complete end of hostilities.
On the morning of September 4, two battalions of Japanese infantry tried to occupy the heights of Eris-Ulyn-Obo, but were thrown back beyond the state border, losing up to 350 soldiers and officers. On the night of September 8, in the same area, Japanese troops made a new attempt to penetrate into Mongolia with up to four infantry companies, but were again repulsed with heavy losses. In total, in these attacks the enemy lost up to 500 military personnel killed, 18 machine guns and more than 150 rifles were captured.
After September 8, the Japanese command did not take action with ground troops, but air battles continued. In the first half of September, 7 air battles took place in the skies over the territory of the MPR. The largest one - 120 Japanese planes against 207 Soviet ones - took place on September 15, the day the armistice was signed. On September 16, hostilities on the border ceased.
In total, during the conflict, the USSR lost 207 aircraft, Japan - 162.
During the fighting near the Khalkhin Gol River, Soviet troops actively used artillery: according to incomplete data (the results of the shelling of a number of objects in the adjacent territory were not established), 133 artillery pieces were destroyed by artillery fire (six 105-mm guns, 55 pieces of 75- mm guns, 69 small-caliber and three anti-aircraft guns), 49 mortars, 117 machine guns, 47 artillery, 21 mortar and 30 machine gun batteries were suppressed, 40 tanks and 29 armored vehicles were destroyed, 21 observation posts, 55 dugouts, 2 fuel warehouses and 2 warehouses with ammunition.
Through its ambassador in Moscow, Shigenori Togo, the Japanese government appealed to the USSR government with a request to cease hostilities on the Mongolian-Manchurian border. On September 15, 1939, an agreement was signed between the Soviet Union, the Mongolian People's Republic and Japan on the cessation of hostilities in the area of the Khalkhin Gol River, which came into force the next day.
The conflict ended in May 1942 with the signing of a final settlement agreement. Moreover, it was a compromise settlement, largely in favor of the Japanese, based on the old map. For the Red Army, which was suffering defeats on the Soviet-German front, a rather difficult situation arose at that time. Therefore, the settlement was pro-Japanese. But it only lasted until 1945, before Japan's surrender in World War II.
The victory of the USSR and the MPR at Khalkhin Gol was one of the reasons for the refusal of Japan to attack the USSR during the Great Patriotic War. Immediately after the start of the war, the Japanese General Staff, taking into account, among other things, the experience of Khalkhin Gol, decided to enter the war against the USSR only if Moscow fell before the end of August. In response to Hitler's demand in a telegram dated June 30 to immediately fulfill his allied obligations and strike the USSR from the east, at a meeting of the Council of Ministers on July 2, the final decision was made to wait until Germany was sure to win.
In Japan, the defeat and the simultaneous (August 23) signing of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact led to a government crisis and the resignation of the cabinet of Hiranuma Kiichiro. The new Japanese government announced on September 4 that it did not intend to interfere in any form in the conflict in Europe, and on September 15 it signed an armistice agreement, which led to the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact on April 13, 1941. In the traditional confrontation between the Japanese army and navy, the “maritime party” won, defending the idea of cautious expansion in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. The German military leadership, having studied the experience of the Japanese wars in China and Khalkhin Gol, rated Japan’s military capabilities very low and did not recommend that Hitler commit himself to an alliance with it.
The fighting on the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic coincided with negotiations between Japanese Foreign Minister Hachiro Arita and the British Ambassador in Tokyo Robert Craigie. In July 1939, an agreement was concluded between England and Japan, according to which Great Britain recognized the Japanese seizures in China (thus providing diplomatic support for aggression against the Mongolian People's Republic and its ally, the USSR). At the same time, the US government extended the trade agreement with Japan, denounced on January 26, for six months, and then fully restored it. As part of the agreement, Japan purchased trucks for the Kwantung Army, machine tools for aircraft factories for $3 million, strategic materials (until 10/16/1940 - steel and iron scrap, until 07/26/1941 - gasoline and petroleum products), etc. A new embargo was imposed only on July 26 1941. However, the official position of the US government did not mean a complete cessation of trade. Goods and even strategic raw materials continued to flow into Japan until the outbreak of war with the United States.
The events at Khalkhin Gol also became important element propaganda in the USSR. Its essence boiled down to the idea of the invincibility of the Red Army in a future war. Participants in the tragic events of the summer of 1941 many times noted the harm of excessive optimism on the eve of a major war.
The impact of the Khalkhin-Gol campaign on the Sino-Japanese War is poorly understood.
"Golden Star"
On August 1, 1939, at the height of hostilities, an additional insignia was established to the highest degree of distinction of the USSR, the title “Hero of the Soviet Union” - the “Hero of the Soviet Union” medal, renamed in October of the same year into the “Gold Star” medal. The title was established in 1934, but no special insignia were provided.
The fate of the winners
70 servicemen were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, 83 were awarded the Order of Lenin, 595 - the Order of the Red Banner, 134 - the Order of the Red Star, 33 - the medal "For Courage", 58 - the medal "For Military Merit". The commissar of the 8th motorized brigade, Alexander Nikolaevich Moskovsky, was forever included in the lists of personnel of the military unit; on August 28, 1939, he led a night counterattack of a rifle company against a Japanese battalion and died in battle (as a result of a successful counterattack, the Japanese battalion was thrown back, losing over 170 soldiers killed and failed to break through the encirclement).
The government of the Mongolian People's Republic established Chest sign“Participant in the battles of Khalkhin Gol,” which was awarded to distinguished Soviet and Mongolian military personnel.
Khalkhin Gol became the beginning of the military career of G.K. Zhukov. The previously unknown corps commander, after the victory over the Japanese, headed the country's largest Kiev Military District, and then became the chief of the General Staff of the Red Army.
The aviation commander of the 1st Army Group, Ya. V. Smushkevich, and Army Commander G. M. Stern were awarded Gold Star medals for the battles at Khalkhin Gol. After the end of the conflict, Smushkevich was appointed head of the Red Army Air Force; Stern commanded the 8th Army during the Soviet-Finnish War.
The chief of staff of the 1st Army Group, brigade commander M.A. Bogdanov, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on November 17, 1939. At the end of hostilities in September 1939, by order of the USSR NKO, he was appointed deputy commander of the 1st Army Group (Ulaanbaatar). In the same month, by Decree of the Government of the USSR, he was appointed chairman of the Soviet-Mongolian delegation to the Mixed Commission to resolve controversial issues regarding the state border between the Mongolian People's Republic and Manchuria in the conflict area. At the end of the negotiations, as a result of provocation on the Japanese side, Bogdanov made a “gross mistake that damaged the prestige of the USSR,” for which he was put on trial. On March 1, 1940, he was convicted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR under Art. 193-17 paragraph “a” for 4 years of labor camp. By a resolution of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of August 23, 1941, he was amnestied with his criminal record expunged and placed at the disposal of NGOs of the USSR. He ended the Great Patriotic War as a division commander and with the rank of major general.
Combat losses of the parties
According to official Soviet data, the losses of the Japanese-Manchurian troops during the battles from May to September 1939 amounted to more than 61 thousand people. killed, wounded and captured (of which about 20 thousand were Japanese losses). The Soviet-Mongolian troops lost 9831 Soviet (together with the wounded - more than 17 thousand) and 895 Mongolian soldiers.
Reflection in literature and art
The events at Khalkhin Gol were reflected in Soviet and world literature and art. Novels, poems and songs were written about them, and articles were published in newspapers.
K. M. Simonov - novel “Comrades in Arms”, poem “Far in the East”, poem “Tank”.
F. Bokarev - poem “Memory of Khalkhin Gol”
H. Murakami - novel “The Chronicles of the Wind-Up Bird” (a long story by Lieutenant Mamiya).
In cinema
“Khalkin Gol” (1940) - documentary film, TsSDF.
“Listen, on the other side” (1971) - Soviet-Mongolian feature film dedicated to the battles at Khalkhin Gol.
“I, Shapovalov T. P.” (1973, directed by E. E. Karelov) - the first part of the “High Rank” duology, an episode in the film.
“On the Roads of the Fathers” (2004) - a television film by Irkutsk television journalist Natalya Volina, dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the end of the battles on the Khalkhin Gol River and the Soviet-Mongolian expedition to places of military glory.
"Khalkin-Gol. The Unknown War" (2008) - a documentary film dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the victory on the Khalkhin Gol River. The film uses a large amount of chronicles, as well as comments from veteran participants in those events and historians.
“Historical Chronicles with Nikolai Svanidze” 1939
Volunteers
My Way (film, 2011) (Korean: 마이웨이) is a Korean film directed by Kang Jaegyu, released in 2011. The film is based on the story of Korean Yang Kyungjong and Japanese Tatsuo Hasegawa, captured by the Red Army at Khalkhin Gol.
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