The Soviet-Japanese War of 1945 was the main component of the last period of World War II and a special campaign of the Great Patriotic War Soviet Union 1941-45.
Even at the Tehran Conference in 1943, the heads of government of the USSR, USA and
In Great Britain, the Soviet delegation, meeting the proposals of the allies and striving to strengthen the anti-Hitler coalition, agreed in principle to enter the war against militaristic Japan after the defeat of Nazi Germany.
At the Crimean Conference of 1945, US President F. Roosevelt and W. Churchill, not hoping for a quick victory over Japan, again turned to the Soviet government with a request to enter the war in Far East. True to its allied duty, the Soviet government promised to oppose Japan after the end of the war with Nazi Germany.
On February 11, 1945, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill signed a secret agreement, which provided for the USSR's entry into the war in the Far East 2-3 months after the surrender of Germany.
On April 5, 1945, the Soviet government denounced the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, signed on April 13, 1941. The statement on the reasons for the denunciation said that the pact was signed "... before the German attack on the USSR and before the outbreak of war between Japan, on the one hand, and England and the United States of America, on the other. Since then, the situation has changed radically. Germany attacked the USSR, and Japan, an ally of Germany, helps the latter in its war against the USSR. In addition, Japan is at war with the USA and England, which are allies of the Soviet Union. In this situation, the Neutrality Pact between Japan and the USSR has lost its meaning.
Difficult relations between the USSR and Japan had a long history. They began after Japan's participation in the intervention in the Soviet Far East in 1918 and its capture until 1922, when Japan was expelled from its territory. But the danger of war with Japan existed for many years, especially since the second half of the 1930s. In 1938, famous clashes took place on Lake Khasan, and in 1939, the Soviet-Japanese battle on the Khalkhin Gol River on the border of Mongolia and Manchukuo. In 1940, the Soviet Far Eastern Front was created, which indicated a real risk of war.
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria and later Northern China turned the Soviet Far East into a zone of constant tension. Continuous conflicts kept the entire population and especially the troops in anticipation of war. Every day they expected real battles - in the evening no one knew what would happen in the morning.
They hated the Japanese: every Far Easterner, young and old, knew, as they wrote in books and newspapers then, that it was they who threw the partisan Lazo and his comrades alive into the furnace of a steam locomotive. Although at that time the world did not yet know what the secret Japanese “731st detachment” was doing with the Russians in Harbin before the war.
As is known, the Soviet Union had to initial period war with Germany, maintain a significant contingent of its troops in the Far East, part of which was sent to the defense of Moscow at the end of 1941. The transferred divisions played an important role in the defense of the capital and the defeat of German troops. The redeployment of troops was facilitated by the US entry into the war with Japan after its attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.
It is very important to note that Japan is stuck in a war with China, in which, by the way, it lost 35 million people. This figure, which our media began to print quite recently, speaks of the unusually cruel nature of the war for China, which, in general, is characteristic of the Asian mentality.
It is this circumstance that explains Japan’s non-entry into the war against the USSR, and not the reports of our intelligence officer Richard Sorge (who, most likely, was a double agent, which does not detract from his merits). I believe that this is why Sorge, of course a great intelligence officer, did not carry out the order Moscow about returning to the Union, where he would have been shot much earlier before his execution in a Japanese dungeon.
It must be said that the Soviet Union, long before 1945, began to prepare for a battle with Japan, which was explained by the increased power of the army and the skill of its headquarters. Already from the end of 1943, part of the replenishment of the Soviet army arrived in the Far East to replace those who had served here previously and had good military training. Throughout 1944, the newly formed troops, through continuous exercises, prepared for future battles.
The troops of the Soviet Union, who were in the Far East throughout the war with Germany, rightly believed that their time had come to stand up for their Motherland, and they must not lose their honor. The hour of reckoning with Japan has come for the unsuccessful Russian-Japanese War at the beginning of the century, for the loss of its territories, Port Arthur and the Russian ships of the Pacific Fleet.
From the beginning of 1945, troops released on the Western Front began to arrive in the Far East. The first trains from the Soviet-German front in 1945 began to arrive in March, then month after month the intensity of traffic increased and by July it reached its maximum. From the moment it became clear that our troops would advance to punish, as they then called, “militaristic” Japan, the army lived in anticipation of retribution for years of Japanese threats, provocations and attacks.
Troops transferred from the West to the Eastern theater of operations had good technique, honed by years of brutal battles, but, most importantly, the Soviet army went through school great war, a school of fighting near Moscow and Kursk, a school of street fighting in Stalingrad, Budapest and Berlin, storming the fortifications of Koenigsberg, crossing large and small rivers. The troops gained invaluable experience, or rather, experience paid for by the millions of lives of our soldiers and commanders. Air battles Soviet aviation over the Kuban and in other military operations showed the increased experience of the Soviet army.
At the end of the war with Germany, this was the experience of the victors, capable of solving any problems, regardless of any of their losses. The whole world knew this, and the Japanese military leadership understood this.
In March-April 1945, the Soviet Union sent an additional 400 thousand people to the troops of its Far Eastern group, bringing the number of the group to 1.5 million people, 670 T-34 tanks (and a total of 2119 tanks and self-propelled guns), 7137 guns and mortars and many other military equipment . Together with the troops stationed in the Far East, the regrouped formations and units formed three fronts.
At the same time, in units and formations of the Japanese Kwantung Army opposing Soviet troops in Manchuria, where the main fighting, there were absolutely no machine guns, anti-tank rifles, rocket artillery, there was little RGK and large-caliber artillery (infantry divisions and brigades as part of artillery regiments and divisions in most cases had only 75-mm guns).
The concept of this operation, the largest in scope in World War II, provided for military operations over an area of about 1.5 million square kilometers, as well as in the waters of the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk.
The Soviet-Japanese war had a huge political and military significance. So on August 9, 1945, at an emergency meeting Supreme Council On the leadership of the war, Japanese Prime Minister Suzuki said: “The entry of the Soviet Union into the war this morning puts us in a completely hopeless situation and makes it impossible to continue the war further.”
The Soviet Army defeated the strong Kwantung Army of Japan. The Soviet Union, having entered the war with the Japanese Empire and, having made a significant contribution to its defeat, accelerated the end of World War II. American leaders and historians have repeatedly stated that without the USSR entering the war, it would have lasted at least another year and would have cost several additional millions human lives.
The commander-in-chief of the American armed forces in the Pacific, General MacArthur, believed that “Victory over Japan can only be guaranteed if Japanese ground forces are defeated.” US Secretary of State E. Stettinius stated the following:
“On the eve of the Crimean Conference, the American chiefs of staff convinced President Roosevelt that Japan could capitulate only in 1947 or later, and its defeat could cost America a million soldiers.”
Today the experience of the Soviet army, which carried out this military operation, is studied in all military academies around the world.
As a result of the war, the USSR returned to its composition the territories annexed by Japan from the Russian Empire at the end of Russo-Japanese War 1904 - 1905 following the results of the Portsmouth Peace (southern Sakhalin and, temporarily, Kwantung with Port Arthur and Dalny), as well as the main group of the Kuril Islands previously ceded to Japan in 1875 and the southern part of the Kuril Islands assigned to Japan by the Shimoda Treaty of 1855.
The military actions against Japan showed an example of interaction between several countries, primarily: the USSR, the USA and China.
Today's relations between Russia, the heir and legal successor state of the USSR, and Japan are complicated by the absence of a peace treaty between our countries. Modern Japan does not want to recognize the results of World War II and demands the return of the entire southern group of the Kuril Islands, received by Russia, as an indisputable result of victory, paid for with the lives of Soviet heroic warriors.
We see a rapprochement in the positions of our countries in the joint development of disputed territories.
* * *
Separately, we should dwell on our losses in this little-remembered war. According to various sources Soviet troops lost more than 30 thousand people, including 14 thousand dead. Against the backdrop of the victims and destruction that the country suffered in the war with the Germans, this seems to be not much.
But I would like to remind you that as a result of the Japanese attack on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, on the central base of the Pacific Fleet of the US Navy, the Americans lost 2,403 people killed and 1,178 wounded (on this day the Japanese sunk 4 battleships, 2 destroyers of the American fleet, several ships received severe damage).
The United States celebrates this day as the National Day of Remembrance for those killed at Pearl Harbor.
Unfortunately, the Soviet-Japanese War, the grandiose battle of World War II, despite its uniqueness and scale, still remains little known and little studied by historians in Russia. The date of signing the surrender of Japan is not customary to celebrate in the country.
In our country, no one commemorates those who died in this war, because someone decided that these numbers were small compared to the incalculable losses on the Soviet-German front.
And this is wrong, we must value every citizen of our country and remember everyone who gave their lives for our beloved Motherland!
Ilya Kramnik, military observer for RIA Novosti.
The war between the USSR and Japan in 1945, which became the last major campaign of the Second World War, lasted less than a month - from August 9 to September 2, 1945, but this month became key in the history of the Far East and the entire Asia-Pacific region, ending and, conversely, initiating many historical processes lasting decades.
Background
The preconditions for the Soviet-Japanese War arose exactly on the day when the Russian-Japanese War ended - on the day the Portsmouth Peace was signed on September 5, 1905. Russia's territorial losses were insignificant - the Liaodong Peninsula leased from China and the southern part of Sakhalin Island. Much more significant was the loss of influence in the world as a whole and in the Far East, in particular caused by the unsuccessful war on land and the death of most of the fleet at sea. The feeling of national humiliation was also very strong.
Japan became the dominant Far Eastern power; it exploited marine resources practically uncontrollably, including in Russian territorial waters, where it carried out predatory fishing, crab fishing, sea animals, etc.
This situation intensified during the revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Civil War, when Japan actually occupied the Russian Far East for several years, and left the region with great reluctance under pressure from the United States and Great Britain, who feared the excessive strengthening of yesterday’s ally in the First World War.
At the same time, there was a process of strengthening Japan’s position in China, which was also weakened and fragmented. The reverse process that began in the 1920s - the strengthening of the USSR, which was recovering from military and revolutionary upheavals - quite quickly led to the development of relations between Tokyo and Moscow that could easily be described as “ cold war" The Far East has long become an arena of military confrontation and local conflicts. By the end of the 1930s, tensions reached a peak, and this period was marked by the two largest clashes of this period between the USSR and Japan - the conflict on Lake Khasan in 1938 and on the Khalkhin Gol River in 1939.
Fragile neutrality
Having suffered quite serious losses and being convinced of the power of the Red Army, Japan chose on April 13, 1941 to conclude a neutrality pact with the USSR and give itself a free hand for the war in the Pacific Ocean.
The Soviet Union also needed this pact. At that time, it became obvious that the “naval lobby,” which was pushing the southern direction of the war, was playing an increasingly important role in Japanese policy. The army's position, on the other hand, was weakened by disappointing defeats. The likelihood of war with Japan was not assessed very highly, while the conflict with Germany was getting closer every day.
For Germany itself, Japan’s partner in the Anti-Comintern Pact, which saw Japan as its main ally and future partner in the New World Order, the agreement between Moscow and Tokyo was a serious slap in the face, and caused complications in relations between Berlin and Tokyo. Tokyo, however, pointed out to the Germans that there was a similar neutrality pact between Moscow and Berlin.
The two main aggressors of World War II could not agree, and each waged their own main war - Germany against the USSR in Europe, Japan against the USA and Great Britain in the Pacific Ocean. At the same time, Germany declared war on the United States on the day of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, but Japan did not declare war on the USSR, as the Germans hoped for.
However, relations between the USSR and Japan could hardly be called good - Japan constantly violated the signed pact, detaining Soviet ships at sea, periodically allowing attacks on Soviet military and civilian ships, violating the border on land, etc.
It was obvious that for neither side the signed document was valuable for any long period of time, and war was only a matter of time. However, since 1942, the situation gradually began to change: the turning point in the war forced Japan to abandon long-term plans for a war against the USSR, and at the same time, the Soviet Union began to more and more carefully consider plans for the return of territories lost during the Russo-Japanese War.
By 1945, when the situation became critical, Japan tried to start negotiations with the Western allies, using the USSR as a mediator, but this did not bring success.
During the Yalta Conference, the USSR announced a commitment to start a war against Japan within 2-3 months after the end of the war against Germany. The intervention of the USSR was seen by the allies as necessary: the defeat of Japan required the defeat of its ground forces, which for the most part had not yet been affected by the war, and the allies feared that a landing on the Japanese islands would cost them great casualties.
Japan, with the neutrality of the USSR, could count on the continuation of the war and the reinforcement of the forces of the metropolis at the expense of resources and troops stationed in Manchuria and Korea, communications with which continued, despite all attempts to interrupt it.
The declaration of war by the Soviet Union finally destroyed these hopes. On August 9, 1945, speaking at an emergency meeting of the Supreme Council for War Direction, Japanese Prime Minister Suzuki stated:
“The entry of the Soviet Union into the war this morning puts us completely in a hopeless situation and makes it impossible to continue the war further.”
It should be noted that nuclear bombing in this case became only an additional reason for a speedy exit from the war, but not main reason. Suffice it to say that the massive bombing of Tokyo in the spring of 1945, which resulted in approximately the same number of casualties as Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, did not lead Japan to thoughts of surrender. And only the entry of the USSR into the war against the backdrop of nuclear bombings forced the leadership of the Empire to admit the pointlessness of continuing the war.
"August Storm"
The war itself, which in the West was nicknamed the “August Storm,” was swift. Having extensive experience in combat against the Germans, Soviet troops broke through the Japanese defenses with a series of quick and decisive strikes and began an offensive deep into Manchuria. Tank units successfully advanced in seemingly unsuitable conditions - through the sands of the Gobi and the Khingan ridges, but the military machine, fine-tuned over four years of war with the most formidable enemy, practically did not fail.
As a result, by August 17, the 6th Guards Tank Army had advanced several hundred kilometers - and about one hundred and fifty kilometers remained to the capital of Manchuria, the city of Xinjing. By this time, the First Far Eastern Front had broken the Japanese resistance in eastern Manchuria, occupying The largest city in that region - Mudanjiang. In a number of areas deep in the defense, Soviet troops had to overcome fierce enemy resistance. In the zone of the 5th Army, it was exerted with particular force in the Mudanjiang region. There were cases of stubborn enemy resistance in the zones of the Transbaikal and 2nd Far Eastern fronts. The Japanese army also launched repeated counterattacks. On August 17, 1945, in Mukden, Soviet troops captured the Emperor of Manchukuo, Pu Yi (formerly the last Emperor of China).
On August 14, the Japanese command made a proposal to conclude a truce. But virtually military operations on the Japanese side did not stop. Only three days later the Kwantung Army received an order from its command to surrender, which began on August 20. But it did not reach everyone right away, and in some places the Japanese acted contrary to orders.
On August 18, the Kuril landing operation was launched, during which Soviet troops occupied Kurile Islands. On the same day, August 18, the commander-in-chief of Soviet troops in the Far East, Marshal Vasilevsky, gave the order to occupy the Japanese island of Hokkaido with the forces of two rifle divisions. This landing was not carried out due to the delay in the advance of Soviet troops in South Sakhalin, and was then postponed until instructions from Headquarters.
Soviet troops occupied the southern part of Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Manchuria and part of Korea. The main fighting on the continent lasted 12 days, until August 20. However, individual battles continued until September 10, which became the day the complete surrender and capture of the Kwantung Army ended. The fighting on the islands completely ended on September 5.
The Japanese surrender was signed on September 2, 1945, aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
As a result, the million-strong Kwantung Army was completely destroyed. According to Soviet data, its losses in killed amounted to 84 thousand people, about 600 thousand were captured. The irretrievable losses of the Red Army amounted to 12 thousand people.
As a result of the war, the USSR actually returned to its territory the territories lost by Russia earlier (southern Sakhalin and, temporarily, Kwantung with Port Arthur and Dalny, later transferred to China), as well as the Kuril Islands, the ownership of the southern part of which is still disputed by Japan.
According to the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan renounced any claims to Sakhalin (Karafuto) and the Kuril Islands (Chishima Retto). But the agreement did not determine the ownership of the islands and the USSR did not sign it.
Negotiations on the southern part of the Kuril Islands are still ongoing, and there are no prospects for a quick resolution of the issue.
In February 1945, a conference was held in Yalta, at which representatives of the countries that were part of Great Britain and the United States were present and managed to obtain consent from the Soviet Union to take direct part in the war with Japan. In exchange for this, they promised him to return the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin, lost during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.
At the time the decision was made in Yalta, the so-called Neutrality Pact was in force between Japan and the Soviet Union, which was concluded back in 1941 and was supposed to be valid for 5 years. But already in April 1945, the USSR announced that it was terminating the agreement unilaterally. Russo-Japanese War (1945), the reasons for which were that the Land of the Rising Sun in last years acted on the side of Germany, and also fought against the allies of the USSR, became almost inevitable.
Such a sudden statement literally plunged the Japanese leadership into complete confusion. And this is understandable, because its position was very critical - the Allied forces inflicted significant damage on it in the Pacific Ocean, and industrial centers and cities were subjected to almost continuous bombing. The government of this country understood perfectly well that it was almost impossible to achieve victory in such conditions. But still it still hoped that it would be able to somehow wear down and achieve more favorable conditions for the surrender of their troops.
The United States, in turn, did not expect victory to be easy. An example of this is the battles that took place over the island of Okinawa. About 77 thousand people fought here from Japan, and about 470 thousand soldiers from the United States. In the end, the island was taken by the Americans, but their losses were simply astounding - almost 50 thousand killed. According to him, if the Russo-Japanese War of 1945 had not begun, which will be briefly discussed in this article, the losses would have been much more serious and could have amounted to 1 million soldiers killed and wounded.
On August 8, in Moscow, the Japanese Ambassador to the USSR was presented with a document at exactly 5 p.m. It said that the Russian-Japanese War (1945) was actually starting the very next day. But since there is a significant time difference between the Far East and Moscow, it turned out that there was only 1 hour left before the start of the Soviet Army’s offensive.
The USSR developed a plan consisting of three military operations: Kuril, Manchurian and South Sakhalin. They were all very important. But still, the Manchurian operation was the most large-scale and significant.
On the territory of Manchuria, the Kwantung Army, commanded by General Otozo Yamada, was opposed. It consisted of approximately 1 million people, more than 1 thousand tanks, about 6 thousand guns and 1.6 thousand aircraft.
At the time when the Russo-Japanese War of 1945 began, the forces of the USSR had a significant numerical superiority in manpower: only there were one and a half times more soldiers. As for equipment, the number of mortars and artillery exceeded similar enemy forces by 10 times. Our army had 5 and 3 times more tanks and aircraft, respectively, than the Japanese had the corresponding weapons. It should be noted that the superiority of the USSR over Japan in military equipment was not only in its numbers. The equipment at Russia's disposal was modern and more powerful than that of its enemy.
All participants in the Russo-Japanese War of 1945 understood perfectly well that sooner or later, it had to begin. That is why the Japanese created a significant number of well-fortified areas in advance. For example, you can take at least the Hailar region, where the left flank of the Transbaikal Front of the Soviet Army was located. Barrier structures in this area were built over more than 10 years. By the time the Russo-Japanese War began (August 1945), there were already 116 pillboxes, which were connected to each other by underground passages made of concrete, a well-developed trench system and a significant number of Japanese soldiers, whose numbers exceeded the divisional strength.
In order to suppress the resistance of the Hailar fortified area, the Soviet Army had to spend several days. In war conditions this is a short period of time, but during the same time the rest of the Transbaikal Front advanced forward by about 150 km. Considering the scale of the Russo-Japanese War (1945), the obstacle in the form of this fortified area turned out to be quite serious. Even when its garrison surrendered, the Japanese warriors continued to fight with fanatical courage.
In the reports of Soviet military leaders one can often see references to soldiers of the Kwantung Army. The documents said that the Japanese military specifically chained themselves to machine gun frames so as not to have the slightest opportunity to retreat.
The Russo-Japanese War of 1945 and the actions of the Soviet Army were very successful from the very beginning. I would like to note one outstanding operation, which consisted of a 350-kilometer throw of the 6th Tank Army through the Khingan Range and the Gobi Desert. If you look at the mountains, they seem to be an insurmountable obstacle to the passage of technology. Passes we had to go through Soviet tanks, were located at an altitude of approximately 2 thousand m above sea level, and the slopes sometimes reached a steepness of 50⁰. That is why cars often had to drive in a zigzag.
In addition, the advancement of technology was further complicated by frequent heavy rains, accompanied by river floods and impassable mud. But, despite this, the tanks still moved forward, and already on August 11 they overcame the mountains and reached the Central Manchurian Plain, to the rear of the Kwantung Army. After such a large-scale transition, Soviet troops began to experience an acute shortage of fuel, so it was necessary to arrange additional delivery by air. With the help of transport aviation, it was possible to transport about 900 tons of tank fuel. As a result of this operation, more than 200 thousand Japanese soldiers were captured, as well as a huge amount of equipment, weapons and ammunition.
The Japanese War of 1945 continued. In the sector of the 1st Far Eastern Front, Soviet troops encountered unprecedentedly fierce enemy resistance. The Japanese were well entrenched on the heights of Camel and Ostraya, which were among the fortifications of the Khotou fortified area. It must be said that the approaches to these heights were cut by many small rivers and were very swampy. In addition, there were wire fences and excavated scarps on their slopes. The Japanese soldiers had cut out the firing points in advance right into the granite rock, and the concrete caps protecting the bunkers reached a thickness of one and a half meters.
During the fighting, the Soviet command invited the defenders of Ostroy to surrender. A man from among the local residents was sent to the Japanese as an envoy, but he was treated extremely cruelly - the commander of the fortified area himself cut off his head. However, there was nothing surprising in this action. From the moment the Russo-Japanese War began (1945), the enemy, in principle, did not enter into any negotiations. When Soviet troops finally entered the fortification, they found only dead soldiers. It is worth noting that the defenders of the height were not only men, but also women who were armed with daggers and grenades.
The Russo-Japanese War of 1945 had its own specific features. For example, in the battles for the city of Mudanjiang, the enemy used kamikaze saboteurs against units of the Soviet Army. These suicide bombers tied grenades around themselves and threw themselves under tanks or at soldiers. There was also a case when, on one section of the front, about two hundred “live mines” lay on the ground next to each other. But such suicidal actions did not last long. Soon, Soviet soldiers became more vigilant and managed to destroy the saboteur in advance before he got close and exploded next to equipment or people.
The Russo-Japanese War of 1945 ended on August 15, when the country's Emperor Hirohito addressed his people by radio. He stated that the country had decided to accept the terms of the Potsdam Conference and capitulate. At the same time, the emperor called on his nation to remain patient and unite all forces to build a new future for the country.
3 days after Hirohito’s address, a call from the command of the Kwantung Army to its soldiers was heard on the radio. It said that further resistance was pointless and there was already a decision to surrender. Since many Japanese units did not have contact with the main headquarters, their notification continued for several more days. But there were also cases when fanatical military personnel did not want to obey the order and lay down their arms. Therefore, their war continued until they died.
It must be said that the Russo-Japanese War of 1945 was of truly enormous not only military but also political significance. managed to completely defeat the strongest Kwantung Army and end World War II. By the way, its official end is considered to be September 2, when the act of surrender of Japan was finally signed in Tokyo Bay right on board the US battleship Missouri.
As a result, the Soviet Union regained territories that had been lost back in 1905 - a group of islands and part of the South Kuril Islands. Also, according to the peace treaty signed in San Francisco, Japan renounced any claims to Sakhalin.
On August 9, 1945, the Soviet Union, fulfilling its agreements with its allies in the anti-Hitler coalition in World War II, entered the war against Japan. This war matured throughout the Great Patriotic War and was inevitable, in particular, because only one victory over Germany did not provide a complete guarantee of the security of the USSR. Its Far Eastern borders continued to be threatened by the almost million-strong Kwantung group of the Japanese army. All this and a number of other circumstances allow us to state that the Soviet-Japanese war, representing independent part The Second World War was at the same time a logical continuation of the Great Patriotic War Soviet people for their independence, security and sovereignty of the USSR.
The surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945 marked the end of the war in Europe. But in the Far East and Pacific, Japan continued to fight against the United States, Great Britain and other Soviet allies in the Asia-Pacific region. According to allies, despite the US atomic weapons, the war in the East could have dragged on for another year and a half to two years and would have claimed the lives of at least 1.5 million soldiers and officers of their armies, as well as 10 million Japanese.
The Soviet Union could not consider its security ensured in the Far East, where the Soviet government during 1941 - 1945. was forced to keep about 30% of the combat strength of its troops and naval forces while the fire of war burned there and Japan continued to pursue its aggressive policy. In this situation, on April 5, 1945, the USSR announced the denunciation of the Neutrality Pact with Japan, i.e., its intention to terminate it unilaterally with all the ensuing consequences. However, the Japanese government did not heed this serious warning and continued to support Germany until the end of the war in Europe, and then rejected the Potsdam Declaration of the Allies, published on July 26, 1945, which contained a demand for the unconditional surrender of Japan. On August 8, 1945, the Soviet government announced that the USSR would enter the war with Japan the next day.
Entry of Soviet troops into Harbin. September 1945
Plans and strengths of the parties
The political goal of the Soviet Union's military campaign in the Far East was to eliminate the last hotbed of World War II as quickly as possible, eliminate the constant threat of an attack by Japanese invaders on the USSR, together with the allies, expel them from countries occupied by Japan, and help restore world peace. The speedy end of the war saved humanity, including the Japanese people, from further millions of victims and suffering, and contributed to the development of the national liberation movement in Asian countries.
The military-strategic goal of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan was the defeat of the Kwantung group of troops and the liberation of Northeast China (Manchuria) and North Korea from the Japanese invaders. Operations to liberate Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, which were transferred to Japan as a result of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, as well as the occupation of the northern part of the Japanese island of Hokkaido, were made dependent on the completion of this main task.
To conduct the Far Eastern campaign, three fronts were involved - Transbaikal (commanded by Marshal of the Soviet Union R. Ya. Malinovsky), 1st Far Eastern (commanded by Marshal of the Soviet Union K.A. Meretskov) and 2nd Far Eastern (commanded by Army General M.A. Purkaev), the Pacific Fleet (commander Admiral I.S. Yumashev), the Amur Military Flotilla (commander Rear Admiral N.V. Antonov), three air defense armies, as well as units of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army (commander-in-chief Marshal X Choibalsan). Soviet and Mongolian troops and naval forces numbered more than 1.7 million people, about 30 thousand guns and mortars (without anti-aircraft artillery), 5.25 thousand tanks and self-propelled artillery units, 5.2 thousand aircraft, 93 main warships classes. The leadership of the troops was carried out by the Main Command of Soviet Forces in the Far East, specially created by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command (Commander-in-Chief Marshal of the Soviet Union A.M. Vasilevsky).
The Kwantung group of Japanese forces included the 1st and 3rd fronts, the 4th separate and 2nd air armies and the Sungari river flotilla. On August 10, the 17th Front and the 5th Air Army stationed in Korea were quickly subordinated to it. The total number of enemy troops concentrated near the Soviet borders exceeded 1 million people. They were armed with 1,215 tanks, 6,640 guns, 1,907 aircraft, and over 30 warships and boats. In addition, on the territory of Manchuria and Korea there was a significant number of Japanese gendarmerie, police, railway and other units, as well as troops from Manchukuo and Inner Mongolia. On the border with the USSR and the Mongolia, the Japanese had 17 fortified areas with a total length of over 800 km, in which there were 4.5 thousand long-term fire installations.
The Japanese command expected that “against Soviet troops superior in strength and training,” Japanese troops in Manchuria would hold out for a year. At the first stage (about three months), it planned to provide stubborn resistance to the enemy in the border fortified areas, and then on the mountain ranges blocking the routes from Mongolia and from the USSR border to the central regions of Manchuria, where the main forces of the Japanese were concentrated. In the event of a breakthrough of this line, it was planned to occupy the defense on the line railway Tuman - Changchun - Dalian and the transition to a decisive counteroffensive.
Progress of hostilities
From the first hours of August 9, 1945, strike groups of the Soviet fronts attacked Japanese troops from land, air and sea. The fighting took place on a front with a total length of more than 5 thousand km. A powerful air strike was carried out on enemy command posts, headquarters and communications centers. As a result of this blow, communication between the headquarters and formations of the Japanese troops and their control in the very first hours of the war were disrupted, which made it easier for the Soviet troops to solve the tasks assigned to them.
The Pacific Fleet entered the open sea, cut off the sea communications used by the troops of the Kwantung Group to communicate with Japan, and with aviation and torpedo boats launched powerful attacks on Japanese naval bases in North Korea.
With the assistance of the Amur Flotilla and the Air Force, Soviet troops crossed the Amur and Ussuri rivers on a wide front and, having broken the fierce resistance of the Japanese in the fortified border areas in stubborn battles, began to develop a successful offensive into the depths of Manchuria. The armored and mechanized formations of the Trans-Baikal Front, which included divisions that had gone through the war with Nazi Germany, and cavalry formations of Mongolia, advanced especially rapidly. Lightning-fast actions by all branches of the military, air force and navy thwarted Japanese plans to use bacteriological weapons.
Already in the first five or six days of the offensive, Soviet and Mongolian troops defeated the fanatically resisting enemy in 16 fortified areas and advanced 450 km. On August 12, formations of the 6th Guards Tank Army under Colonel General A.G. Kravchenko overcame the “impregnable” Greater Khingan and wedged deep into the rear of the Kwantung group of troops, forestalling the exit of its main forces to this mountain range.
The troops of the 1st Far Eastern Front were advancing in the coastal direction. They were supported from the sea by the Pacific Fleet, which, with the help of landing troops, captured the Japanese bases and ports of Yuki, Racine, Seishin, Odejin, Gyonzan in Korea and the Port Arthur fortress, depriving the enemy of the opportunity to evacuate their troops by sea.
The main forces of the Amur flotilla operated in the Sungari and Sakhalin directions, ensuring the crossing of troops of the 15th and 2nd Red Banner Armies of the 2nd Far Eastern Front across the water lines, artillery support for their offensive and landing of troops.
The offensive developed so rapidly that the enemy was unable to hold back the onslaught of Soviet troops. Within ten days, Red Army troops, with the active support of aviation and navy, were able to dismember and actually defeat the strategic grouping of Japanese troops in Manchuria and North Korea. Since August 19, the Japanese began to surrender almost everywhere. In order to prevent the enemy from evacuating or destroying material assets, from August 18 to 27, airborne assault forces were landed in Harbin, Mukden, Changchun, Girin, Lushun, Dalian, Pyongyang, Hamhung and other cities, and army mobile forward detachments were actively operating.
On August 11, the Soviet command began the Yuzhno-Sakhalin offensive operation. The operation was entrusted to the troops of the 56th Rifle Corps of the 16th Army of the 2nd Far Eastern Front and the Northern Pacific Flotilla. Southern Sakhalin was defended by the reinforced 88th Japanese Infantry Division, which was part of the 5th Front with headquarters on the island of Hokkaido, relying on the powerful Koton fortified area. The fighting on Sakhalin began with the breakthrough of this fortified area. The offensive was carried out along the only dirt road connecting Northern Sakhalin with Southern Sakhalin and passing between inaccessible mountain spurs and the swampy valley of the Poronai River. On August 16, an amphibious assault was landed behind enemy lines in the port of Toro (Shakhtersk). On August 18, counter strikes by Soviet troops broke through the enemy's defenses. On August 20, an amphibious assault landed at the port of Maoka (Kholmsk), and on the morning of August 25 - at the port of Otomari (Korsakov). On the same day, Soviet troops entered the administrative center of Southern Sakhalin, Toyohara (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk), where the headquarters of the 88th Infantry Division was located. The organized resistance of the Japanese garrison on South Sakhalin, numbering about 30 thousand soldiers and officers, ceased.
Japanese prisoners of war under the supervision of a Soviet soldier. August 1945
On August 18, Soviet troops began an operation to liberate the Kuril Islands, where the 5th Japanese Front had over 50 thousand soldiers and officers, and at the same time preparing a major landing operation on Hokkaido, the need for which, however, soon disappeared. To carry out the Kuril landing operation, troops of the Kamchatka Defense Region (KOR) and ships of the Pacific Fleet were involved. The operation began with the landing of troops on the most fortified anti-landing island, Shumshu; the fighting for him became fierce and ended on August 23 with his release. By the beginning of September, the troops of the KOR and the Petropavlovsk naval base occupied the entire northern ridge of islands, including the island of Urup, and the forces of the Northern Pacific Flotilla occupied the remaining islands to the south.
The crushing blow to the Japanese Kwantung group of forces led to the largest defeat of the Japanese Armed Forces in World War II and to the most severe losses for them, exceeding 720 thousand soldiers and officers, including 84 thousand killed and wounded and more than 640 thousand prisoners . The major victory achieved in a short period of time was not easy: the Armed Forces of the USSR lost 36,456 people killed, wounded and missing in the war with Japan, including 12,031 dead.
Japan, having lost the largest military-industrial base on the Asian subcontinent and the most powerful group of ground forces, was unable to continue the armed struggle. This greatly shortened the end of World War II and the number of its victims. Destruction Armed forces The USSR of Japanese troops in Manchuria and Korea, as well as in South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, deprived Japan of all the bridgeheads and bases that it had been creating for many years in preparation for aggression against the USSR. The security of the Soviet Union in the East was ensured.
The Soviet-Japanese War lasted less than four weeks, but in its scope, skill of operations and results it ranks among the outstanding campaigns of the Second World War. By Decree of the Presidium Supreme Council USSR dated September 2, 1945. September 3 was declared Victory Day over Japan.
Second World War, which lasted 6 years and 1 day, ended. 61 states took part in it, in which about 80% of the world's population lived at that time. It claimed more than 60 million human lives. The heaviest losses were suffered by the Soviet Union, which sacrificed 26.6 million human lives on the altar of a common victory over Nazism and militarism. The fires of World War II also killed 10 million Chinese, 9.4 million Germans, 6 million Jews, 4 million Poles, 2.5 million Japanese, 1.7 million Yugoslavs, 600 thousand French, 405 thousand Americans, millions of people of other nationalities .
On June 26, 1945, the United Nations was created, designed to become a guarantor of peace and security on our planet.
The article describes the causes of the Soviet-Japanese armed conflict, the preparation of the parties for war, and the course of hostilities. Characteristics given international relations before the start of World War II in the east.
Active hostilities in the Far East and in the Pacific Ocean were a consequence of the contradictions that arose in the pre-war years between the USSR, Great Britain, the USA and China, on the one hand, and Japan, on the other. The Japanese government sought to seize new territories, rich natural resources, and the establishment of political hegemony in the Far East.
Since still with late XIX centuries, Japan fought many wars, as a result of which it acquired new colonies. It included the Kuril Islands, southern Sakhalin, Korea, and Manchuria. In 1927, General Giichi Tanaka became the country's prime minister, whose government continued its aggressive policy. In the early 1930s, Japan increased the size of its army and created a powerful Navy, which was one of the strongest in the world.
In 1940, Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe developed a new foreign policy doctrine. The Japanese government planned to create a colossal empire stretching from Transbaikalia to Australia. Western countries pursued a dual policy towards Japan: on the one hand, they sought to limit the ambitions of the Japanese government, but on the other hand, they did not in any way interfere with the intervention of northern China. To implement its plans, the Japanese government entered into an alliance with Germany and Italy.
Relations between Japan and the Soviet Union in the pre-war period deteriorated noticeably. In 1935, the Kwantung Army entered the border areas of Mongolia. Mongolia hastily concluded an agreement with the USSR, and Red Army units were introduced into its territory. In 1938, Japanese troops crossed the state border of the USSR in the area of Lake Khasan, but the invasion attempt was successfully repulsed by Soviet troops. Japanese sabotage groups were also repeatedly dropped into Soviet territory. The confrontation escalated further in 1939, when Japan started a war against Mongolia. The USSR, observing the agreement with the Mongolian Republic, intervened in the conflict.
After these events, Japan's policy towards the USSR changed: the Japanese government was afraid of a clash with a strong western neighbor and decided to temporarily abandon the seizure of territories in the north. Nevertheless, for Japan, the USSR was actually the main enemy in the Far East.
In the spring of 1941, the USSR concluded a non-aggression pact with Japan. In the event of an armed conflict between one of the states and any third countries, the second power undertakes to maintain neutrality. But the Japanese Foreign Minister made it clear to the German ambassador in Moscow that the concluded neutrality pact would not prevent Japan from fulfilling the conditions Tripartite Pact during the war with the USSR.
Before the outbreak of World War II in the east, Japan negotiated with American leaders, seeking recognition of the annexation of Chinese territories and the conclusion of new trade agreements. The ruling elite of Japan could not decide against whom to strike in a future war. Some politicians considered it necessary to support Germany, while others called for an attack on the Pacific colonies of Great Britain and the USA.
Already in 1941, it became obvious that Japan's actions would depend on the situation on the Soviet-German front. The Japanese government planned to attack the USSR from the east if Germany and Italy were successful, after the capture of Moscow by German troops. Also great importance had the fact that the country needed raw materials for its industry. The Japanese were interested in capturing areas rich in oil, tin, zinc, nickel and rubber. Therefore, on July 2, 1941, at the imperial conference, a decision was made to start a war against the USA and Great Britain. But The Japanese government did not completely abandon plans to attack the USSR until the Battle of Kursk, when it became obvious that Germany would not win the Second World War. Along with this factor, the active military operations of the allies in the Pacific Ocean forced Japan to repeatedly postpone and then completely abandon its aggressive intentions towards the USSR.
Despite the fact that hostilities in the Far East never began, the USSR was forced to maintain a large military group in this region throughout the war, the size of which varied in different periods. Until 1945, the Kwantung Army was located on the border, which included up to 1 million military personnel. The local population also prepared for defense: men were mobilized into the army, women and teenagers studied air defense methods. Fortifications were built around strategically important objects.
The Japanese leadership believed that the Germans would be able to capture Moscow before the end of 1941. In this regard, it was planned to launch an attack on the Soviet Union in the winter. On December 3, the Japanese command gave the order to the troops located in China to prepare for transfer to the northern direction. The Japanese were planning to invade the USSR in the Ussuri region and then launch an offensive in the north. To implement the approved plan, it was necessary to strengthen the Kwantung Army. Troops freed after fighting in the Pacific Ocean were sent to the Northern Front.
However, the Japanese government's hopes for a quick German victory were not realized. The failure of the blitzkrieg tactics and the defeat of the Wehrmacht armies near Moscow indicated that the Soviet Union was a fairly strong adversary whose power should not be underestimated.
The threat of a Japanese invasion intensified in the fall of 1942. Nazi German troops were advancing into the Caucasus and Volga. The Soviet command hastily transferred 14 rifle divisions and more than 1.5 thousand guns from the Far East to the front. Just at this time, Japan was not actively fighting in the Pacific. However, the Commander-in-Chief's Headquarters foresaw the possibility of a Japanese attack. The Far Eastern troops were replenished from local reserves. This fact became known to Japanese intelligence. The Japanese government again delayed entry into the war.
The Japanese attacked merchant ships in international waters, preventing the delivery of goods to Far Eastern ports, repeatedly violated state borders, committed sabotage on Soviet territory, and sent propaganda literature across the border. Japanese intelligence collected information about the movements of Soviet troops and transmitted them to Wehrmacht headquarters. Among the reasons for the USSR's entry into the Japanese War in 1945 were not only obligations to its allies, but also concern for the security of its borders.
Already in the second half of 1943, when the turning point in the Second World War ended, it became clear that after Italy, which had already emerged from the war, Germany and Japan would also be defeated. The Soviet command, foreseeing a future war in the Far East, from that time on almost never used Far Eastern troops on the Western Front. Gradually, these units of the Red Army were replenished with military equipment and manpower. In August 1943, the Primorsky Group of Forces was created as part of the Far Eastern Front, which indicated preparations for a future war.
At the Yalta Conference, held in February 1945, the Soviet Union confirmed that the agreement between Moscow and the allies on participation in the war with Japan remained in force. The Red Army was supposed to begin military operations against Japan no later than 3 months after the end of the war in Europe. In return, J.V. Stalin demanded territorial concessions for the USSR: the transfer to Russia of the Kuril Islands and part of the island of Sakhalin assigned to Japan as a result of the 1905 war, the lease of the Chinese port of Port Arthur (on modern maps- Lushun). The Dalniy commercial port was supposed to become an open port with the interests of the USSR primarily respected.
By this time, the Armed Forces of the United States and Great Britain had inflicted a number of defeats on Japan. However, her resistance was not broken. The demand of the United States, China and Great Britain for unconditional surrender, presented on July 26, was rejected by Japan. This decision was not unreasonable. The USA and Great Britain did not have sufficient forces to conduct an amphibious operation in the Far East. According to the plans of American and British leaders, the final defeat of Japan was envisaged no earlier than 1946. The Soviet Union, by entering the war with Japan, significantly brought the end of World War II closer.
The Soviet-Japanese War or the Manchurian Operation began on August 9, 1945. The Red Army was faced with the task of defeating Japanese troops in China and North Korea.
Back in May 1945, the USSR began transferring troops to the Far East. 3 fronts were formed: 1st and 2nd Far Eastern and Transbaikal. The Soviet Union used border troops, the Amur military flotilla and ships of the Pacific Fleet in the offensive.
The Kwantung Army included 11 infantry and 2 tank brigades, more than 30 infantry divisions, cavalry and mechanized units, a suicide brigade, and the Sungari River Flotilla. The most significant forces were stationed in the eastern regions of Manchuria, bordering Soviet Primorye. In the western regions, the Japanese stationed 6 infantry divisions and 1 brigade. The number of enemy soldiers exceeded 1 million people, but more than half of the fighters were conscripts of younger ages and of limited fitness. Many Japanese units were understaffed. Also, the newly created units lacked weapons, ammunition, artillery, etc. military equipment. Japanese units and formations used outdated tanks and aircraft.
The troops of Manchukuo, the army of Inner Mongolia and the Suiyuan Army Group fought on the side of Japan. In the border areas, the enemy built 17 fortified areas. The command of the Kwantung Army was carried out by General Otsuzo Yamada.
The plan of the Soviet command provided for the delivery of two main strikes by the forces of the 1st Far Eastern and Transbaikal Fronts, as a result of which the main enemy forces in the center of Manchuria would be captured in a pincer movement, divided into parts and destroyed. The troops of the 2nd Far Eastern Front, consisting of 11 rifle divisions, 4 rifle and 9 tank brigades, in cooperation with the Amur Military Flotilla, were supposed to strike in the direction of Harbin. Then the Red Army had to occupy large settlements— Shenyang, Harbin, Changchun. The fighting took place over an area of more than 2.5 thousand km. according to the area map.
Simultaneously with the beginning of the offensive of the Soviet troops, aviation bombed areas of large troop concentrations, strategically significant objects and communications centers. Pacific Fleet ships attacked Japanese naval bases in North Korea. The offensive was led by the commander-in-chief of Soviet troops in the Far East, A. M. Vasilevsky.
As a result of the military operations of the troops of the Trans-Baikal Front, which, having crossed the Gobi Desert and the Khingan Mountains on the first day of the offensive, advanced 50 km, significant groups of enemy troops were defeated. The offensive became difficult natural conditions terrain. There was not enough fuel for the tanks, but the Red Army units used the experience of the Germans - the supply of fuel by transport aircraft was organized. On August 17, the 6th Guards Tank Army reached the approaches to the capital of Manchuria. Soviet troops isolated the Kwantung Army from Japanese units in Northern China and occupied important administrative centers.
The Soviet group of troops, advancing from Primorye, broke through the strip of border fortifications. In the Mudanjiang area, the Japanese launched a series of counterattacks, which were repulsed. Soviet units occupied Girin and Harbin, and, with the assistance of the Pacific Fleet, liberated the coast, capturing strategically significant ports.
Then the Red Army liberated North Korea, and from mid-August the fighting took place on Chinese territory. On August 14, the Japanese command initiated negotiations on surrender. On August 19, enemy troops began to surrender en masse. However, hostilities in World War II continued until early September.
Simultaneously with the defeat of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria, Soviet troops carried out the South Sakhalin offensive operation and landed troops on the Kuril Islands. During the operation in the Kuril Islands on August 18-23, Soviet troops, with the support of ships of the Peter and Paul Naval Base, captured the island of Samusyu and occupied all the islands of the Kuril ridge by September 1.
Due to the defeat of the Kwantung Army on the continent, Japan could no longer continue the war. The enemy lost important economic regions in Manchuria and Korea. The Americans carried out atomic bombings Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki and captured the island of Okinawa. On September 2, the act of surrender was signed.
The USSR included territories lost Russian Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century: South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. In 1956, the USSR restored relations with Japan and agreed to the transfer of Habomai Islands and Shikotan Islands to Japan, subject to the conclusion of a Peace Treaty between the countries. But Japan has not come to terms with its territorial losses and negotiations on the ownership of the disputed regions are still ongoing.
For military merits, more than 200 units received the titles of “Amur”, “Ussuri”, “Khingan”, “Harbin”, etc. 92 military personnel became Heroes of the Soviet Union.
As a result of the operation, the losses of the warring countries were:
Also, during the battles, all the ships of the Sungari flotilla were sunk - more than 50 ships.
Medal "For Victory over Japan"
