May 22, 2006 May 22, 2006
I was in Far East from the February of 1945 when I had graduated Supreme Special School of General Staff of Red Army.
In the beginning of July of 1945 troops from Europe began to arrive to us in Far East and I was sent in Field Command Post of the 2nd Far Eastern Front - to prepare scouts who must to cross the Amur at first, to eliminate silently Japanese border guards patrols and to clean the bank for the landing of main forces.
The campaign was not a secret for anyone but the masking efforts were made very definitely. I remember how a group of unknown to us generals had arrived in out command post. One of them said that he was Marshal Vasilevskii. He carried generals epaulettes instead of a marshal' ones up to the beginning of the war to deceive Japanese intelligence.
Our main trump was the strategic element of surprise; for it we even refused from a preparatory bombardment. And we really had taken the enemy by surprise - the Japanese supposed that Red Army would be able to advance net earlier than in September but we had made our blow in the beginning of the August. At the evening of August, 8th when Molotov was speaking on radio about the declaration of a war to Japan our troops were standing in the banks of the Amur and Ussuri in commission and in that night we went ahead.
On the morning of August, 9th I landed on the enemy bank with the Recon Battalion of the 361st Rifle Division of the 15th Army. we crossed the river nearly the village of Leninskoe. Boats of the Amur River Military Flotilla provided the crossing; border guards and seamen went together with us in the first wave. Neither during the crossing nor during the landing in Tuntsian and Futsyn nor in the next morning we met serious resistance - it was clearly that the Japanese didn't wait us there in that time. The landing of the main forces also was unhampered and our troops began to move impetuously inside of Manchurian territory.
Serious combats began in our direction only 3 days later, in August, 12th when the Japanese had regained consciousness, concentrated reserves and met us in Tsiamusy where they had a powerful Fortified Region. We spent a few days to breakthrough that Fortified Region. The Japanese had 17 such Fortified Regions.
So it is wrong to describe Manchurian operation as a easy walk. Indeed, it was a serious war, the Samurais resisted furiously, especially in the first week of combats: they were very well-trained and firm soldiers and fought up to the last soldiers. To the point, the stories about Japanese kamikaze chained to machine guns are not false or hearsays, I saw myself such kamikaze in Tsiamusy, he was already dead.
Breaking the Japanese defense, our division continued advance to Harbin. Armored boats, gun boats and monitors of the Amur River Military Flotilla helped us very much. They landed assault groups on the bank of Sungari. We entered Harbin in August, 20th but we didn't meet any resistance as the city was already liberated with small air landing group of the 1st Far Eastern Front.
We had to take the surrender of Japanese units, to disarm them and to place them in POW camps, to make an order in the city, to provide the security of our rears. It was calm at day but at night some shots were heard. Those were not the Japanese but the Gomindan representatives who attacked local Communists and Soviet soldiers.
But the most part of Chinese population met us enthusiastically, literally with open arms. the y were poor, half dressed but the presented us by a lot of flowers and fruits. The Chinese restaurants offered us free cheer. So we felt that we were real liberators. Of course, we were ready to it. And we were amazed by the treat of local Russian emigrants, the amount of which was very much in Harbin. Russian youth, especially girls, met us not less enthusiastically, they also presented us with flowers and fruits. They offered us to be guides and interpreters. The senior generation, former Whites [during the Civil War - remark of Andrey] at first were watchful to the Soviet troops - they tried to not be on the streets in the first a few days, then they stared at us for some time but little by little the distrust disappeared and the loyalty turned into friendliness.
Our enemies - and external, and internal - even right now try to blame USSR in cruel treat against Japanese POWs and civilians. But we didn't kill POWs, in reality we saved them as if the Japanese fall into the Chinese's hands so the Chinese tear them to pieces for the countless crimes that the Samurais made in Chinese land during the occupation. In the August of 1945 many Chinese demanded to deliver up them the Japanese POWs for condign punishment but we had orders to prevent lynch law. If to speak about the Japanese civilians so we had no any hatred to the Japanese moreover, to the local civilians. When we were placed in Japanese villages in the Southern Sakhalin we didn't oppress anyone, there were neither marauding nor violence.
Now some betrayers, who work on Japanese money, try to prove that really there were no combats in the August of 1945, that the Japanese almost didn't resist, the casualties were minimal and so on. In fact, we lost more than 12,000 men as KIA only. And the Japanese lost 84,000 as KIA. Is it little? I was there, I know how they fought - they fought like Samurais, heroically, furiously, especially in a few first days. The resistance began to decrease only after August, 15th when mikado [Japanese Emperor - remark of Andrey] declared about surrender but even in that time many samurais preferred to suicide but to not become a POW. To not confirm the courage of an enemy means to decrease the scale of our victory. And it is meanly to declare that it was easy walk.
The Chinese remember about Soviet soldiers-liberators and now. Memorials in the honor of our victory are in 46 cities of China. Even during the "cultural revolution" when the relations between our countries were very bad the Chinese preserved Russian graves from destruction (there are more than 50 Soviet cemeteries in China). Not long time ago a delegation of our veterans visited China in an anniversary of the victory over Japan. We were in all large cities where Russian cemeteries are and saw that all they are in excellent condition.
