May 22, 2006 May 22, 2006
We were informed about the soon transferring in Far East at the spring of 1945 in Eastern Prussia. To the end of the June we uploaded in the Mongolian railroad station Bain-Tumen. Endless steppe was before us and the Grand Khingan was behind it.
My first task was to get with 130 drivers 260 American lend-lease trucks - "Studebeckers", "Chevrolet", "Dodge" and to move them in our division. The mission was accomplished.
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A wide Mongolian steppe was stretched out for hundreds kilometers before the Khingan. For us, citizens of conventional European plains, it looked like a desert or, more likely, a semi-desert. It was not a stone or sand desert; it was covered by a poor natural growth but in that season of year it was absolutely waterless. And right now my "Studebeckers" and "Dodges" were useful - "Dodges" pulled guns, "Studers" carried infantry. There were no roads there but why are roads useful in completely flat terrain with solid ground. The worse thing was that there were no reference points. The landscape looked like a sea - it was possible to move in any direction but to see the same picture. And as we had an order to move secretly so we had to move at night, with switching off headlights, one truck after another. And if the heading truck deviated from necessary direction on a few degrees only so all the column deviated from correct direction. But it was much more difficult for those who had no trucks and had to move by foot. Infantry had the same troubles as trucks - companies deviated from a correct direction and rambled through steppe for a long time. We suffered casualties even before engaging with an enemy. And when we had seen mountains in a horizon we breathed with relief. The Khingan is not too high ridge; there is a forest on his slopes. From large distance it looked like a paradise for us. But when we had approached to it we saw that the trees grows on very steep slope (up to 50 degrees). Here now the things were most difficult for infantry and, of course, for all the others. It is known that it is difficult for a truck to overcome the rise more than 30 degrees (the American trucks could overcome 40 degrees). So our soldiers had to cling to trucks and to push them up.
We were lucky that we had no serious combats in that time. In general, the Japanese showed strong resistance only in the border area where they had a powerful defence (fortified regions, strongholds, fire points) which our troops had to crush. But the deeper we came inside enemy territory the weaker was their resistance. And they were not able to stop that avalanche - when we hade rose on the Khingan it was easy seen from above what a mighty force was moving: all the steppe up to a horizon was covered by our troops and equipment. Also we had complete supremacy in the air - I didn't see any Japanese plane for all the war, I saw only ours.
Mobile detachments moved before the main forces. Their main task was to capture the passes before the arriving of Japanese reserves and to clean the way to the Central Manchurian Plain. I moved together with such a detachment of our division. We had about 700 men: a battalion of motorized infantry on "Studers" and "Chevrolet", an artillery battalion, a battalion of SU-76 self-propelled guns, a sapper platoon and some signalers. To the point, in a steep slopes trucks often moved by reverse movement - many experienced drivers knew that a truck's reverse movement was more powerful that direct movement, it was especially correct for American trucks. the self-propelled guns pulled one another. After we had overcame the Grand Khingan we captured Vanemiao and moved on the path Chanchun-Mukden-Harbin-Girin-Inkou (it was not far from legendary Port Arthur). In our way we disarmed four Japanese divisions, which contained about 60,000 soldiers and officers. The Samurais requested us, the even entreated us about one thing - to leave with them without fail a Soviet representative in the head of the guard that had to secure them. In other case local Chinese could kill them in revenge for their crimes that were made there during the years of Japanese occupation. I.e. the Japanese needed not in the guard but in the protection from local civilians. At first we left officers, than we left sergeants and in the end we left ordinary soldiers - so much was the amount of the POWs we captured.
I don't know about the others but I had no any sympathy with the Japanese, I had only hatred to them. But what do you suppose to hear? We were enemies from the beginning of the century; my brother fought with them on Khalkhin-Gol as a commander of a tank battalion so why had we to pity them? Of course, that hatred disappeared later...
