May 22, 2006 May 22, 2006
Great Patriotic War had finished for our division in Eastern Prussia. There were very heavy combats there - everything burnt during the assault of Kenigsburg, the things that had no to burn also burnt - stone walls, concrete forts, pavement stones - but we had captured that city-fortress.
I remember how at May, 9th when we were informed about German surrender we drank over the common grave of our comrades, I took out my TT from my holster, shot upwards and said: "It was my last shot."
But my fate didn't let for it to become a reality....
In the beginning of the June we loaded in a train and became to be transferred in Far East...
During the trip I listened enough soldiers' talkings. The most of them agreed that we, of course, must beat samurais. They recalled Port Arthur and Tsushima, Japanese occupation of Far East during the Civil War, the events in the Khasan Lake (in 1938) and Khalkhin Gol (in 1939). They discussed what war would it be - a large or a small? In the end they had decided that we should grind Samurais-vermins into dust for about four weeks - i.e. they guessed practically right. But I remember that I thought (and I suppose I was not alone in such thoughts): how vexing it will be to survive in a large war but to die in a small one....
In Chita a trackman remained in my memory. I spoke with him on a railroad station. I gave him a cigarette and he said: "What a mighty force is moving on East! Things are bad for the Samurais. And they, rats, have a presentiment. Chita's Japanese consul every day sits and angles under the railroad bridge and counts troops trains. But he can count or not cont but in any case they will lose!"
In the end we crossed Soviet-Mongol border in the last days on the June and uploaded in Baian-Tumen.
Then our division moved to Manchurian border by foot - we had to go by foot about 400 kms. Although I took part in many offensives in my life but I never saw such accumulation of troops and military equipment - troops trains arrived at the railroad station after one another, the troops uploaded quickly and went a column after a column in the steppe which suddenly became very cramped. Hundreds tanks roared by their engines; they were new, right from the Ural's plants but their crews were experienced veterans who fought in Europe. After them some tractors pulled heavy siege guns, then some trucks filled the air with dust, then cavalry went, then - some Katyushas moved, and again infantry went. Oh, how many of our brothers-soldiers were concentrated there! It was cramped even in the sky - planes flew over us again and again, those were fighters, bombers, assault planes, transport ones.
The steppe smelled of petrol and diesel oil instead of wormwood. Dust was suspended over columns by dense brown cloud, it accumulated on soldiers' faces, crunch in their teeth. Hot was terrible, the temperature was 40 degrees Celsius or even more; sweat corroded eyes, a throat is parched but we had only one water bottle for a day. There is a waterless steppe around; it is practically a semi-desert and saline land. The first lake that was met by us in our way was a salt lake and we were spitting out for a long time after it. When we were moving we had an impression that we were moving on a hot frying pan, on a halt it was impossible to lay on a ground as the ground was so hot that it burnt even through a soldier's blouse. The ground was burning hot, the sky was burning hot. A wind carries not a coolness but sultriness which is a very hot, like from an oven. A wind raises dust, flogs skin with sand and small stones, and burns lungs during breath. That wind is called "Gobian" by old residents because it blows from South West, from the desert of Gobi.
We went about a week to the border; we went a day and a night; we had only short halts; we slept only for 3-4 hours per a day so in the end of the march we were so tired that we were ready to drop, we began to sleep during moving. The steppe seethed with tanks and trucks' engines at night, the darkness was flogged by many rays of headlights and searchlights but even that clank, roar and din couldn't muffle the footfall of infantry. A sand wind blows at a day, sand was everywhere - in eyes, in food, in water. Those who had German captured mess kits were lucky as German mess kits had a cover. Our mess kits were round and opened and it was necessary to cover it with a sided cap, a newspaper or a palm but anyway kasha contained some sand. However the hot was so horrific that we didn't want to eat, we even didn't want to smoke, we wanted only one thing - to drink! We were gasping for a drink. Water was given definitely according a norm. Serious guard secured all wells. Many endless marches flew together in something that was not divided on a night and a day. When we at last had arrived to the border we dropped and slept for a day and a night.
And right in the next day we were sent to dig in. We dug almost everything around - trenches, earth-houses, covers for equipment. Soldiers grumbled: "Why are we doing it? Aren't we preparing to advance?" And right there officers was gathered in a headquarters and were criticized about the talkings about soon future war. We were ordered to stop the talkings about advance. Army newspapers began to write about defence. I don't know about samurais but we were not deceived with it.
Our division began to get replacement. It was hard to look on the drafted soldiers who were born in 1927 - the were real "children of a war", they were sickly as they raised on hungry rears rations. And the soldiers who arrived from the reserve of the Trans-Baikal Front also looked like a puny creature. They were emaciated, dressed in shabby uniform. They had leg-wrappings and it was amazed for us, who fought in the Soviet-German Front. So the private dividing on "westerners" and "easterners" established itself. But we didn't turn up our noses as we understood that while we were fighting on the West they were covering our backs here, in the East. The Japanese constantly drew our defense here, there were a lot of violations of the border, shootings, alarms. The Samurais quieted down only after Stalingrad.
And the life of easterners was not better than ours. The Trans-Baikal Front was not only called "rear" Front but it also was supplied according rears norms - soldiers got 360 grams of bread for a day and very weak soup. Many couldn't endure it and run away from hunger in the West, to fight. They knew they were caught and sent in a penal unit but were ready for it as they supposed it was better to die in a battle than to die from hunger.
We had another sign of soon offensive - all who were in our medical unit were discharged from it. And we were vaccinated from plague and other diseases as it was possible that samurais could use biological weapon. So nobody doubted in the beginning of the August that the war would begin very soon.
We, officers, learned by heart the maps of future operations. Our Tamtsak-Bulak lug was like a fist over Manchuria; it was an ideal place to advance from this bridgehead, to encircle, to cut and to crush Quantung Army. The Japanese understood it and moved out two third of their troops behind of the Khingan and left only covering forces in the border zone. We had to crush those covering forces and to move to the Khingan passes through wide semi-desert as soon as possible and to occupy those passes before the main Japanese forces would do it.
At the evening of August, 8th we were informed about the beginning of the war against Japan. We went to the border after meeting, it was already during darkness. I remember that the night was very dark. Signal flares - green and red - took off over the steppe now in that place and now in another place. Sheet lightings were seen far, deep inside of Japanese rears, behind a ridge of hills, roar was heard from there. Our long range artillery shot enemy fortified region. I remember a minute pause right before the border. Then a T-34 with switching on headlights went by us, stopped before a hill after which Manchuria was and shot from its gun. It was a sign. Right now all the steppe roared with hundreds of engines and lighted up with hundreds of headlights - dazzling light heaved by waves over a plain. I looked on my watch - it was 01:00 of August, 9th of 1945.
We crossed the border without a combat. Later we from time to time met Japanese fire points - usually those were alone machine gun nests - but they were eliminated quickly. The morning began. We saw the same hills, saline land like in Mongolia but it already was Manchuria. Tanks found themselves far ahead very quickly. Motorized infantry and petrol tankers tried to not remain behind. Trucks moved along parched rivers like along a road. Infantry had remained behind. And again there were terrible hot, dust and water shortage. It was only far, on the edge of horizon, where clouds were seen over the Khingan. But it was necessary to come to the Khingan before to think about it. Even American "Studebeckers" skidded and stuck in a sand and infantry from time to time had to push the trucks. Blood went out from noses of many soldiers in the result of hot and tiredness. Miracles tortured us - soldiers saw a lake, run to it with a joyful cry but the lake disappeared. The maps were non-reliable - some lakes, pictured on them, had parched or were salted. We moved by a lost settlement - the Japanese evacuated people from the border or the people moved away themselves when water disappeared from there.
In that place I firstly saw killed samurais - two bodies lay in a puddle of blood. I have to say that I didn't feel hatred to them. I understood that it was necessary, inevitable. It was the last battle of the Great War that began for our people in the lake of Khasan, continued in Khalkhin-Gol and in Finland, then it tortured our land for 4 years and here, at last, it approached to its end here, in Far East, right there where it began...
However, the Japanese didn't want to surrender in that time. Retreating, the Japanese Command left mobile units and small groups of saboteurs in our rears. Those units and groups had to attack our rear supply lines, rear garrisons and small groups of our soldiers, to hunt for officers. Once the Japanese killed with knifes a neighboring battery - they silently killed the sentinels, and killed the sleeping soldiers... Another time they attacked a field ambulance, killed all the wounded and tortured the girl-medic up to death. Another girl-medic was killed by sniper during the assault of a monastery where a Japanese scout-saboteur school was disposed. During that assault the combat turned into a hand-to-hand fighting. To the point, ours rushing in enemy trenches cried not only "For the Motherland! For Stalin!" but also "Hende Hoh!" ["Hands Up" in German - remark of Andrey] as they didn't know any Japanese word. In general, there were a few really serious combats in the first days - I saw myself dead Japanese machine gunners who were chained to their machine guns. And the volunteers-kamikaze were dressed in white blouses and white frontlet on a head with some hieroglyphs. Such kamikazes with mines on a bamboo pole or even with a mine simply attached to their backs rushed under our tanks not once. Once I saw kamikazes which had done harakiri - it was a show not for people with weak nerves: their bellies were opened; all the guts were outside; there was much blood and it smelled of alcohol from them - it looked like they drank it "for a bravery".
But in the spite of enemy resistance our troops rushed ahead. But the hot didn't disappear; it looked like dry steppe was baked under the mad sun; sometimes sand-storms occurred.
When it was especially difficult we were saved by U-2 planes which carry to us a little water from time to time. We were glad to any amount of water, even to a half of a cup for a man. Once we went to a forsaken well. Sappers tried to dig to water but reached only to slush. We thought out to run it through a sand filter - made some hole in the bottom of a pail, added there some sand, and poured some slush over it - and we got practically clear water.
At last we approached to foothills. There were more moisture and natural growth there.
There some of our companies were loaded on BT tanks - as the forward mobile detachments operated very well in the first days of the offensive the command had decided to increase their amount. Of course, it was a risky action to rush tanks ahead practically without infantry support, the tanks had only some infantrymen on their armor. They had to operate far from our rear units; it had to stretch dangerously our supply lines. But the risk had justified hopes. Not engaging long combats, the mobile detachments had quickly crossed the Khingan and had rushed on Manchurian Plain, in operational wide. It was for the Japanese like a bolt from the blue. In the mountains our light planes U-2 reconnoitered the situation in long ranges. The Japanese tried to stop our mobile detachments a few times in passes and in ravines but our tankmen knocked them down from the highs or moved by them without engaging the combat and letting for moving behind infantry units to eliminate the Japanese units.
Our main forces went behind of the mobile detachments. Although the Khingan is relatively low (not more than 2000 meters over a sea level) but my ears were blocked and my head hurt. And the main thing, rains had begun. The Grand Khingan is a natural obstacle that prevents wet winds from an ocean to enter deeper inside of the mainland. The Mongol steppes which were gone by us were so dry because all the moisture fell in the mountains and in Manchurian plain.
And we were advancing right during rainy season - we had taken the Japanese by surprise because the Japanese Command was sure that it was absolutel6y impossible to make advancing operations there in the August, when the terrain was impassable for heavy equipment, and didn't wait our blow earlier than in the autumn.
Oh, how we dreamed about rains while we were moving though the Mongol steppes scorched with a sun! How we were glad to then at first! And how we cursed them already two days later! Rain was pouring a day and a night without any stopping; brooks carried huge stones down along the slope; lightnings flashed practically without a halt - our soldiers spoke: "It is like a Katyusha is playing" [it is about a shooting legendary Katyusha rocket-launcher - Andrey]. There were no roads there and earlier but now paths turned into slush areas - soil turned into slush and moves under our feet, trucks were skidding, infantry was pushing heavy "Studebeckers" on a rise (and in such moments the Grand Khingan listened Russian "One, two, let's go! One more, let's go!") and was holding then in a descending. But the mountains didn't finish. A ridge was after another ridge, a ravine was after another ravine. The width of the Khingan ridge was 300 km there. When, at last, we had gone through the Khingan it became merrier but not easier to go down from it than to go up. The slope was 45 degrees and in some places it was even 50 degrees. The trucks slid down along moist slopes like along ice-crusted ground and it was possible to hold them with ropes not always. I myself saw how a truck fell down in a ravine and crushed there like a match box, almost taking with it the soldiers which didn't want to abandon ropes up to the last moment.
Thunderstorms and rains didn't stop even when we at last went down from the mountains in Manchurian plain. Everything around was flooded by water, the amount of slush was so terrible that even tanks stuck in that slush and I even do not want to speak about ordinary trucks; the weather was non-flying. Sometimes it was so dark at a day that we needed to switch on our headlights. It was difficult to breath because of fume, the air was damp. The rivers had overflowed their banks and flooded all the fields around; the motor roads turned into slush so our tanks had to move along a railroad embankment, right on railroad sleepers. Then we rested against an exploded bridge. While we were thinking where it is better to cross the impetuous stream of water some Chinese appeared on the opposite bank and risking their lives swam through the river and carried ropes for the crossing. Another time when our vanguard had stopped before an exploded dam some local civilians again helped us - together with our sappers they carried at a run stones, gravel, soil, and soon the dam was recovered. Also the Chinese warned us about Japanese ambushes.
The Chinese everywhere met us as liberators. I remember how we entered in large city of Vanemiao and the Chinese and Mongols welcomed us by enthusiastic cries "Shango!" ("Very well!") and "Vansui" ("10,000 years of life!"). They waved by red flags, and almost jumped under our tanks. Ours waved them in response, we did it with our sided caps, infantrymen and tankmen' helmets. The Chinese offered to visit their homes and tried to entertain us in the spite of the fact that they were very poor.
...
Our divisional newspaper printed the interpretation of the General Staff of Red Army: although mikado [Japanese Emperor - remark of Andrey] had declared about surrender still on August, 15th he hadn't order to surrender for the troops of Quantung Army, and many its units continued to resist so our advancing operation would continue. Really, many Japanese preferred to die than to become a POW - some of them shot himself, some tried to jump with a mine in hands under our tanks. There were cases when the Japanese killed our bearers of a flag of truce. Some separate groups of kamikaze continued to fight in our rears up to the autumn. But all it was not able to stop or even to slow down the impetuous rush of the Soviet troops.
But our division was unlucky. After Vanemiao the tankmen went far, to Port Arthur, but we were left to secure the headquarters of the Trans-Baikal Front. Of course, it was annoys us as we had hope to see ourselves the legendary city. But instead of it we had to carry rears duties: we had to patrol the city, to secure the headquarters, stores, railroad. Indeed, a few times we had to eliminate groups of kamikaze in the outskirts of Vanemiao; it was the same how we hunted for "verwolfs" [Nazi "partisans" in occupied Germany - remark of Andrey] in Eastern Prussia....
On September, 3rd we were read Stalin's declaration about the victory over Japan and about "the peace in the whole world". Colored flares - white, green, and red -and a lot of tracer bullets were shot in the sky. Everything was like after the victory over Germany. And I again had shot from my TT in the sky and I thought: right now those are really the last shots on Earth.
