The Manchurian Campaign of the Red Army

(August 1945)

May 22, 2006

Introduction

"Current information is not a complete description of the campaign, but only an addition to descriptions available for now. The reason of this info to be introduced is to show the Russian perspective on that campaign. A special emphasis was set to subjects that are unknown for Western readers, or which contradicts with commonly accepted in the West point of view. I suppose it'll be definetely interesting to see the events of that campaign by the eyes of Soviet veterans, who took part in it."

Andrey

All this info was provided by Andrey.

Grammar corrections were performed only for a few texts. Any help is welcomed here.

AMVAS

A Few Words from Soviet & Russian Official Historians

• A Japanese View for Abilities of the Kwantung Army

• Soviet official version

Selected parts of the memoirs of Soviet soldiers & officers

(Source: "I fought against Samurais: From Khalkhin-Gol to Port Arthur", Yauza, Moscow, 2005)

• The Trans-Bajkal Front
• Grigorii Kalachev, a scout
• Aleksandr Zhelvakov, an officer of Political Department of the 6th Gds. Tank Army
• Alexander Fadin, a tank company commander
• Vladimir Spindler, a battalion commander
• Dashi Irincheev, an artillery scout of an artillery regiment
• Oleg Smirnov, a contributor of a divisional newspaper
• Anatolii Shilov, a machine gunner, Komsomol Leader of a regiment
• The 1^st Far Eastern Front
• Dmitrii Krutskikh, Deputy of the Chief of Headquarters of Engineer Troops of the 1st Far Eastern Front
• Ivan Kazintsev, a sapper
• The 2^nd Far Eastern Front
• Vasilii Ivanov, an army scale recon officer
• The Patrol-Recon Detachment Commander of the 1^st River Ship Brigade of the Amur Flotilla

Andrey's Remarks:

1. Samurai - the Soviet soldiers applied this word for all Japanese soldiers.
2. There exists a Russian term "smertnik". It means a soldier-fanatic, who is ready to die in any moment. It is practically the same kamikaze but it is about ordinary soldiers and not about special units where kamikaze were concentrated. My dictionary doesn't give an English equivalent of Russian word smertnik. I can translate it as "a soldier who is ready to die but to not retreat". In reality this word has very menacing meaning.
   When a pair of Soviet veterans writes: "Almost all the Japanese were smertniks" (it is practically the same "Almost all the Japanese fought like kamikaze") it is heard very threateningly.

Note: All these memoirs were made a few years ago so there are free from any censorship.