Soviet invasion of Manchuria (1945)

Soviet invasion of Manchuria
Part of World War II and Soviet-Japanese Border Wars
Soviet SU-76M assault guns entering Changchun, the capital of Manchukuo.
Soviet SU-76M assault guns entering Changchun, the capital of Manchukuo.
Date August 9 – August 20, 1945
Location Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and Korea
Result Decisive Soviet victory
Belligerents
Flag of the Soviet Union Soviet Union
Flag of Mongolia Mongolian People's Republic (outer mongolia)		 Flag of Japan Empire of Japan
Flag of Manchukuo Empire of Manchuria
Flag of Mengjiang Mengjiang (inner mongolia)
Commanders
Flag of the Soviet Union Aleksandr Vasilevsky
[1][2]		 Flag of Japan Otozo Yamada #
Strength
Soviet Union
1,577,225 men,
26,137 artillery,
1,852 sup. artillery,
5,556 tanks and self-propelled artillery
5,368 aircraft
Mongolia
16,000 men		 Japan
1,217,000 men,
5,360 artillery,
1,155 tanks,
1,800 aircraft,
1,215 vehicles[1]
Manchukuo
200,000 men[3]
Mengjiang
10,000 men
Casualties and losses
12,031 KIA/MIA, 24425 [4] (Soviet estimate)
83,737 KIA
640,276 POWs;
(Japanese estimate)
21,000 KIA
Soviet–Japanese Border Wars
Lake Khasan – Khalkhin Gol
Barbarossa – Baltic Sea – Black Sea – Finland – Leningrad and Baltics – Crimea and Caucasus – Moscow – 1st Rzhev–Vyazma – 2nd Kharkov – Blue – Stalingrad – Velikiye Luki – 2nd Rzhev–Sychevka – Kursk – 2nd Smolensk – Dnieper – 2nd Kiev – Dniepr-Carpathian – Narva – Hube's Pocket – Bagration – Lvov–Sandomierz – Lublin–Brest – Balkans (Iassy–Kishinev) – Baltic – Budapest – Vistula–Oder – East Prussia – East Pomerania – Silesia – Vienna – Berlin – Prague
China – Pacific Ocean – South-East Asia – South West Pacific – Japan – Manchuria (1945)
Campaigns of World War II
Europe
Poland – Phoney War – Finland  – Denmark & Norway
France & Benelux – Britain – Balkans – Yugoslav Front - Eastern Front – North West Europe (1944–45) – Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa

Asia & The Pacific
China – Pacific Ocean – South-East Asia 
South West Pacific – Japan – Manchuria (1945)

Other Campaigns
Atlantic – Strategic Bombing – North America
Contemporaneous Wars
Chinese Civil – Soviet-Japanese Border – French-Thai – Ecuadorian-Peruvian

The Soviet invasion of Manchuria or Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation (Russian: Советско-японская война), began on August 9, 1945, with the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. The Soviets conquered Mengjiang, as well as northern Korea, southern Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. The operation is sometimes called Operation August Storm by English-language writers, after historian David Glantz used this title for a paper on the subject.

At the Yalta Conference, the Soviet Union had agreed to Allied pleas to terminate its neutrality pact with Japan and enter World War II's Pacific Theater within three months after the end of the war in Europe. This offensive should not be confused with the Soviet-Japanese Border War that ended in Japan's defeat in 1939.

The invasion began at dawn on August 9, 1945, precisely three months after the German surrender on May 8 (May 9, 0:43 Moscow time). This fell between the atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9. However, it is clear that news of the attacks on the two cities played no role in the timing of the Soviet attack. Although Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had not been told much detail of the Western Allies' atomic bomb program by Allied governments, he was nonetheless well aware of its existence and purpose by means of Soviet intelligence sources.

The Soviet Union formally declared war on the Empire of Japan on August 8, 1945[5] four months after the Soviets denounced the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact signed in 1941[6].

The operation was subdivided into smaller operational and tactical parts:

Contents

Naming conventions

Though the battle extended beyond the borders traditionally known as Manchuria — that is, the traditional lands of the Manchus — the coordinated and integrated invasions of Japan's northern territories is still collectively labelled in English as the Battle of Manchuria[7]. It is also known by the Soviet name Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, the battle of Manchukuo or the battle of Northern China.

Combatant forces

Soviets

The Far East Command[2], under Marshal of the Soviet Union Aleksandr Vasilevsky, had a plan for the conquest of Manchuria that was simple but huge in scale[1], calling for a massive pincer movement over all of Manchuria. This pincer movement would be performed by the Transbaikal Front from the west and by the 1st Far East Front from the east; the 2nd Far East Front would attack the center of the pocket[2]. The only Soviet equivalent of a theater command that operated during the war (apart from the short-lived 1941 "Directions" in the west), Far East Command consisted of three Red Army fronts:

The Transbaikal Front would form the western half of the Soviet pincer movement, attacking across the Inner Mongolian desert and over the Greater Khingan mountains[2]. These forces would secure Mukden (present day Shenyang), and meet troops of the 1st Far East Front at the Changchun area in south central Manchuria[1] and in doing so finish the double envelopment.[1]

Basic map showing Soviet invasion plan for Manchuria[2]

Amassing over one thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, the 6th Guards Tank Army would serve as armored spearhead leading the Front's advance and would have to capture objectives 350 km (217 miles) inside Manchuria by the fifth day of the invasion.[1]

The 36th Army would also attack from the west but would have as objective to meet forces of the 2nd Far East Front at Harbin and Tsitsihar.[2]

The 1st Far East Front would form the eastern half of the pincer movement, attack which would involve the 1st Red Banner Army, the 5th Army and the 10th Mechanized Corps striking towards Mudanjiang (or Mutanchiang).[1] Once that city was captured, this force would advance towards the cities of Jilin (or Kirin), Changchun and Harbin.[1] Its final objective would be to link up with forces of the Transbaikal Front at Changchun and Jilin (or Kirin) thus closing the double envelopment movement.

As a secondary objective, the 1st Far East Front had to prevent Japanese forces from escaping to Korea and then invade the Korean peninsula up to the 38th parallel[1], establishing in the process what would later become North Korea. The secondary objective would be carried out by the 25th Army.[1] Meanwhile, the 35th Army was tasked with capturing the cities of Boli (or Poli), Linkou and Mishan.[1]

The 2nd Far East Front was in a supporting attack role.[1] Its objective would be the cities of Harbin and Tsitsihar[2] and to prevent an orderly withdrawal to the south of the Japanese forces.[1]

Once troops from the 1st Far East Front and Transbaikal Front captured the city of Changchun, they would attack the Liaotung Peninsula and seize Port Arthur (present day Lüshun)[1].

Soviet Forces under the Far East Command[1]
Total Transbaikal Front 1st Far East Front 2nd Far East Front
Men 1,577,725 654,040 586,589 337,096
Artillery pieces 27,086 9,668 11,430 5,988
Multiple rocket launchers 1,171 583 516 72
Tanks and self propelled guns 5,556 2,416 1,860 1,280
Aircraft 3,721 1,324 1,137 1,260
Soviet soldiers in Mongolia, before the invasion.

Each Front had "front units" attached directly to the Front instead of an army [8]. The forces totaled at least eighty divisions with 1.5 million men, over five thousand tanks and self propelled guns (including 3,700 T-34s), over 28,000 artillery pieces and 4,300 aircraft (including 3,700 first line combat aircraft). Approximately one-third of its strength was in combat support and services. Its naval forces contained 12 major surface combatants, 78 submarines, numerous amphibious craft, and the Amur river flotilla, consisting of gunboats and numerous small craft. The Soviet plan incorporated all the experience in maneuver warfare that the Soviets had acquired fighting the Germans.

Japanese

The Kwantung Army of the Imperial Japanese Army, under General Otsuzo Yamada, was the major part of the Japanese occupation forces in Manchuria and Korea, and it consisted of two Area Armies and three independent armies [9]:

Each Area Army (Homen Gun, the equivalent of a Western "army") had headquarters units and units attached directly to the Area Army, in addition to the field armies (the equivalent of a Western corps). In addition to the Japanese, there was the forty thousand strong Manchukuo Defense Force, composed of eight under-strength, poorly-equipped, poorly-trained Manchukuoan divisions. Korea, which would have been the next target for the Far East Command, was garrisoned by the Seventeenth Area Army.

The Kwantung Army had over six hundred thousand men in twenty-five divisions (including two tank divisions) and six Independent Mixed Brigades. These contained over 1,215 armored vehicles (mostly armored cars and light tanks), 6,700 artillery pieces (mostly light), and 1,800 aircraft (mostly trainers and obsolete types; they only had 50 first line aircraft). The Imperial Japanese Navy contributed nothing to the defense of Manchuria, the occupation of which it had always opposed on strategic grounds.

On economic grounds, Manchuria was worth defending since it had the bulk of usable industry and raw materials outside of Japan and still under Japanese control in 1945. However, the Japanese forces were far below authorized strength, and most of their heavy military equipment and best military units had been transferred to the Pacific front over the previous three years. As of 1945, the Japanese army in Manchuria contained a large number of raw recruits. As a result, the Kwantung Army had essentially been reduced to a light infantry counter-insurgency force with limited mobility and experience. In the event, Japanese forces were no match for the mechanized Red Army, with its vastly superior tanks, artillery, officers, experience and tactics.

Compounding the problem, the Japanese military made several major mistakes.

New plans made by the Japanese in the Summer of 1945 called for the borders to be held lightly and delaying actions fought while the main force would hold the southeastern corner in strength (so defending Korea from attack). However, the new plans were not implemented by the time the Soviets launched their attack.

Campaign

Japanese soldier surrendering to Soviet soldiers.
Defeated Japanese soldiers giving up their rifles.

The operation was carried out as a classic double pincer movement over an area the size of Western Europe. In the western pincer, the Red Army advanced over the deserts and mountains from Mongolia, far from their resupply railways. This confounded the Japanese military analysis of Soviet logistics, and the defenders were caught by surprise in unfortified positions. The Japanese commander was missing for the first eighteen hours of conflict, and communication was lost with forward units very early on. At the same time, Soviet airborne units were used to seize airfields and city centers in advance of the land forces, and to ferry fuel to those units that had outrun their supply lines.

After a week of fighting, during which Soviet forces were already penetrating deep into Manchukuo, Japan's Emperor Hirohito read the Gyokuon-hōsō on August 15, 1945 and declared a ceasefire in the region the next day. The Soviets continued their largely unopposed advance, reaching Mukden, Changchun and Qiqihar by August 20. On the Soviet right flank, the Soviet-Mongolian Cavalry-Mechanized Group had entered Inner Mongolia and quickly took Dolon Nur and Kalgan. The Emperor of Manchukuo (and former Emperor of China), Puyi, was captured by the Soviet Red Army.

On August 18, several amphibious landings had been conducted ahead of the land advance: three in northern Korea, one in Sakhalin, and one in the Kuril Islands. This meant that, in Korea at least, there would already be Soviet soldiers waiting for the troops coming overland. In Sakhalin and the Kurils, it meant a sudden and undeniable establishment of Soviet sovereignty.

The land advance was stopped a good distance short of the Yalu River, the beginning of the Korean peninsula, when even the aerial supply lines became unavailable. The forces already in Korea were able to establish a bit of control in the peninsula's north, but the ambition to take the entire peninsula was cut short when American forces landed at Incheon on September 8, six days after the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender.

Importance and consequences

The Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, along with the two atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, combined to break the Japanese political deadlock and force Japan's surrender; they made it clear that Japan had no hope of holding out, even in the Home Islands.

Japan's decision to surrender was made before the scale of the Soviet attack on Manchuria, Sakhalin, and the Kurils was known[10], but had the war continued, the Soviets had plans to invade Hokkaidō well before the other Allied invasion of Kyushu.[11][12]

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings were not the principal reason for capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the swift and devastating Soviet victories on the mainland in the week following Joseph Stalin's August 8 declaration of war that forced the Japanese message of surrender on August 15, 1945.[13] His claim, however, has been criticized because it ignores the fact that the Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo knew that a full-scale invasion had begun but were unaware of how badly the fighting in Manchuria was going.[14]

Manchuria, cleansed of any potential military resistance by Soviet forces, provided the main base of operations for Mao Zedong's forces, who proved victorious in the following four years of civil war in China. In fact, military success in Manchuria prevented the Soviet Union from receiving bases in China — promised by the Western Allies — because all land gained was turned over to the People's Republic of China after they gained power. Before leaving Manchuria, however, Soviet forces dismantled its considerable industry and relocated it to restore industry in war-torn Soviet territory.

As agreed at Yalta, the Soviet Union had intervened in the war with Japan within three months of the German surrender, and they were therefore entitled to the territories of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands and also to preeminent interests over Port Arthur and Dairen, with its strategic rail connections. The territories on the Asian mainland were transferred to the full control of the People's Republic of China in 1955, and the other possessions are still administered by the Soviet Union's successor state, Russia. Though the north of the Korean peninsula was under Soviet control, the logistic machine driving the invasion forces had given out before the entire peninsula could be seized. With the American landing at Incheon — some time before the Red Army could have remobilized and secured the entire nation — Korea was effectively divided. This was a precursor to the Korean War five years later.

See also

Campaigns of World War II
Europe
Poland – Phoney War – Finland  – Denmark & Norway
France & Benelux – Britain – Balkans – Yugoslav Front - Eastern Front – North West Europe (1944–45) – Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa

Asia & The Pacific
China – Pacific Ocean – South-East Asia 
South West Pacific – Japan – Manchuria (1945)

Other Campaigns
Atlantic – Strategic Bombing – North America
Contemporaneous Wars
Chinese Civil – Soviet-Japanese Border – French-Thai – Ecuadorian-Peruvian

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 Glantz, David. "August Storm: The Soviet 1945 Strategic Offensive in Manchuria". Combat Studies Institute, Leavenworth Papers, February 1983, Fort Leavenworth Kansas
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 "Battlefield - Manchuria - The Forgotten Victory", Battlefield (documentary series), 2001, 98 minutes.
  3. ↑ Jowett, Rays of The Rising Sun, Pg. 36
  4. ↑ http://www.soldat.ru/doc/casualties/book/chapter5_10_1.html#5_10_36
  5. ↑ Soviet War Declaration On Japan August 8, 1945. (Avalon Project at Yale University)
  6. ↑ Denunciation of the neutrality pact April 5, 1945. (Avalon Project at Yale University)
  7. ↑ p.238, Maurer
  8. ↑ Leavenworth Papers No. 7 (August Storm: The Soviet 1945 Strategic Offensive in Manchuria)
  9. ↑ Kwantung Army Order of Battle 30 July, 1945
  10. ↑ Downfall, p. 289.
  11. ↑ David M. Glantz, "The Soviet Invasion of Japan", Quarterly Journal of Military History, vol. 7, no. 3, Spring 1995, pp. 96–97, discusses new information indicating that Stalin was ready to land troops on Hokkaidō two months before the scheduled American landings in Kyushu. (Information from The Smithsonian and the Enola Gay. The National Interest; 6/22/1995; Washburn, Wilcomb E. footnote 15).
  12. ↑ Frank, Downfall, p. 323–4, citing David Glantz, "Soviet Invasion of Japan".
  13. ↑ Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy, p. 298.
  14. ↑ Richard Frank. Downfall

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