Chapter 30 Preparation, Failure, and the Collapse of the Japanese Cabinet
On June 4, 1939, in view of the fact that the Japanese troops in North China had been unable to make a breakthrough due to insufficient manpower, the Japanese high-ranking officials once again adjusted the North China Front Army. In terms of personnel, Lieutenant General Yoshio Shinozuka replaced Lieutenant General Yoshijiro Umezu as the commander-in-chief of the First Army, and Lieutenant General Naozaburo Okabe, the former chief of staff of the front army, replaced Lieutenant General Hasunuma Ban as the commander-in-chief of the Mongolian Army.
In terms of the organization of subordinate troops, the 109th Division, which was originally affiliated with the 1st Army, and the 114th Division, which was originally affiliated with the 12th Army, were first transferred back to the country for demobilization. Subsequently, in order to make up for the force vacancy on the Jinpu Road after the demobilization of the 114th Division, the 5th and 10th Divisions were withdrawn from local areas and North Korea and re-incorporated into the 12th Army.
Immediately afterwards, the 1st Independent Mixed Brigade and the 15th Independent Mixed Brigade were organized using local overseas Chinese in North China and transferred to Shanxi to supplement the combat power losses of the 1st Army.
After adding and subtracting, General Sugiyama Gen, who felt that his strength had been strengthened, thought of attacking again. He decided to mobilize all four divisions of the 12th Army, the 5th, 10th, 21st, and 35th, and parts of the 5th and 6th Independent Mixed Brigades, as well as the 36th and 110th divisions directly under the front, the 9th Independent Mixed Brigade, and most of the 3rd Air Group to fight Lanfeng again to carry out the so-called Third Battle of East Henan.
General Sugiyama Hajime attempted to use the unprecedented force of six divisions and three independent mixed infantry brigades to crush China's two major war zones of Hebei, Shandong and Henan, and Jiangsu, Xuzhou, Shandong, Henan and Anhui, and to contain the forces of the Hubei, Henan and Anhui war zone, and to settle the matter in the Central Plains region.
However, just as he had made his plan, the unfavorable outcome of the Battle of Nokan Gate forced the Japanese military to transfer the 10th Division, which had just been incorporated into the 12th Army, to the Kwantung Army.
Although Sugiyama Gen, who had his spine pulled out, was extremely unwilling, he was powerless and could only watch the battle plan that his staff had worked so hard to draw up turn into a piece of waste paper.
However, even though the 10th Division was transferred away, the Third Battle of East Henan was imminent. In order to avoid repeating the failure of the previous two battles, the Japanese high-ranking officials in North China tried every means to gather troops.
Fortunately, the new commander-in-chief of the First Army, Lieutenant General Yoshio Shinozuka, was not as rebellious as his predecessor Michijiro Umezu. Therefore, Lieutenant General Kamezo Otaka received reinforcements from the First Army with eight infantry battalions from the 8th and 15th Independent Mixed Brigades.
After that, through coordination, the 12th Army obtained the command of the 1st Cavalry Brigade from the Mongolian Army, and through a dialogue between the two major military leaders of the invading Japanese army in China, obtained the promise of the Central China Expeditionary Army to do its best to contain the Hubei-Henan-Anhui War Zone after the outbreak of the war. At this point, the Japanese army in North China barely had the strength to fight again.
However, the Japanese army's combat plan in North China was still being revised, and the situation in Nomonhan had taken a sharp turn for the worse.
On July 6, the artillery commander of the Kwantung Army, Uchiyama Eitaro, formed a field heavy artillery regiment in the interior of Manchukuo. However, the so-called heavy artillery consisted of only 6 150mm cannons, 16 150mm howitzers, 12 120mm howitzers, and 16 100mm cannons, which was an order of magnitude lower than the heavy artillery used by European armies at the time.
In order to make up for the shortage of "heavy artillery", the Japanese army also specially assembled 24 75mm Type 38 field guns in this "heavy artillery regiment", making this "heavy artillery regiment" a hodgepodge that did not live up to its name.
Not only did the Japanese army have fewer heavy artillery pieces, but the performance of these artillery pieces was seriously outdated. What was even more frightening was that the Japanese army, which was accustomed to bullying the Chinese army with weaker firepower, was seriously lagging behind in the shooting techniques of ultra-long-range shooting and saturation shooting. As a result, they gained little from the shelling on the morning of July 23.
Not only did they not harvest much, but these artillery pieces even suffered from malfunctions such as broken gun carriages, overheated gun bodies, chamber explosions, and barrel burnout due to prolonged firing.
In addition, at this time, the Japanese army actually forgot the iron rule of quickly moving their positions after the shelling. As a result, they were counterattacked by the Soviet army after the relocation, and most of the artillery was destroyed at the gun positions.
At this point, the Japanese army was forced to declare defeat in the so-called "artillery decisive battle."
At this time, the Kwantung Army had lost one-third of its troops on the Nomonhan battlefield and had to give up the idea of a quick victory.
After that, the Japanese army withdrew its troops to hold the northern wing and carried out small-scale harassment operations on the southern wing. At the same time, it transported Kimura to set up a wintering position on the desolate and cold Mongolian grasslands. As a result, the two sides began to fall into a stalemate.
Although they were in a stalemate, neither side gave up their preparations for a fight.
On August 4, the Japanese Army Headquarters formed the Sixth Army, which was under the command of the 23rd Division and the Eighth Border Guard of the Kwantung Army.
The total strength of the Sixth Army was approximately 75,000, with 53-year-old Lieutenant General Ogisu Tachibe as commander-in-chief.
At the same time, the Soviet Union also expanded the 57th Special Army into the First Army, which had a strength of about 57,000 troops, equipped with 542 large and small artillery pieces, 383 tanks and armored vehicles, and 515 aircraft. It can be said that except for the fact that the Soviet army was inferior to its opponent in terms of troop strength, it had an absolute advantage in other aspects.
Of course, as a famous general, Zhukov knew that the more cards he had in his hand, the better. After entering August, he kept asking Moscow for reinforcements.
In order to dispel the Japanese army's interest in the Soviet Far East and to deter the Northwest Army.
Stalin generously met all of their demands. In the first 20 days of August, two infantry divisions, one tank brigade, and two artillery regiments arrived at the Nomonhan theater from the Soviet Union.
What dealt the Japanese an even more fatal blow was that a considerable number of Soviet pilots who had participated in the Spanish Civil War arrived in the war zone carrying I-16 fighters equipped with rockets, and swept away all the Type 97 mono-wing fighters equipped by the Japanese Second Flying Group, forcing the Japanese to use the old Type 95 bi-wing fighters to hold on.
The Japanese army was not without ways to fight back.
From the beginning of the war, the Kwantung Army Headquarters instructed Ishii's troops to formulate a biological warfare plan in the Nomonhan area.
At the end of July, Major Ikari Ikari of the Ishii Bacteriological Unit led 22 suicide squad members on two rubber rafts and scattered 22.5 kilograms of typhoid, cholera, plague, glanders and other bacteria into the river, waging biological warfare against the Soviet and Mongolian troops.
While causing heavy casualties the Japanese army also suffered the consequences of its own actions, with more than 1,340 soldiers contracting typhoid fever, dysentery and cholera. Even the military doctors and suicide squad members of Unit 731 were infected with bacteria and more than 40 of them died.
The Soviet General Staff decided that the time of the general offensive would be August 20 (Sunday) because according to convention, half of the officers of the Japanese front-line troops had to take turns to go to Hailar for vacation.
The order to attack was conveyed to the front-line company at 2:45 a.m. on the 20th. As expected, the Japanese positions opposite were completely silent. The Soviet counterattack was extremely sudden.
At 2:55, the Soviet-Mongolian artillery units launched a two-hour bombardment on the Japanese positions, and then dispatched bombers to bombard the Japanese defense line on the east bank of the Khalkha River. Before the Japanese soldiers who had escaped by chance could congratulate themselves on their good luck, the Soviet army launched another overwhelming saturation bombardment, which made the Japanese soldiers scream in agony.
At 8:45 that day, the Soviet and Mongolian troops began to cross the river. After a day of fierce fighting, the Soviet and Mongolian troops successfully gained a foothold and bridgehead on the east bank of the Khalkha River.
In the following two days, the Soviet army took advantage of its advantages in personnel, technology and weapons to repeatedly attack key points of the Japanese army. The two Mongolian cavalry regiments of the puppet Manchukuo army responsible for Fuyi Hill (code-named Finger Hill by the Soviet army) on the northernmost side of the Japanese right wing were first defeated by the 6th Red Mongolian Cavalry Division and the 601st Infantry Regiment of the Soviet Army. The Japanese search team supervising the battle was surrounded by the Soviet-Mongolian Corps. Only a few Japanese troops found an opportunity to escape on the night of the 24th.
Upon receiving the news that the Soviet army had begun its attack, the Japanese Sixth Army Command immediately moved from Hailar to Nomonhan. One day later, the Japanese 14th Brigade also arrived at Nomonhan from Hailar.
With this strong support, Lieutenant General Ogisu Tatsuhei immediately formulated a counterattack plan, deciding to use the 28th Infantry Regiment deployed on the leftmost wing of the Japanese army as the main force and to assign parts of the 26th, 71st and 72nd Infantry Regiment to reinforce to the south.
However, when the counterattack time designated by Lieutenant General Ogisu Rikuhei reached zero, most of the "counterattack force" had not yet reached the designated position. The chaotic Japanese troops were launching attacks in twos and threes, but they happened to run into the attack of the Soviet right wing. The two sides engaged in fierce fire in the "big desert" area southeast of Nomonhan Obo.
In view of the tenacious resistance of the Japanese army in this area, the Soviet army had to transfer a motorized armored brigade from the reserve to join the battle, and finally broke through the Japanese front line and went around to its rear.
The Soviet left-wing troops that broke through from the north also moved south in a detour, thus encircling the main force of the Japanese army on the east bank of the Khalkha River and completely annihilating the Japanese heavy artillery units deployed behind the infantry positions.
In the battle from August 24 to 26, the 26th, 71st, 72nd and other regiments in the center of the Japanese Army were beaten out of order and then divided and surrounded by the Soviet Army in several scattered high grounds. Their destruction was imminent.
In the following days, the Japanese troops stubbornly held their ground during the day while trying to escape the encirclement at night.
On the night of August 29, the 64th Regiment Headquarters failed to break out, and the regiment commander, Colonel Takemitsu Yamagata, committed suicide after burning the military flag.
There were less than 200 men left in the 71st Regiment, and they burned their flag. After launching a suicide charge against the Soviet army, no one escaped.
However, the headquarters of the 23rd Division, which was trapped in the Soviet encirclement together with the 71st Regiment, managed to survive until August 31 and escaped the final judgment under the cover of night. However, with the escape of this Japanese army, all the Japanese troops on the east bank of the Khalkha River were wiped out, and a major war came to an end.
Although the 23rd Division was almost wiped out in the Soviet counterattack, the Kwantung Army did not want to give up at this moment. After receiving reinforcements from the 10th Division and other units, the more confident Kwantung Army once again drove the 2nd Division from Hailar and the 4th Division from Jiamusi to Nomonhan, preparing to fight again to wash away the previous shame.
However, the Kwantung Army's intention to fight again was doomed to fail. At noon on August 23, 1939, two "Vulture" transport planes carrying a Nazi German delegation arrived in Moscow.
Stalin, Molotov and Ribbentrop held two talks, and that night the two countries formally signed the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact. When the news reached Japan, it shocked the Japanese government and the public like a bolt from the blue. Both the military and the government advocated an immediate ceasefire, and the Hiranuma Cabinet resigned as a result. Under pressure from the upper echelons, the out-of-control train of the Kwantung Army finally stopped reluctantly.
