War is a word that is very close to us and far away from us, because the Second World War, the largest scale in modern times, took place in our then fragmented territory, and because our country is now rich and strong and can no longer be invaded. With the end of one hero after another, we ushered in a new life, do not have to worry about food and security, in fact, if the cruelty and bloodshed of war are put aside, The Second World War is a turning point in the development of the world. If we compare the modern world to a stage play, we can find that there are various countries that are starring or heroes in battle, countries that are less affected or have a weak sense of participation as supporting roles, heroes who have dissipated but still stay in their hearts, and there are repressive openings and happy endings, but there are always some things in the process, which are unknown but have a profound impact on the overall situation. The Battle of Nomonkan was such a thing, and even made the Japanese army completely lose its courage and no longer dare to provoke the Soviet Union.
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The Nomenkan Incident: Completely frightened the Japanese army, and never dared to provoke the Soviet Union again
Battle of Nomenkan
The Battle of Nomenkan, also known as the "Halehin River Incident", was an armed provocation launched by the Japanese Empire at that time, nomenkan was only more than 200 kilometers away from hailar on the mainland, which is now the southwestern part of the city of Hulunbuir in the inner mongolia autonomous region of the mainland. But with regard to World War II, the only war areas we are familiar with are the European Theater, the Pacific War, the North African Theater and the Eastern Theater, which do not seem to be very important, just like the supporting roles in the movie, but there is no great role and significance, but here on the contrary, the war launched by the Japanese invading forces here with the Soviet army seems to be unknown but has a huge impact on the entire situation of World War II.
In the Battle of Nomonkan, the Soviet Union and Outer Mongolia formed an alliance army, a total of nearly 500 tanks, nearly 400 armored vehicles, more than 500 artillery and mortars and more than 500 aircraft, about 57,000 soldiers directly involved in the battle, and the battle was the Japanese sent by the Kwantung Army stationed in the northeast of the mainland, the Kwantung Army in this battle dispatched more than 500 artillery, nearly 200 tanks, more than 300 aircraft and 75,000 soldiers participating in the battle. Special operations units were even dispatched as the battle drew to a close.
Through the strength of the troops dispatched by both sides, it can be seen that the Japanese Kwantung Army occupies a great advantage, but the outcome of this battle is unexpected by everyone, and the Japanese Kwantung Army is trampled by the steel torrent of the Soviet Union, and the corpses are all over the field and cannot be defeated. Even according to the data, the Japanese army suffered a crushing defeat at Nomonkan until the signing of the Soviet-Japanese Armistice Treaty, and the total number of dead and wounded soldiers and captured soldiers reached more than 61,000, which has exceeded 80% of the total strength. So how exactly did this battle unfold? What huge impact did such heavy casualties have on Japan's plans? This brings us to the causes of this war.
Russo-Japanese War
In fact, long before the Battle of Nomonkan, Japan and Russia often clashed. In 1904-1905, the Japanese Empire and the Russian Empire fought wars over the korean peninsula and the northeast region of China, when Japan implemented a "continental policy", with the rise of domestic militarism, its ambitions for foreign aggression and expansion increased day by day, and the Russian Empire had been expanding since the 15th century, and its territory had increased dramatically, becoming a colonial empire spanning two continents. Then the territory of the country sandwiched between the two countries became the target of Japan and Russia at the same time.
Although Japan at that time posed no threat in the eyes of Russia, which had been developing for many years, the pace of Russia's external expansion made other powers begin to be vigilant, so the Western countries tried to resist and delay the pace of Russian expansion by supporting Japan. So Britain and the United States provided a lot of economic assistance to Japan, thereby speeding up the expansion of the Japanese army, and then when the Japanese ruling clique thought it was ready and Russia was not prepared, an undeclared war between Japan and Russia was set off.
However, the Russian Empire at that time was already an empty "paper tiger", not at all an opponent of the Japanese Kwantung Army, which developed with the strong support of Britain and the United States, and the Russo-Japanese War finally ended with a great victory for Japan, and after the war, not only the northeast region of China was occupied by Japan, but Russia was also forced to cede the southern part of Sakhalin Island to Japan.
After the russo-Japanese war, Japan's last fears about the Russian behemoth were gone, even slighted, and even after the establishment of the Soviet Union, Japan remained contemptuous of the new regime. Because after the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese army also destroyed the Russian navy in the Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904, because these destroyed navies were the backbone of Russia's deployment in lushun port, so with the dissipation of the fleet, Russia completely lost the qualification to compete with Japan for rights and interests in the Far East, and it can be said that it is precisely because Japan won the victory in the conflict with Russia that Japan dared to officially begin to invade China in an all-round way.
Japan's aggressive ambitions expanded
At this time, Japan can be said to have fully embarked on the path of militarist foreign aggression, but after deliberating on the direction of aggression, differences arose in the Japanese base camp. One is the Northbound route adhered to by the Japanese Army, by once again provoking a war against the Soviet Union, the plan to seize Mongolia and Siberia, at the same time, it can form a semi-encirclement situation in the south, ready for future global domination, and Mongolia itself has rich oil and gas and mineral deposits, and the most important thing is that the Japanese military still believes that the Soviet Red Army is no different from the former Russian army, it is fragile, and it does not even need to use full strength.
Another voice is the Southward Route proposed by the Japanese Navy, which has been developed by Japan directly south to Southeast Asia through the combined fleet that has been extremely complete through continuous development, because Southeast Asia has long become a colony of various powers, has rich resources, but does not have enough garrisons to resist aggression, and if it successfully occupies the resources of Southeast Asia, it will have a higher right to speak, which can restrict the countries fighting in other regions, and can also completely block Chinese mainland. It is even possible to cross the Pacific Ocean directly to attack the United States.
The outcome of the deliberations made the Japanese Army and Navy very satisfied, because the Japanese military chose to proceed on two routes simultaneously under the erosion of increasingly inflated ambitions, and such a decision can now only be said to be too high expectations of oneself and excessive contempt for other countries. After the plan was formulated, the Japanese Kwantung Army stationed in the northeast of the mainland began to migrate to the Soviet border in large numbers, the Japanese vigilance forces remaining in the territory of puppet Manchukuo also began to be reorganized into troops, and began to depart for the Sino-Mongolian border, and various military factories in the Japanese mainland also began to prepare combat equipment intensively. The southern combat plan, because it is based on the navy as the main force, will take a little longer to prepare, and the focus will first be on the army's march plan.
The Battle of Nomonkan begins
Since the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932, the conflict between Japan and the Soviet Union has begun to intensify dramatically, and after 1935, the japanese Kwantung Army stationed in Hailar and the troops of the puppet Manchukuo often provoked the Soviet Union on the grounds of the "border issue".
With the continuous escalation of scale, finally in July 1938, Japan sent the 23rd Division of the Kwantung Army to march into Hailar, which made the Soviet Union and Mongolia realize that Japan was preparing for war, so after three months of preparation and consultation, the 57th Special Army of the Soviet-Mongolian Far East Army entered Mongolia, the two sides officially began to confront each other, and the Battle of Nomonkan also began.
The Battle of Nomonkan begins
At 9:00 p.m. on May 13, 1939, a Japanese search team belonging to the Twenty-third Division of the Kwantung Army, led by its captain, Dong 800, arrived at the Kangyur Temple, more than eighty kilometers from Nomonkan, with a squad of 104 cavalry and ninety armored soldiers. Later, after reaching the Kangyur Temple, Dong 800 tuck called in five Japanese aircraft without reporting to the Twenty-third Regiment, and attacked the Mongol army in the highlands east of the Halaha River, while the Mongol army, which was not prepared for the battle, was scattered by the raiding air force and sacrificed the lives of more than thirty soldiers to successfully retreat, and then the Mongol army as a whole retreated to the west of the Halaha River.
On 17 May, after two days of patrolling along the Halaha coast, the East 800 Tibetans returned to Hailar, but after learning that the Japanese detachment had launched an attack on the Mongol army, the Soviet Union began to send troops into the Halaha River area in accordance with the previously signed Soviet-Mongolian Mutual Assistance Agreement. The Eleventh Tank Brigade of the Soviet Far Eastern Forces and the Thirty-sixth Division stationed in Ulan-Ude began to move towards Nomonkan after receiving orders, and it is worth mentioning that the Thirty-sixth Division had just become a motorized infantry unit and was very effective.
At the same time, in order to gain priority in the war, the Fifty-seventh Special Marching Command of the Far East of the Soviet Union was also transferred from Ulaanbaatar to Talmuchag Prague, which was only one hundred and twenty-five kilometers away from Nomenkan, and began to issue orders for the deployment and movement of soldiers in the Battle of Nomonkan. Finally, in late May the 6th Mongol Cavalry Division also arrived on the battlefield and built a pontoon bridge over the Halaha River, preparing the Soviet armored forces and infantry for the march.
Initial clashes at the Battle of Nomenkan
In the early morning of May 28, the Mongol Sixth Cavalry Division, which had just crossed the Halaha River, was attacked by the 64th Regiment of the 23rd Division of the Far Eastern Army, with more than 1,000 men under Yamagata Wuguang, but also a detachment of more than 200 men led by Dong 800zang and three cavalry units of puppet Manchukuo. The Japanese and puppet forces divided into three small branches and launched a siege on the Mongol Sixth Cavalry Division, and the two sides quickly fought together on the steppe. Due to the strong combat quality of the Mongol cavalry, the accurate riding and shooting, and the excellent endurance and speed of the Mongol horses successfully waited for Soviet reinforcements on the east bank.
The rapid speed of Soviet reinforcements and the unexpected combat effectiveness surprised the Japanese army and quickly collapsed, and the search team of Dongba hundred Tibetan was completely destroyed, and he himself was cut down by the Mongolian Sixth Cavalry Division, and only the troops of Yamagata Takemitsu successfully escaped, but the number of losses also exceeded 20%. In the first phase of the battle, both sides won and lost, but in general, the Japanese performed better, because the Japanese also sent fighters to support the battlefield, which greatly threatened the Soviet and Russian allies in the vast steppe.
Internal situation of the Japanese army
In fact, long before the conflict between Japan and the Soviet Union completely evolved into a war, Japan did a lot of agitation work for its own soldiers at home, and not only encouraged its own side, but also greatly degraded the Soviet army, so that when the Japanese army went to the battlefield in 1939, almost all Japanese soldiers had a strong desire to fight with the Soviet Union, and they firmly believed that they would win. Therefore, in the first stage, a small detachment like The Eastern Eight Hundred Tibetans dared to raid the Mongol army camp.
Moreover, under such internal agitation, the desire to attack the entire Twenty-third Division reached its peak, and in the absence of various heavy weapons and vehicles, many Japanese soldiers began to attack the positions of the Soviet-Mongol coalition army, and the almost death-defying attack also made the Soviet Union suffer one after another, a phenomenon that was not changed until the Soviet Union transferred Zhukov to the Far East.
The Soviet Union began to gain strength
Zhukov himself was in charge of many battlefield strategies and tactics, and he also brought a large number of artillery and armored troops. In June 1939, Zhukov, who had traveled thousands of miles from Belarus, did not rest, but immediately summoned the commander of the Fifty-seventh Army and his staff officers who were fighting the Japanese army. Through the conversation, it was learned that the Soviet troops stationed here did not know much about the situation in Nomonkan, and not only about the geographical environment of the area, but about the situation of the enemy forces and the deployment of their own troops.
The explanation given by the local commander was that the headquarters was too far from the front line of the battle, and when Zhukov asked why he felt that communication equipment such as telephone lines had not been installed far away, he explained that the landing site had not been arranged, so no arrangements had been made. Even when Zhukov asked the commander to accompany him to the front to observe the situation, he shirked it, and such an irresponsible and limited commander was the cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early stages. Therefore, Zhukov reported to the headquarters to remove the commander from his post and give himself full authority to lead the Fifty-seventh Special Army.
The war situation has changed
The first thing Zhukov did in charge of deployment was to open a Soviet Red Army airfield in the Nomonkan area, because the decline of the Soviet Union for many days was due to the inability to restrain the movement of Japanese bombers, and the opening of Soviet airfields can be said to be the best solution to this problem directly. Beginning on 19 June, Soviet warplanes began to bomb the Japanese forces massing in and around the Temple of Kangyur, and the Twenty-third Division, sensing a change in the Soviet plan, sent 20,000 men to Nomonkan.
The Twenty-third Division not only dispatched a large number of infantry, but also the Japanese First Tank Regiment and the Second Flying Group, totaling more than seventy tanks and nearly two hundred aircraft. With a large amount of combat forces from both sides, the two sides engaged in many fierce air battles over the Nomonkan steppe, and nearly sixty fighters crashed on both sides in the three days from June 22 to 24 alone. However, as Zhukov continued to apply for combat support from home, and finally waited for the arrival of the most sophisticated I-15 fighter in the Soviet Air Force at that time, the air supremacy was also tilted to the Soviet Union.
In addition to air support, Stalin expanded the number of soldiers planning to participate in the war to fifty-seven thousand, and sent many more artillery, tanks, and armored vehicles, but the reinforcements also gave Zhukov an iron order to defeat the Japanese Kwantung Army in the shortest possible time, and the scope of action must avoid Mongolia. Under such pressure, Zhukov also increased his efficiency.
The War was completely white-hot
On July 2, 1939, the still superior Japanese army was ready to take the lead in attacking while Soviet reinforcements had not yet reached the battlefield, and immediately began operations. However, although the number of Soviet troops was smaller than that of the Japanese army, but the armored vehicles and other vehicles were more than the Japanese army, Zhukov ordered to rely on the mobility of armored vehicles and powerful firepower to start guerrilla warfare with the Japanese army, under the tactics of day and night, the strength of the Japanese army was constantly being depleted.
Michitaro Komatsubara, who once served as Japan's military attaché in the Soviet Union, had carefully studied Soviet tactics, and the Soviet Union had once abolished the armored forces, so when facing such a closely coordinated armored force as the Soviet Union, the Japanese troops would be embarrassed, and to a certain extent, they also extinguished some of Japan's arrogance that they were invincible.
In order to reverse the decline, the Japanese military also began to send reinforcements to the Nomonkan area, and by mid-August, the number of Japanese troops had reached more than 75,000, and plans were drawn up for a general offensive on August 24. But Zhukov had already thought of all this, so he ordered all the armored vehicles and tanks to remove the loaded silencers in advance, and kept moving back and forth between the various positions, so that the Japanese army became accustomed to the movement of tanks, and then found many loud speakers to play the sound of the piledriver on the position, a series of actions made the Japanese think that the Soviet Union was ready to temporarily delay the pace of the attack, but to build defensive measures.
Zhukov's secret strategy
After a few days of such a day, Zhukov judged that the Japanese had completely relaxed their vigilance and ordered his troops to launch a surprise attack on the still sleeping Japanese on the night of August 20. At 5:45 a.m., one hundred and fifty Soviet bombers and hundreds of artillery simultaneously attacked the Japanese positions, pouring out more than thirty thousand tons of artillery fire, many Of which were blown up in their sleep, and with the suspension of artillery fire, the Japanese positions were greeted by a torrent of steel from more than eight hundred tanks and armored vehicles. The Japanese suffered such an unprepared raid of such a scale that many of them died without even being able to utter a scream, and the Japanese positions stationed along the Halaha River were completely crushed under the onslaught of Soviet steel troops.
In the face of such an attack by the Soviet Union, the Japanese army can only exercise some special means, they sent more than thirty daredevils in the special combat unit to think of dropping more than twenty kilograms of plague bacteria liquid in the Halaha River, in an attempt to cause great damage to the Soviet army after polluting the water source through malaria and other malignant infectious diseases, but because this unit has long been infamous, Zhukov has long laid the water pipe to provide water for the troops, so it is not infected with the virus in the river, but the Japanese army is deeply affected. Due to the haste of the operation, the Japanese army did not formulate relevant measures in advance, so that many thirsty Japanese soldiers were forced to drink river water, which eventually caused the death of more than a thousand people. Under such blows, Japan finally announced its surrender on September 15, and the two sides signed an armistice agreement.
Japan insisted on dying
The Battle of Nomonkan caused the Japanese army to suffer a shameful defeat, completely terminated the Japanese Army's initial plan to go north, and had a huge impact on the situation in World War II. According to Japan's initial plan, it was to attack the Soviet Union with Germany, but this defeat made this plan self-defeating, and it also disguised the pace of the German army, and the large number of casualties at the Battle of Nomonkan caused the Japanese military strength to decline rapidly. Komatsubara, commander of the 23rd Division of the Japanese Kwantung Army, who then commanded the battle, committed suicide by cutting his stomach in front of the grave of the soldier who died in the battle.
This war also made Japan can only turn its target to Southeast Asia, but it is precisely because of Japan's decision to turn to Southeast Asia that the United States declared war on Japan and completely accelerated the collapse of the fascist country, so this war can be called to affect the entire pattern of World War II.