On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. In the early morning of the next day (August 9), under the unified command of Marshal Vasilevsky of the Soviet Army, 1.5 million Soviet troops attacked the Japanese Kwantung Army from three directions.
It's a battle in the autumn wind. The once-mighty Japanese Kwantung Army was defeated by soviet forces. The Japanese Kwantung Army carefully arranged a self-proclaimed "indestructible" defense line, which was as vulnerable as paper in the face of a powerful Attack from the Soviet Army. The Japanese Kwantung Army lost its will to fight and fled for its life.
Under the pressure of the Soviet army, at noon on August 19, the commander-in-chief of the Japanese Kwantung Army, Ryozo Yamada, came to Changchun Airfield, handed over the saber symbolizing the order to the Soviet representatives, and announced that all the personnel of the Eastern Army, including himself, had become Prisoners of the Soviet Army.
In the 10-day battle, the Soviets annihilated about 677,000 Japanese Kwantung Army at a cost of 32,000 casualties, of which 83,000 were killed and 594,000 surrendered.
The Japanese Kwantung Army was once the elite main force and strategic reserve of the Japanese army. At its peak, it had 31 infantry divisions, 11 infantry and tank brigades, 1 death brigade and 2 aviation units, with a total strength of about 1.2 million people. Why did the Soviet army beat the Japanese Kwantung Army to the ground in just ten days?
In fact, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, the Soviet army and the Japanese Kwantung Army were very small. The Battle of Nomenkan illustrates this point.
The Battle of Nocankan took place from 11 May 1939 to 16 September 1939. At that time, the Soviet army had just undergone a great purge, thousands of Soviet military leaders were executed or exiled, and even katyusha and the inventor of the recoilless gun were killed. The Soviet army's lower and middle command system also suffered heavy losses. This greatly reduced the military quality of the middle and lower commanders of the Soviet Army. In the fall of 1940, none of the 225 commanders graduated from the military academy during a training session.
At that time, the combat effectiveness of the Soviet army was reduced to the lowest point.
In stark contrast, the Japanese Kwantung Army is on the rise. In 1931, after Japan launched the war of aggression against China, the strength of the Kwantung Army continued to increase. By 1938, the Japanese Kwantung Army had reached 360,000 men.
After the outbreak of the Battle of Nomenkan, the Soviet Army formed the First Army Group with Zhukov as the commander, with 498 tanks, 385 armored vehicles, 542 artillery and mortars, 515 aircraft, and a maximum strength of nearly 60,000 troops. The Japanese Kwantung Army invested 500 cannons, 182 tanks and more than 300 aircraft in this battle, with a maximum strength of 75,000 people. The Soviet army was slightly better than the Japanese Kwantung Army, but it was taken in more than a month.
According to post-war statistics, casualties on both sides of the Battle of Nomonkan were very close.
After the outbreak of the Battle of Nomonkan, the Japanese Kwantung Army continued to increase its strength and equipped it with a large number of A-class divisions with strong combat effectiveness. At its peak, the Japanese Kwantung Army had 31 infantry divisions, 11 infantry and tank brigades, 1 death squad brigade and 2 aviation units, with a total strength of more than 1.2 million people, and was known as the "Flower of the Imperial Army".
However, since the outbreak of the Pacific War, the Japanese army has been defeated in the Pacific Theater, with heavy casualties and extremely empty troops. In order to cope with the Pacific war situation, Japan was forced to "cut flesh and make up for sores", constantly drawing elite troops and a large number of combat materials from the Kwantung Army, and putting them into the Pacific Theater to fight against the United States and British allies. In 1945 alone, 20 divisions were transferred from the Japanese Kwantung Army. After these elite troops were put into the Pacific Theater, they became cannon fodder like "Zhao Qiao sent a lampstand, and he couldn't come back".
As elite divisions were gradually transferred, in order to prevent the Soviet offensive, Japan recruited some veterans from the army again and supplemented them into the Kwantung Army. Thus by the time the Soviet offensive began in August 1945, the Japanese Kwantung Army still had 22 divisions of about 700,000 men. However, a considerable number of recruits among these 700,000 people, either the elderly or children, also lack weapons and equipment, and 100,000 people are not even equipped with the most basic Type 38 rifle. The weapons, equipment and combat qualities of these 22 divisions and regiments can only be barely equivalent to the previous 8 divisions.
At this time, the combat effectiveness of the Japanese Kwantung Army was far from being comparable to that of the Kwantung Army in 1939.
While the combat effectiveness of the Japanese Kwantung Army was greatly reduced, the combat effectiveness of the Soviet army made great progress. The Soviet army was tested with iron and blood in the 4-year Soviet-German War, and its combat effectiveness is not what it used to be. At the same time, the weapons and equipment of the Soviet army were also the first in the world.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Soviet army in August 1945, with the most powerful infantry in the world, even surpassed the German army at its peak, and was an overwhelming advantage for the Japanese Kwantung Army, which was already at the end of its rope.
Therefore, when a million Soviet troops launched an onslaught against the Japanese Kwantung Army, the former "Flower of the Imperial Army" quickly withered away and perished forever.