Manchuria

Manchuria is located south of eastern Siberia and north of Korea, and is today the northernmost part of China. Its boundaries remained ill-defined in 1941, but the three modern provinces of northeast China have an area of about 304,000 square miles (787,300 km²). The region is dominated by a central plain reaching from the Yellow Sea to the south to the Amur River to the north. To the southeast is Korea, with the Yalu River marking part of the boundary and the rest of the boundary passing through the Chingbai Mountains. Eastern Manchuria, a region of heavily forested hills and swampy valleys, borders on the  Russian Far East. The central plain is frigid and dry in the winter and hot and humid in the summer, with a pronounced monsoon in late summer that produces heavy rain. Western Manchuria takes in part of the Mongolian Plateau and is separated from the central plain by the Greater Khingan Mountains, which reach to over 6000' (2000 m). The western slopes of the Greater Khingan Mountains are almost bare, while the eastern slopes are more wooded and characterized by black soil unsuitable for heavy traffic. Northeast Manchuria is separated from the central plain by the Lesser Khingan Mountains, which are rugged and heavily forested.

Manchuria is remarkably similar to New England in its native vegetation but experiences much colder winter temperatures. It is also rich in resources, including lumber (it was 36% forested in 1941), arable farmland, iron ore, coal, and aluminiferous shale. There was considerable hydroelectric potential along the Yalu River, which forms part of the border with Korea, and in the mountains to the north.

The Manchu (Tsing or Qing) dynasty that seized control of China in 1644 found itself repeatedly clashing with Russian settlers and Cossack cavalry in the Amur River basin, but since both powers had more serious preoccupations elsewhere, the boundary was fixed along the Amur River by treaty in 1689. Thereafter Russia was the only foreign power formally recognized by the Chinese until 1860. The slow decline of the Manchu court, particularly following the Opium War of 1840, the Taiping Revolution of 1850 to 1864, and the Boxer Rebellion of 1898-1901, created a power vacuum in Manchuria. The area was still rather thinly settled at the start of the 20th century, but it was a rich prize.  Both Russia and Japan coveted Manchurian resources and saw the region as an important buffer from the other power. Both forced concessions from the Chinese, who were largely powerless to resist this encroachment. The Russo-Japanese War of 1905 finally placed Manchuria firmly in the Japanese sphere of influence, though it remained nominally a part of China. Secret agreements with the Russians, on 30 July 1907 and in 1910, further clarified the respective Soviet and Japanese claims and pledged the two powers to cooperate in excluding other powers from Manchuria. The United States, which had proposed the internationalization of the Manchurian rail system, was the primary target of this agreement. The Lansing-Ishii agreement of 1917 was an acknowledgement by the U.S. that Japan had a special position in Manchuria because of its "territorial propinquity" to east Asia.

The Kwantung Army began developing plans to separate Manchuria from China in 1912, though these plans were initially thwarted by the civilian government in Tokyo. However, on 4 June 1928, officers of the Kwantung Army led by Colonel Komoto Daisaku set a bomb on the South Manchurian Railroad that destroyed the rail car of Chang Tso-lin, the warlord of Manchuria. The assassination of Chang had tacit support from high levels in the Army and even the civilian Cabinet, and was intended to provide an excuse for the Japanese to overrun Manchuria. Although details of the bomb plot were soon leaked to Japanese newspapers, the Army successfully stonewalled the investigation by threatening to pull the War Minister out of the Cabinet. Komoto was quietly forced into retirement, and Chang's son, Chang Hsueh-liang, took control of Manchuria.

In October 1928, Colonel Ishiwara Kanji became the operations officer of Kwantung Army. He was joined by Lieutenant Colonel Itagaki Seishiro in mid-1929 as the ranking staff officer. The two men began planning a Japanese takeover of Manchuria. Other officers were brought into the plot, which depended on rapidly destroying Chang's headquarters in Mukden. Their plans came to fruition on 18 September 1931, when they staged an incident on the Manchurian Railroad as a casus belli. The Kwantung Army quickly seized Mukden, forcing Chang to withdraw from Manchuria with the bulk of his forces, and Manchuria was overrun by the Japanese within two weeks. The Japanese Army again threatened to bring down the Cabinet if it tried to interfere with Army operations in Manchuria. Henry Pu-Yi, the deposed last emperor of China, was brought in as head of the new puppet state of Manchukuo. Few other powers recognized Manchukuo, and the League of Nations condemned the Japanese action. Japan responded by withdrawing from the League. Ishiwara and Itagaki became heroes within the Army, but their action had alienated Japan from much of the world community and had left Kwantung Army with the task of defending an ill-defined 3000-mile border with a hostile and military resurgent Russia.

Manchuria was heavily exploited during Japanese rule, becoming a second industrial heartland for the Japanese.  Japanese planners had calculated than Japan itself had 31% too many farmers for the land available, and under the "Plan for the Settlement of One Million Households over Twenty Years", large numbers of poor Japanese families emigrated to Manchuria. The Japanese immigrants found that their new homeland was already populated by hostile Chinese (numbering over 30 million) whose land had been forcibly purchased for the settlers by the Japanese colonial office. The Japanese villages were often attacked by "bandits."

The Japanese were joined by many immigrants from other parts of China who saw better economic opportunities under the Japanese than under their own weak government. Chinese farm laborer immigrants, mostly from impoverished Shantung and Hopei provinces, numbered no less than half a million per year every year in the 1930s. In a curious role reversal, the Japanese immigrants, many of whom had been sharecroppers in Japan, tended to hire the Chinese as farm laborers.

Japan maintained a large garrison in Manchuria against the possibility of either a Russian invasion or a Russian collapse, and the Japanese Army virtually ran the province. This hindered development, as the Army started with a poor understanding of economics and had a slow learning curve. Nonetheless, production of pig iron peaked at 2.5 million tons per year.

Instrumental in running Manchukuo in the late 193os were the ni ki, san suke ("two k's, three suke") of Tojo Hideki, head of the Kempeitei of the Kwantung Army; Hoshino Naoki, supervisor of economic affairs of Manchukuo; Matsuoka Yosuke, president of the South Manchurian Railway; Kishi Nobosuke, Hoshino's assistant; and Aikawa Yoshisuke, head of the Manchurian Heavy Industries Development Corporation.  Tojo purged Kwantung Army of the Imperial Way Faction (Kōdōha), briefly succeeded in suppressing corruption through strict enforcement of military law, and would later become the wartime prime minister of Japan. Yosuke would become the foreign minister of Japan and negotiate the Russo-Japanese Non-Aggression Pact.

Because of the Russian threat, the Japanese kept Manchuria heavily garrisoned until late in the Pacific War, when the desperate need for troops to hold off the Allied counteroffensive caused the Japanese Army to repeatedly pull reserves from Kwantung Army. By August 1945 Kwantung Army had become a hollow shell.

August Storm

Russia overran Manchuria in a lightning campaign in August 1945, after the atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. Three Russian armies of 1.5 million men organized into 83 divisions, equipped with 3704 tanks and 1852 self-propelled guns supported by 500 aircraft, stormed across the border from north, west, and east. The Russians crushed the defending forces, which had been depleted to provide replacements and reinforcements in the Pacific and the Japanese homeland, in less than two weeks.

The Russian operational plan for Manchuria proper called for three main thrusts. The Trans-Baikal Front (Malinovsky) attacked from the Mongolian desert west of Manchuria, sweeping past the border defenses to cross the Grand Khingan Mountains into central Manchuria. 1 Far Eastern Front (Meretskov) simultaneously attacked across the rugged terrain of east Manchuria towards Mutanchiang. 2 Far Eastern Front (Purkaev) attacked northern Manchuria, primarily as a holding action.

The attack commenced shortly after midnight on 9 August 1945. The Japanese were caught entirely by surprise, in spite of reports from the consulate in Chita of a great increase in rail traffic and signals intelligence pointing to a Russian offensive. The General Staff could do little to bolster the Manchurian defenses given the critical situation in the Pacific, and, in an astonishing display of wishful thinking, ignored the danger. The Russians ensured that the Japanese would remain complacent with their maskirova, or deception plan, which included careful measures to conceal Russian preparations. Russian troops moved into their jumping off points only at night, and behind masking walls and overhead covers. So great was Japanese complacence that, in an astonishing parallel to the Germans at Normandy, the commander of 5 Army had called all his senior commanders away to a table top exercise the night of the attack.

The Japanese had counted on heavy fortifications on their frontiers to cover any likely Russian axis of attack and hold the Russians long enough to organize a solid defense. However, the Russians had meticulously planned their operation, which called for massive artillery and air support and rapid thrusts led by powerful armored units, which would advance through terrain the Japanese thought unsuitable for mechanized operation and bypass the Japanese strong points.

Heavy rain the night of 8-9 August helped conceal the initial Russian movements on the eastern border, and many Russian commanders here chose to cancel the preparatory artillery barrages in order to increase the element of surprise. This proved devastatingly effective. Some Russian units advanced fifty miles in the first two and a half days, disrupting Japanese command and control and giving the Japanese no opportunity to organize a meaningful defense. Commanders lost contact with their forward units almost at once, and premature demolition of bridges trapped retreating Japanese. Isolated Japanese strong points were mopped up by the second Russian echelon. supported by direct fire from 152mm self-propelled guns.

Russian engineering support was crude but effective. In the forested swamps northeast of Khanka Lake, tanks led the way, knocking down trees that were then gathered by the supporting infantry and worked into crude corduroy roads by engineers. The roads were further widened and improved by successive echelons in the advance. River crossings were supplied with a limited number of A-3 assault boats, but most troops were expected to construct their own rafts, as they had in Europe. The Russians showed an impressive mastery of close cooperation between armor, infantry, artillery, and engineers, learned the hard way in the war against the Germans.

Japanese resistance was sometimes locally ferocious. At Maly Huankang (133.006E 45.226N), Russian forces were held up by fire from an armored tower that had to be destroyed by direct fire by heavy artillery guns. The heaviest fighting of the campaign took place around Mutanchiang, which fell on the evening of 15 August 1945.

In western Manchuria, the Russian forces would have to cross the Grand Khingan Mountains. Though these were not particularly high, they were rugged, with many defiles and gullies and with only a few narrow passes, most of which had no road. Only two were considered usable by the Japanese for invasion. The first ran from Handagai to Solunshan and the second from Hailar to Tsitsihar. The Japanese naturally concentrated their defenses in these passes, but the Russians bypassed the fortified passes with their armored spearheads and isolated the Japanese garrisons. This stretched Russian logistics, particularly in fuel and maps, to the limit; but Japanese resistance away from the fortified passes was all but nonexistent, and the Russians were able to work their way through the mountains, reaching Solunshan on 12 August and breaking into the central Manchurian plain. 107 Division, the main force guarding the southern passes, fought bravely but in vain, and was shattered by 15 August. The survivors withdrew into the mountains and ultimately surrendered to 221 Rifle Division.

Hailar was invested and bypassed by 11 August.The retreating 119 Division was driven out of Yakoshin (120.714E 49.267N) by 13 August and could not hold at Wunuerh (121.048E 49.077N). By 17 August, 36 Army had reached Pokatu (121.904E 48.743N) and poised to advance on Tsitsihar.

Russian forces of 15 Army attacked towards Chiamussu, primarily to pin down the Japanese forces in the area. These were build around 134 Division and 14 Border Guard Brigade. The Japanese abandoned Tungchiang (132.496E 47.642N) on 10 August, and the Russians were able to make effective use of elements of Amur River Flotilla to bypass resistance in the swampy valley of the Sungari River, taking Fuchin on 13 August and reaching Chiamussu on 16 August.

The campaign in Manchuria was carried out simultaneously with an attack on Karafuto and landings in the Kuriles. These were not as successful as the campaign in Manchuria. The attack on Karafuto was channeled into a narrow valley that the Japanese had heavily fortified, and the amphibious landings in the Kuriles and in support of the Karafuto attack were hampered by the inexperienced of the Russians in amphibious assault and by a lack of amphibious shipping. The Russian landing forces were carried on trawlers and other improvised transports and escorted by escort cutters, torpedo cutters, and other auxiliaries. The landings would not have been possible had Japan's navy not already been all but destroyed by the Americans.

The fighting did not end until 19 August 1945, when the fortress of Hutou, which had been isolated on the first day of the campaign, surrendered. The Russians inflicted 674,000 Japanese casualties, including 84,000 killed, at a cost of 12,031 dead and 24,425 sick or wounded. American researchers estimate that the Soviets captured 2,726,000 Japanese nationals during the campaign, of which only a third were military. Of these, 2,379,000 eventually returned to Japan. Some 254,000 were confirmed dead, and the remaining 93,000 were presumed dead.

Of the 220,000 Japanese farmers who had emigrated to Manchuria, about 80,000 died during the harsh winter of 1945-1946. Some 11,000 were killed by vengeful Chinese, some committed suicide, and 67,000 starved. The 140,000 survivors were eventually returned to Japan.

The Russians turned Manchuria over to the Chinese three weeks after the end of hostilities, but not before removing most of the industrial plant and giving the arms surrendered by the Japanese to the Chinese Communists.

Russian order of battle, 9 August 1945

Japanese order of battle, 9 August 1945

References

Collingham (2011)

Coox (1986)

Dorn (1974)

Drea (2009)

Edgerton (1997)
Frank (1999)

Glantz (1983 [accessed 2008-12-10]; 2003)

Hastings (2007)

Hoyt (1993)

Hsiung and Levine (1992)

Kotani (2009)

Liu (1956)

Myers and Peattie (1984)

Peattie et al. (2011)

Sih (1977)

Willmott (1982)

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007-2010, 2012, 2014-2015 by Kent G. Budge. Index

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