Manchuria

Manchuria is located south of eastern Siberia and north of Korea, and is today the northernmost part of China. It 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 area was 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.

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 railcar 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. Large numbers of poor Japanese families emigrated to Manchuria, as well as many Chinese who saw better economic opportunities under the Japanese than under their own weak government. 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, took the Japanese by surprise. The Russians easily pushed aside the defending forces, which had been depleted to provide replacements and reinforcements in the Pacific and the Japanese homeland.

Russian order of battle, 9 August 1945

Japanese order of battle, 9 August 1945

The fighting did not end until 19 August 1945, when the fortress of Hutou 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.

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.

References

Coox (1986)

Dorn (1974)

Drea (2009)
Frank (1999)

Glantz (1983; accessed 2008-12-10)

Hastings (2007)

Hoyt (1993)

Hsiung and Levine (1992)

Liu (1956)

Sih (1977)

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