Actions of Soviet aviation in the battles near Lake Khasan. Fighting at Lake Khasan
Lake Khasan is a small freshwater lake located in the southeast of Primorsky Krai near the borders with China and Korea, in the area of which a military conflict occurred between the USSR and Japan in 1938.
At the beginning of July 1938, the Japanese military command reinforced the garrison of border troops located west of Lake Khasan with field units that concentrated on the eastern bank of the Tumen-Ula River. As a result, three infantry divisions of the Kwantung Army, a mechanized brigade, a cavalry regiment, machine-gun battalions and about 70 aircraft were stationed in the area of the Soviet border.
The border conflict in the area of Lake Khasan was fleeting, but the losses of the parties were significant. Historians believe that in terms of the number of killed and wounded, the Khasan events reach the level of a local war.
According to official data published only in 1993, Soviet troops lost 792 people killed and 2,752 people wounded, Japanese troops lost 525 and 913 people, respectively.
For heroism and courage, the 40th Rifle Division was awarded the Order of Lenin, the 32nd Rifle Division and the Posyet Border Detachment were awarded the Order of the Red Banner, 26 servicemen were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, 6.5 thousand people were awarded orders and medals.
The Khasan events of the summer of 1938 were the first serious test of the capabilities of the USSR Armed Forces. Soviet troops gained experience in the use of aviation and tanks, and in organizing artillery support for the offensive.
The international trial of major Japanese war criminals held in Tokyo from 1946 to 1948 concluded that the Lake Hassan attack, which was planned and carried out using significant forces, could not be regarded as a simple clash between border patrols. The Tokyo Tribunal also considered it established that hostilities were started by the Japanese and were clearly aggressive in nature.
After World War II, the documents, the decision and the very meaning of the Tokyo Tribunal were interpreted differently in historiography. The Khasan events themselves were assessed ambiguously and contradictorily.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
75 years ago, the Battles of Khasan began - a series of clashes in 1938 between the Imperial Japanese Army and the Red Army over Japan's dispute over the ownership of the territory near Lake Khasan and the Tumannaya River. In Japan, these events are called the “Zhangufeng Heights Incident” (Japanese: 張鼓峰事件).
This armed conflict and all the dramatic events that took place around it cost the career and life of the prominent hero of the Civil War, Vasily Blucher. Taking into account the latest research and archival sources, it becomes possible to take a fresh look at what happened in Soviet Far East at the end of the 30s of the last century.
INGLOLOUS DEATH
One of the first five Soviet marshals, the first holder of the honorary military orders of the Red Banner and the Red Star, Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher, died from cruel torture (according to the conclusion of a forensic expert, death was caused by a blockage pulmonary artery a blood clot formed in the veins of the pelvis; an eye was torn out. - Author) in the Lefortovo prison of the NKVD on November 9, 1938. By order of Stalin, his body was taken for a medical examination to the notorious Butyrka and burned in the crematorium. And only 4 months later, on March 10, 1939, the courts sentenced the dead marshal to capital punishment for “espionage for Japan,” “participation in an anti-Soviet right-wing organization and in a military conspiracy.”
By the same decision, Blucher’s first wife Galina Pokrovskaya and his brother’s wife Lydia Bogutskaya were sentenced to death. Four days later, the second wife of the former commander of the Separate Red Banner Far Eastern Army (OKDVA), Galina Kolchugina, was shot. The third, Glafira Bezverkhova, was sentenced exactly two months later by a Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR to eight years in forced labor camps. A little earlier, in February, Vasily Konstantinovich’s brother, Captain Pavel Blyukher, the commander of the aviation unit at the OKDVA Air Force headquarters, was also shot (according to other sources, he died in custody in one of the camps in the Urals on May 26, 1943 - Author). Before the arrest of Vasily Blucher, his assistant Pavlov and driver Zhdanov were thrown into the NKVD dungeons. Of the marshal’s five children from three marriages, the eldest, Zoya Belova, was sentenced to 5 years of exile in April 1951; the fate of the youngest, Vasilin (at the time of Blucher’s arrest on October 24, 1938, he was only 8 months old), according to his mother Glafira Lukinichna, who served term and completely rehabilitated (like all other family members, including Vasily Konstantinovich) in 1956, remained unknown.
So what was the reason for the reprisal against such a well-known and respected figure among the people and in the army?
As it turns out, if Civil War(1918-1922) and the events on the Chinese Eastern Railway (October-November 1929) were the rise and triumph of Vasily Blucher, then his real tragedy and the starting point of his fall was the first armed conflict on the territory of the USSR - the battles at Lake Khasan (July-August 1938).
HASAN CONFLICT
Lake Khasan is located in the mountainous part of the Primorsky Territory and has dimensions of about 800 m in width and a length of 4 km from south-east to north-west. To the west of it are the Zaozernaya (Zhangu) and Bezymyannaya (Shatsao) hills. Their heights are relatively small (up to 150 m), but from their peaks there is a view of the Posyetskaya Valley, and in clear weather the outskirts of Vladivostok are visible. Just over 20 kilometers to the west of Zaozernaya flows the border river Tumen-Ula (Tumenjiang, or Tumannaya). In its lower reaches there was the junction of the Manchurian-Korean-Soviet border. In Soviet pre-war times state border with these countries were not indicated. Everything was decided on the basis of the Hunchun Protocol, signed with China by the tsarist government in 1886. The border was recorded on maps, but only license plates were on the ground. Many heights in this border zone were not controlled by anyone.
Moscow believed that the border with Manchuria “passes along the mountains located to the west of Lake Khasan,” considering the Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya hills, which were of strategic importance in this area, to be Soviet. The Japanese, who controlled the government of Manchukuo and disputed these heights, had a different opinion.
In our opinion, the reasons for the start of the Khasan conflict were at least three circumstances.
Firstly, June 13 at 5 o'clock. 30 min. In the morning, it was in this area (east of Hunchun), controlled by border guards of the 59th Posyet border detachment (chief Grebennik), who ran to the adjacent territory with secret documents “to transfer himself under the protection of the authorities of Manchukuo,” head of the NKVD Directorate for the Far Eastern Territory, State Security Commissioner 3rd rank Genrikh Lyushkov (formerly head of the NKVD for the Azov-Black Sea region).
As the defector (later, until August 1945, adviser to the command of the Kwantung Army and the Japanese General Staff) told the Japanese authorities and newspapermen, true reasons his escape was that he allegedly “came to the conviction that Leninism is no longer the fundamental law of the Communist Party in the USSR”, that “the Soviets are under the personal dictatorship of Stalin”, leading “the Soviet Union to self-destruction and war with Japan, so that with its helping to “divert the attention of the people from the internal political situation" in the country. Knowing about the mass arrests and executions in the USSR, in which he himself took a direct part (according to the estimates of this “prominent security officer", 1 million people were arrested, including in the government and there are 10 thousand people in the army. - Author), Lyushkov realized in time that “the danger of reprisals hung over him,” after which he escaped.
Having surrendered to the Manchurian border patrol troops, Lyushkov, according to the testimony of Japanese intelligence officers Koitoro and Onuki, gave them “valuable information about the Soviet Far Eastern army.” The 5th Department of the Japanese General Staff immediately fell into confusion, as it clearly underestimated the true number of Soviet troops in the Far East, which had an “overwhelming superiority” over their own troops stationed in Korea and Manchuria. The Japanese came to the conclusion that “this made it virtually impossible to implement the previously drawn up plan for military operations against the USSR.” The defector's information could only be verified in practice - through local clashes.
Secondly, taking into account the obvious “puncture” with crossing the border in the zone of the 59th detachment, its command three times - on July 1.5 and 7 - requested the headquarters of the Far Eastern Border District to give permission to occupy the Zaozernaya height in order to equip its observation positions on it. On July 8, such permission was finally received from Khabarovsk. This became known to the Japanese side through radio interception. On July 11, a Soviet border guard arrived at the Zaozernaya hill, and at night they set up a trench on it with wire barriers, pushing it to the adjacent side beyond the 4-meter border strip.
The Japanese immediately discovered the “border violation.” As a result, Japan's Chargé d'Affaires in Moscow Nishi handed over to the Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Stomonyakov a note from his government demanding "to leave the captured Manchu land" and to restore on Zaozernaya "the border that existed there before the appearance of the trenches." In response, the Soviet representative stated that “not a single Soviet border guard even set foot on the adjacent land.” The Japanese were indignant.
And thirdly, on the evening of July 15, on the crest of the Zaozernaya height, three meters from the border line, the head of the engineering service of the Posyet border detachment, Vinevitin, killed the “intruder” - the Japanese gendarme Matsushima - with a rifle shot. On the same day, the Japanese Ambassador to the USSR Shigemitsu visited the Soviet People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and again categorically demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the heights. Referring to the Hunchun Agreement, Moscow rejected Tokyo’s demands for the second time.
Five days later the Japanese repeated their claims to the heights. At the same time, Ambassador Shigemitsu told the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Litvinov that “his country has rights and obligations to Manchukuo” and otherwise “Japan will have to come to the conclusion that it is necessary to use force.” In response, the Japanese diplomat heard that “he will not find a successful use of this method in Moscow” and that “a Japanese gendarme was killed on Soviet territory, where he should not have come.”
The knot of contradictions has tightened.
NOT AN INCH OF LAND
In connection with the preparation of the Japanese for armed provocations, on April 23, 1938, combat readiness was increased in the border and internal troops of the Far Eastern Territory. Taking into account the difficult military-political situation developing in the Far East, a meeting of the Main Military Council of the Red Army was held on May 28-31, 1938. It featured a report from the OKDVA commander, Marshal Vasily Blucher, on the state of combat readiness of the army troops. The results of the Council were the transformation of the OKDVA into the Far Eastern Front (DKF) from July 1. By decision of the Defense Committee in June-July, the number of Far Eastern troops was increased by almost 102 thousand people.
On July 16, the command of the 59th Posyet border detachment turned to the headquarters of the 1st Red Banner Army with a request to reinforce the garrison of the Zaozernaya height with one rifle platoon from the support company of the 119th rifle regiment, which arrived in the area of the lake. Hassan back on May 11, by order of Blucher. The platoon was detached, but on July 20 the commander of the DKF ordered it to be taken to its place of permanent deployment. As you can see, even then the perspicacious and experienced marshal clearly did not want to escalate the conflict.
In view of the aggravation of the situation, on July 6, Stalin sent his emissaries to Khabarovsk: the first deputy people's commissar of internal affairs (on July 8, 1938, Beria became another "combat" deputy of the people's commissar Yezhov - author) - the head of the GUGB Frinovsky (in the recent past, the head of the Main Directorate of Border and internal security) and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense - Head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army (from January 6, 1938 - Author) Mehlis with the task of establishing “revolutionary order” in the DKF troops, increasing their combat readiness and “within seven days, carrying out mass operational measures to remove opponents Soviet power", and at the same time churchmen, sectarians, suspected of espionage, Germans, Poles, Koreans, Finns, Estonians, etc. living in the region.
The whole country was swept by waves of “the fight against enemies of the people” and “spies.” The emissaries had to find such emissaries at the headquarters of the Far Eastern Front and the Pacific Fleet (among the leadership of the Pacific Fleet alone, 66 people were included in their lists of “enemy agents and accomplices” during the 20 July days). It is no coincidence that Vasily Blucher, after Frinovsky, Mehlis and the head of the political department of the DKF Mazepov visited his home on July 29, confessed to his wife in his hearts: "...sharks have arrived who want to devour me; they will devour me or I will eat them - I don’t know. The second is unlikely.". As we now know, the marshal was one hundred percent right.
On July 22, his order was sent to the troops to bring formations and units of the front to full combat readiness. The Japanese attack on Zaozernaya was expected at dawn on the 23rd. There were sufficient reasons for making such a decision.
To carry out this operation, the Japanese command tried to secretly concentrate the 19th Infantry Division of up to 20 thousand people, a brigade of the 20th Infantry Division, a cavalry brigade, 3 separate machine-gun battalions and tank units. Heavy artillery and anti-aircraft guns were brought to the border - up to 100 units in total. Up to 70 combat aircraft were concentrated at nearby airfields in readiness. In the area of sandy islands on the river. Tumen-Ula was equipped with artillery firing positions. Light artillery and machine guns were placed at the height of Bogomolnaya, 1 km from Zaozernaya. A detachment of Japanese Navy destroyers was concentrated in Peter the Great Bay near the territorial waters of the USSR.
On July 25, in the area of border checkpoint # 7, the Japanese fired at the Soviet border guard, and the next day a reinforced Japanese company captured the border height of Devil's Mountain. The situation was heating up day by day. To understand it and the reasons for its aggravation, Marshal Blucher on July 24 sent a commission from the front headquarters to Khasan to investigate. Moreover, only narrow circle persons The commission's report to the commander in Khabarovsk was stunning: "...our border guards violated the Manchurian border in the area of the Zaozernaya hill by 3 meters, which led to a conflict on Lake Khasan".
On July 26, by order of Blucher, a support platoon was removed from the Bezymyannaya Hill and only a border detachment of 11 people, led by Lieutenant Alexei Makhalin, was stationed. A company of Red Army soldiers was stationed on Zaozernaya. A telegram from the commander of the DCF "about violation of the Manchurian border" with a proposal for "the immediate arrest of the head of the border section and other culprits in provoking a conflict with the Japanese" was sent to Moscow addressed to People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov. The “red horseman”’s answer to Blucher was brief and categorical: “Stop fussing with all sorts of commissions and strictly carry out the decisions of the Soviet Government and the orders of the People’s Commissar.” At that time, it seems that open conflict could still be avoided by political means, but its mechanism had already been launched on both sides.
On July 29, at 16:40, Japanese troops in two detachments of up to a company attacked Bezymyannaya Height. 11 Soviet border guards took on an unequal battle. Five of them were killed, and Lieutenant Makhalin was also mortally wounded. The reserve of border guards and the rifle company of Lieutenant Levchenko arrived in time by 18:00, knocking out the Japanese from the heights and dug in. The next day, between the Bezymyannaya and Zaozernaya hills at the heights, a battalion of the 118th Infantry Regiment of the 40th Infantry Division took up defense. The Japanese, with the support of artillery, launched a series of unsuccessful attacks on Bezymyannaya. Soviet soldiers fought to the death. Already the first battles on July 29-30 showed that an unusual incident had ensued.
At 3 o'clock in the morning on July 31, following a strong artillery barrage, two battalions of Japanese infantry attacked the Zaozernaya height and one battalion attacked the Bezymyannaya height. After a fierce, unequal four-hour battle, the enemy managed to occupy the indicated heights. Suffering losses, rifle units and border guards retreated deep into Soviet territory, to Lake Khasan.
Japanese on Zaozernaya Hill
From July 31, for more than a week, Japanese troops held these hills. Attacks by Red Army units and border guards were unsuccessful. On the 31st, the chief of staff Stern (previously, under the pseudonym "Grigorovich" fought for a year as the Chief Military Advisor in Spain) and Mehlis arrived on Hassan from the front command. On the same day, the latter reported to Stalin the following: " In the battle area, a real dictator is needed, to whom everything would be subordinated.". The consequence of this on August 1 was a telephone conversation between the leader and Marshal Blucher, in which he categorically “recommended” that the front commander “go to the place immediately” in order to “really fight the Japanese.”
Blucher carried out the order only the next day, flying to Vladivostok together with Mazepov. From there, they were transported to Posiet on a destroyer, accompanied by Pacific Fleet commander Kuznetsov. But the marshal himself was practically not very keen to participate in the operation. Perhaps his behavior was influenced by the well-known TASS report of August 2, which gave unreliable information that the Japanese had captured Soviet territory up to 4 kilometers. Anti-Japanese propaganda was doing its job. And now the whole country, misled by the official statement, began to furiously demand that the presumptuous aggressors be curbed.
Soviet aircraft bomb Zaozernaya
On August 1, an order was received from the People's Commissar of Defense, which demanded: “Within our border, sweep away and destroy the invaders who occupied the Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya heights, using military aviation and artillery.” This task was entrusted to the 39th Rifle Corps, consisting of the 40th and 32nd Rifle Divisions and the 2nd Mechanized Brigade under the command of Brigade Commander Sergeev. Under the current commander of the DKF, Kliment Voroshilov entrusted the general management of the operation to his chief of staff, corps commander Grigory Stern.
On the same day, the Japanese used their aircraft in the area of Lake Khasan. Three Soviet aircraft were shot down by enemy anti-aircraft fire. At the same time, having captured the heights of Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya, the samurai did not at all strive to continue to capture “whole pieces of Soviet territory,” as claimed in Moscow. Sorge reported from Tokyo that "The Japanese have discovered a desire to resolve all unclear border issues through diplomatic means", although from August 1 they began to strengthen all defensive positions in Manchuria, including concentrating “in the event of countermeasures from the Soviet side around the collision area, front-line units and reserves united by the command of the Korean garrison.”
In this situation, the offensive of the Soviet troops, due to enemy opposition, shortcomings in the organization of interaction between artillery and infantry, without air support due to bad weather conditions, as well as poor training of personnel and poor logistics, failed every time. In addition, the success of the Red Army's military operations was significantly influenced by the ban on suppressing enemy fire weapons operating from Manchurian and Korean territories, and on any crossing of the state border by our troops. Moscow still feared that the border conflict would escalate into a full-scale war with Tokyo. And finally, on the spot, Mehlis began to constantly interfere in the leadership of formations and units, causing confusion and confusion. Once, when he tried to send the 40th Infantry Division to advance, no matter what, head-on to the Japanese, along a ravine between two hills, so that the enemy would not “scalp” this formation, Marshal Blucher was forced to intervene and cancel the order of the “party emissary” . All this was considered a front in the near future.
On August 3, the 39th Corps was reinforced by another - the 39th Infantry Division. Stern was appointed commander of the corps. The next day, Voroshilov, in a new operational order # 71ss, “to be ready to repel provocative attacks of the Japanese-Manchus” and “at any moment to deliver a powerful blow to the burrowing, insolent Japanese aggressors along the entire front,” ordered that all troops of the Far Eastern Red Banner Front and the Trans-Baikal Front be put on full combat readiness military district. The order also emphasized: “We don’t want a single inch of foreign land, including Manchurian and Korean, but we will never give up even an inch of our Soviet land to anyone, including the Japanese invaders!” A real war was closer than ever to the threshold of the Soviet Far East.
VICTORY REPORT
By August 4, the 39th Rifle Corps in the Khasan area consisted of about 23 thousand personnel, armed with 237 guns, 285 tanks, 6 armored vehicles and 1 thousand 14 machine guns. The corps was supposed to be covered by the aviation of the 1st Red Banner Army, consisting of 70 fighters and 180 bombers.
A new offensive by Soviet troops on the heights began in the afternoon of August 6. Suffering heavy losses, by the evening they managed to capture only the southeastern slopes of the Zaozernaya heights. The ridge of its northern part and the northwestern command points of the height remained in the hands of the enemy until August 13, until the completion of peace negotiations between the parties. The neighboring heights Chernaya and Bezymyannaya were also occupied by Soviet troops only after reaching a truce, during August 11 and 12. Nevertheless, on August 6, a victorious report was sent to Moscow from the battlefield stating that “our territory has been cleared of the remains of Japanese troops and all border points are firmly occupied by units of the Red Army.” On August 8, another “misinformation” for the Soviet people hit the pages of the central press. And at this time, only on Zaozernaya, from August 8 to 10, the Red Army soldiers repelled up to 20 counterattacks of stubbornly unrelenting Japanese infantry.
At 10 o'clock in the morning on August 11, the Soviet troops received an order to cease fire from 12.00. At 11 o'clock 15 minutes. the guns were unloaded. But the Japanese until 12 o'clock. 30 min. They continued to shell the heights. Then the corps command ordered a powerful fire raid of 70 guns of various calibers on enemy positions within 5 minutes. Only after this did the samurai completely cease fire.
The fact of disinformation regarding the capture of the Khasan Heights by Soviet troops became known in the Kremlin from a report by the NKVD only on August 14. Over the next few days, Soviet-Japanese negotiations between military representatives of the two countries took place on the demarcation of the disputed section of the border. The open phase of the conflict has subsided.
The marshal's premonitions were not deceived. On August 31, a meeting of the Main Military Council of the Red Army took place in Moscow. On the agenda main question"About events in the area of Lake Khasan." After hearing the explanations of the commander of the DKF, Marshal Blucher, and the deputy member of the military council of the front, divisional commissar Mazepov, the Main Military Council came to the following main conclusions:
“1. The combat operations at Lake Khasan were a comprehensive test of the mobilization and combat readiness of not only the units that directly took part in them, but also all the DKFront troops without exception.
2. The events of these few days revealed huge shortcomings in the state of the DC Front... It was discovered that the Far Eastern theater was poorly prepared for war. As a result of such an unacceptable state of the front troops, in this relatively small clash we suffered significant losses: 408 people were killed and 2,807 people were wounded (according to new, updated data, 960 people were killed and 3,279 people were wounded; the overall ratio of losses of the USSR and Japan is 3: 1. - Auth.)..."
The main results of the discussion on the agenda were the disbandment of the DKF Directorate and the removal of Commander Marshal of the Soviet Union Blucher from office.
The main culprit of these “major shortcomings” was primarily named the commander of the DKF, Marshal Vasily Blyukher, who, according to the People’s Commissar of Defense, surrounded himself with “enemies of the people.” The renowned hero was accused of “defeatism, duplicity, indiscipline and sabotaging the armed resistance to Japanese troops.” Leaving Vasily Konstantinovich at the disposal of the Main Military Council of the Red Army, he and his family were sent on vacation to the Voroshilov dacha "Bocharov Ruchei" in Sochi. There he, his wife and brother were arrested. Three weeks after his arrest, Vasily Blucher died.
(from here)
Results:
The USSR forces at Lake Khasan were:
22,950 people
1014 machine guns
237 guns
285 tanks
250 aircraft
Japanese forces:
7,000–7,300 people
200 guns
3 armored trains
70 aircraft
Losses on the Soviet side
960 dead
2752 wounded
4 T-26 tanks
4 aircraft
Losses on the Japanese side (according to Soviet data):
650 killed
2500 wounded
1 armored train
2 echelons
As we can see, the Soviet side had a clear advantage in manpower and equipment. Moreover, the losses exceed those of the Japanese. Blucher and a number of other persons were repressed. There were still 3 years left until 1941... In the battles for Khalkhin Gol, the Red Army managed to defeat the Japanese. We managed to defeat little Finland, piling on it with monstrously superior power, but still failing to achieve its complete occupation... But on June 22, 1941, the Red Army was “cleansed” of “enemies of the people”, despite a significant advantage in aviation, tanks, and artillery and manpower, fled in disgrace to Moscow. Hassan's lessons never came to fruition.
The thirties of the 20th century turned out to be extremely difficult for the whole world. This applies to both the internal situation in many countries of the world and the international situation. After all, global contradictions developed more and more on the world stage during this period. One of them was the Soviet-Japanese conflict at the end of the decade.
Background to the battles for Lake Khasan
The leadership of the Soviet Union is literally obsessed with internal (counter-revolutionary) and external threats. And this idea is to a large extent justified. The threat is clearly unfolding in the west. In the east, China was occupied in the mid-1930s, which was already casting predatory glances at Soviet lands. Thus, in the first half of 1938, powerful anti-Soviet propaganda unfolded in this country, calling for a “war against communism” and an outright seizure of territories. Such Japanese aggression is facilitated by their newly acquired coalition partner - Germany. The situation is aggravated by the fact that Western states, England and France, are in every possible way delaying the signing of any treaty with the USSR on mutual defense, thereby hoping to provoke the mutual destruction of their natural enemies: Stalin and Hitler. This provocation is spreading
and on Soviet-Japanese relations. At the beginning, the Japanese government increasingly begins to talk about fictitious “disputed territories.” At the beginning of July, Lake Khasan, located in the border zone, becomes the center of events. The formations of the Kwantung Army are beginning to concentrate more and more here. The Japanese side justified these actions by the fact that the border zones of the USSR located near this lake are the territories of Manchuria. The latter region, in general, was not historically Japanese in any way; it belonged to China. But China in previous years was itself occupied by the imperial army. On July 15, 1938, Japan demanded the withdrawal of Soviet border forces from this territory, citing the fact that they belonged to China. However, the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted harshly to such a statement, providing copies of the agreement between Russia and the Celestial Empire dating back to 1886, which included relevant maps proving the Soviet side was right.
The beginning of the battle for Lake Khasan
However, Japan had no intention of retreating. The inability to substantiate her claims to Lake Khasan did not stop her. Of course, Soviet defense was also strengthened in this area. The first attack came on July 29, when a company of the Kwantung Army crossed and attacked one of the heights. At the cost of significant losses, the Japanese managed to capture this height. However, already on the morning of July 30, stronger forces came to the aid of the Soviet border guards. The Japanese unsuccessfully attacked their opponents' defenses for several days, losing a significant amount of equipment and manpower every day. The Battle of Lake Khasan was completed on August 11. On this day, a truce was declared between the troops. By mutual agreement of the parties, it was decided that the interstate border should be established in accordance with the treaty between Russia and China of 1886, since no later agreement on this matter existed at that time. Thus, Lake Khasan became a silent reminder of such an inglorious campaign for new territories.
From 1936 to 1938, more than 300 incidents were noted on the Soviet-Japanese border, the most famous of which occurred at the junction of the borders of the USSR, Manchuria and Korea at Lake Khasan in July-August 1938.
At the origins of the conflict
The conflict in the Lake Khasan area was caused by a number of both foreign policy factors and very difficult relations within the ruling elite of Japan. An important detail was the rivalry within the Japanese military-political machine itself, when funds were distributed to strengthen the army, and the presence of even an imaginary military threat could give the command of the Japanese Korean Army a good opportunity to remind itself, given that the priority at that time was the operations of Japanese troops in China, which never brought the desired result.
Another headache for Tokyo was the military aid flowing from the USSR to China. In this case, it was possible to exert military and political pressure by organizing a large-scale military provocation with a visible external effect. All that remained was to find a weak spot on the Soviet border, where an invasion could be successfully carried out and the combat effectiveness of the Soviet troops could be tested. And such an area was found 35 km from Vladivostok.
And if from the Japanese side the border was approached Railway and several highways, then on the Soviet side there was one dirt road. . It is noteworthy that until 1938, this area, where there really was no clear boundary marking, was of no interest to anyone, and suddenly in July 1938, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs actively took up this problem.
After the refusal of the Soviet side to withdraw troops and the incident with the death of a Japanese gendarme, shot by a Soviet border guard in the disputed area, tension began to increase day by day.
On July 29, the Japanese launched an attack on the Soviet border post, but after a hot battle they were driven back. On the evening of July 31, the attack was repeated, and here the Japanese troops already managed to wedge 4 kilometers deep into Soviet territory. The first attempts to drive out the Japanese with the 40th Infantry Division were unsuccessful. However, everything was not going well for the Japanese either - every day the conflict grew, threatening to escalate into a big war, for which Japan, stuck in China, was not ready.
Richard Sorge reported to Moscow: “The Japanese General Staff is interested in a war with the USSR not now, but later. Active actions on the border were taken by the Japanese to show the Soviet Union that Japan was still capable of demonstrating its power."
Meanwhile, in harsh conditions off-road, low readiness individual parts, the concentration of forces of the 39th Rifle Corps continued. With great difficulty, they managed to gather 15 thousand people, 1014 machine guns, 237 guns, and 285 tanks in the combat area. In total, the 39th Rifle Corps consisted of up to 32 thousand people, 609 guns and 345 tanks. 250 aircraft were sent to provide air support.
Hostages of provocation
If in the first days of the conflict, due to poor visibility and, apparently, the hope that the conflict could still be resolved diplomatically, Soviet aviation was not used, then starting from August 5, Japanese positions were subjected to massive air strikes.
Aviation, including TB-3 heavy bombers, was brought in to destroy Japanese fortifications. The fighters carried out a series of assault strikes on Japanese troops. Moreover, the targets of Soviet aviation were located not only on the captured hills, but also deep in Korean territory.
It was later noted: “To defeat the Japanese infantry in the enemy’s trenches and artillery, high-explosive bombs were mainly used - 50, 82 and 100 kg, a total of 3,651 bombs were dropped. 6 pieces of high-explosive bombs 1000 kg on the battlefield 08/06/38. were used solely for the purpose of moral influence on the enemy infantry, and these bombs were dropped into the enemy infantry areas after these areas had been thoroughly hit by groups of SB-bombs FAB-50 and 100. The enemy infantry rushed about in the defensive zone, not finding cover, since almost the entire main line of their defense was covered with heavy fire from the explosions of bombs from our aircraft. 6 bombs of 1000 kg, dropped during this period in the area of the Zaozernaya height, shook the air with strong explosions, the roar of these bombs exploding across the valleys and mountains of Korea was heard tens of kilometers away. After the explosion of 1000 kg of bombs, the Zaozernaya height was covered with smoke and dust for several minutes. It must be assumed that in those areas where these bombs were dropped, the Japanese infantry were 100% incapacitated from shell shock and stones thrown out of the craters by the explosion of the bombs.”
Having completed 1003 sorties, Soviet aviation lost two aircraft - one SB and one I-15. The Japanese, having no more than 18-20 anti-aircraft guns in the conflict area, could not provide serious resistance. And throwing your own aviation into battle meant starting a large-scale war, for which neither the command of the Korean Army nor Tokyo were ready. From this moment on, the Japanese side begins to frantically look for a way out of the current situation, which required both saving face and stopping fighting, which no longer promised anything good for the Japanese infantry.
Denouement
The denouement came when Soviet troops launched a new offensive on August 8, having overwhelming military-technical superiority. The attack by tanks and infantry was carried out based on military expediency and without taking into account compliance with the border. As a result, Soviet troops managed to capture Bezymyannaya and a number of other heights, and also gain a foothold near the top of Zaozernaya, where the Soviet flag was hoisted.
On August 10, the chief of staff of the 19th telegraphed the chief of staff of the Korean Army: “Every day the combat effectiveness of the division is declining. The enemy suffered great damage. He is using new methods of combat and increasing artillery fire. If this continues, there is a danger that the fighting will escalate into even more fierce battles. Within one to three days it is necessary to decide on further actions divisions... Until now, Japanese troops have already demonstrated their power to the enemy, and therefore, while it is still possible, it is necessary to take measures to resolve the conflict diplomatically.”
On the same day, armistice negotiations began in Moscow and at noon on August 11, hostilities were stopped. Strategically and politically, the Japanese test of strength, and by and large, the military adventure ended in failure. Not being prepared for a major war with the USSR, the Japanese units in the Khasan area found themselves hostage to the created situation, when further expansion of the conflict was impossible, and it was also impossible to retreat while preserving the prestige of the army.
The Hassan conflict did not lead to a reduction in USSR military assistance to China. At the same time, the battles on Hassan revealed a number of weak points both the troops of the Far Eastern Military District and the Red Army as a whole. The Soviet troops apparently suffered even greater losses than the enemy; at the initial stage of the fighting, the interaction between the infantry, tank units and artillery turned out to be weak. Not on high level turned out to be reconnaissance that failed to reveal enemy positions.
The losses of the Red Army amounted to 759 people killed, 100 people died in hospitals, 95 people missing and 6 people killed in accidents. 2752 people was injured or sick (dysentery and colds). The Japanese admitted the loss to 650 killed and 2,500 wounded. At the same time, the battles on Khasan were far from the last military clash between the USSR and Japan in the Far East. Less than a year later, an undeclared war began in Mongolia on Khalkhin Gol, where, however, the forces of the Japanese Kwantung Army, rather than the Korean ones, would be involved.