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Mongolia 1939 – Stalin’s Shrewd Opening ActBy Stuart D. Goldman | World War II | 6 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post At dawn on May 28, General Komat-subara backed his decision with action. Following a series of indecisive small-unit skirmishes in mid-May, he dispatched a 2,082-man force under Col. Takemitsu Yamagata to crush the Mongolian “intruders.” Yamagata’s detachment was built around a battalion of the 23rd Infantry Division; a regimental artillery unit of 75mm guns and smaller caliber rapid-fire guns; and a 220-man reconnaissance unit conveyed by trucks and armored cars, under Lt. Col. Yaozo Azuma. Subscribe Today
Yamagata found that the enemy had constructed a sturdy pontoon bridge across the Khalkha River and had taken up positions less than a mile west of Nomonhan. He decided to trap the enemy east of the river and destroy them there. He ordered Azuma’s recon unit to push south along the east bank of the river to the bridge, cutting off their escape route. Yamagata’s infantry, with artillery support, would attack frontally, driving the enemy toward the river and Azuma’s waiting unit. There they would be trapped between the two Japanese forces and destroyed. Faulty intelligence, however, would plague Japanese operations throughout the conflict, and Yamagata mistakenly believed that the bridgehead was held only by Mongolian border troops and light cavalry—a staple of both Mongolian and Manchukuoan forces on the grassy steppe. In fact, the Mongolian forces had been reinforced by Soviet infantry, combat engineers, armored car “tankettes,” and artillery, including a battery of self-propelled 76mm guns. The combined force totaled about 1,000 men. That morning Yamagata’s main force attacked the Soviet and Mongolian units near Nomonhan with some initial success, pushing them back toward the bridge. But Yamagata’s advance was checked by Soviet artillery and armor. Meanwhile, Azuma’s recon unit was startled as it approached the bridge to find its objective held by Soviet infantry with artillery and armored car support. These armored cars were true fighting vehicles with the turret and 45mm gun of a medium tank. Azuma had no artillery or antitank weapons and was wholly incapable of dislodging the Soviet force. When Yamagata’s assault bogged down, Azuma found himself caught between two superior enemy forces. The would-be encirclers had become encircled. As the day wore on, the Soviet 149th Infantry Regiment, which had recently been sent to the area as a pre-cautionary measure, was trucked to the combat zone and thrown against Azuma. Yamagata, pinned down several miles to the east, was unable to relieve him. The outcome was inevitable: Azuma’s unit was annihilated. Only four men managed to escape that night; the rest, including Azuma, were killed or captured. It was an unmitigated disaster, and, in the words of Kwantung Army records, “remorse ate at the heart of General Komatsubara.” On June 19, a Soviet air raid on a Japanese logistical base some 12 miles from the border accelerated the determination of Komatsubara and the Kwantung Army to avenge this defeat. At the army headquarters, Tsuji quickly drew up plans for a much larger offensive. Tsuji, who was to become a notorious character in Japanese wartime and postwar history, was then 37 years old. Despite his unimpressive five-foot-two stature and the round, black-rimmed spectacles that dominated his face, he was a charismatic leader who routinely impressed his views on his superiors by dint of his forceful personality, intellect, and supreme self-confidence. He could be idealistic and even heroic, but also fanatical and brutal. He was a man of ideas and action, a gifted and imaginative operational planner who also strove to be in the thick of the fighting. Tsuji and his colleagues in operations wanted to entrust this mission to the 7th Division, one of Kwantung Army’s finest, rather than to Komatsubara’s 23rd Division. The 23rd, which had just been organized in 1938, was a green outfit with little combat experience. And though the 52-year-old Komat-subara was one of Kwantung Army’s leading Soviet experts—he had served as the military attaché in Moscow and as head of the Soviet section of Kwantung Army intelligence—he too lacked combat experience. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
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6 Comments to “Mongolia 1939 – Stalin’s Shrewd Opening Act”
I am some knower over Japanese-Soviet Clashes in 1938 and 93 among the Japanese-Chinese Conflict in 1937-45.
based in own experience in Nomonhan Japanese developed a some type of 47mm AT infantry guns and Self-propelled vehicles, Armored carriers and Tanks with 47mm cannons
I considered why for Japanese having to chosen figthing against Chinese are erroneous and theirs poses some potential triumph charts in your hands for created needed base of war against Soviets in Siberia:
*Japanese a set up some anticomunist puppet states in Northern China:
-Chinese East Hebei Autonomous Council (1935 – 1938)
-Chinese Provisional Government of the Republic of China (1937-1940)
-Mongolian Mengkiang (1936 – 1945)
-Manchurian Empire of Manchoukou (1932 – 1945)
*Among Japanese poses some Siberian and Central asian nationalities disconformed with Soviets living in such territoires:
-White Russians and East Jews
-Exiled Yakutians and Buriats
-Tibetans,Uiguirs,Dungans and Central Asians
*Japanese during your failed campaing in mainlad China accumulated a force between 1 to 3 million of Japanese and Korean soldiers a half of total of Japanese land forces in Pacific war period.
*Japanese poses a important defector and expert in Soviets topics
the NKVD officer Genrikh Samoilovich Lyushkov why advised the needed of accumulated a 4,000 tanks for invading siberian lands
If Japanese Army have a decided to use such elements in adequate form for:
- created a combined force conformed by Japanese,white russians,mongol,chinese and Manchu units less between 2 to 3 millions of men
-the use of modified tanks and self-propelled vehicles armed with 75mm cannons
-joining with any type of aerial “Blitz” bombardments
for used an sort distracted strikes to Argun and Amur frontier fortifications and Japan sea fortifications for launched the main stream “lance point” land attack for main Mongolian territoire in route to Irkusts preceded with aerial landings and some undercover strikes for cutting Transiberian line along Irkust also.
such plan as results to “cut the neck” of the Soviet Far East and causing the isolation of such territoire of rest of European Soviet Union,and Japanese easy entering to Blagoveschensk and Khabarovsk without or scarcy resistance
Among this exists some reports from Siberia were one a Communist Serbian why making a interviews with diffrents siberian citizens (students,konsomolsk members,office workers, mining and factory workers,teaches and Communists Party officers,etc) why related stay agreed with seeking the entering of Japanese tanks and soldiers in disacord with Stalininst regimen among some inclusive as disposes to support a Japanese forces if enter in Siberian lands if aiding to a local rebellion against European Stalinists in local government also.
with these points i thinked why Japanese a poses some potential posibilities to defeated soviet forces in Siberia if proposed a making such campaing inclusive with Imperial Navy enter to war with United States in Pearl Harbor.
By Wladimir on Apr 8, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Wow, that’s some history I didn’t know, with gigantic implications.
Of course, Stalin, by buddying up with Hitler, set the Soviet Union up for horrendous casualties–in the range of 20 million-plus deaths. And *he’s* responsible for the eventual death of the marxist ideology(cept in liberal arts department in college), for he purged the party of anybody more charismatic, innovative, intelligent, talented, and inspriing than himself, and this eventually led to stagnation and the fall of the Soviet Union due to a paucity of actual ideas, combined with dizzying cynicism.
By Charles Laster on Apr 14, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Notice the parallel with Guadalcanal-The Japanese committed forces in a very piecemeal and indecisive fashion against an unfamiliar enemy and on both occasions got burned for it.
Excellent research-I enjoyed Zhukov’s ploys to lull the Japanese into not expecting an attack. The Germans pulled the same stunts on the Russians preceding Barbarossa
By paul penrod on May 5, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Paul Penrod’s comment about similar Japanese errors at Khalkhin Gol and Guadalcanal has a surprising basis. TSUJI Masanobu, who bears so much of the responsibility for the disaster at Khalkhin Gol, was in the thick of the ighting on Guadalcanal, where he again caused a military disaster.
By Stuart Goldman on May 9, 2009 at 6:46 am
Where these Soviets units from khalkhin Gol to same units that came to the rescue at Moscow and Stalingrad?
What was the predominant ethnic makeup of the units from Khalkhin Gol?
By Chic Lurch on May 25, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Many of the units that Zhukov commanded at Khalkhin Gol were transfered to the Moscow front in late 1941. But These Khalkhin Gol vetrans were only a fraction of the total forces transfered from the Far East to the Moscow front at that time. I’m not sure what percentage were Russian and slavic. I haven’t followed them after the Battle of Moscow, so I don’t know to what extent these same units were involved in the Stalingrad campaign.
By Stuart Goldman on May 27, 2009 at 1:13 pm