World War II: Soviet and Japanese Forces Battle at Khalkhin Gol

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In May 1939, a series of Kwantung Army–instigated skirmishes between Mongolian and Manchukuoan forces escalated into what the Soviets would term the Khalkhin Gol and the Japanese would call the Nomonhan Incident. Elements of the Japanese 23rd Division were committed to action on May 14, as were Japanese warplanes. The first major encounter between Japanese and Soviet forces took place between May 28 and 29. Both sides fought to a draw. Having committed themselves, the Japanese were then reinforced and organized under the command of Lt. Gen. Michitaro Komatsubara into an army of 20,000 men and 112 field artillery pieces.

Earlier, in an interview with American journalist Roy Howard on March 1, 1936, Stalin had warned the Japanese that any attack on the MPR would elicit prompt Soviet aid to its client state. That warning was renewed in a speech Stalin made to the 18th Communist Party Congress on March 10, 1939.

On June 2, General Georgi Zhukov, one of the few general officers to survive Stalin’s purges, was entrusted with the command of Soviet and Mongolian troops at Khalkhin Gol. Reflecting the conflict’s importance to the Soviet premier, Zhukov was instructed to report directly to Stalin. Upon his arrival, Zhukov thoroughly organized his command facilities and communications networks. Another hallmark of his leadership, discipline, was ruthlessly enforced among the men of his remote army.

As befitted a battlefield with little or no ground cover, much of the early fighting between Zhukov and Komatsubara’s forces was focused on securing the air. Initially, the Japanese enjoyed an advantage in these encounters. Japanese pilots were experienced veterans of the air war over China. In the spring of 1939, the new Nakajima Ki.27 monoplane fighter — fast and highly maneuverable — entered service with the Japanese army air force. (The formidable Mitsubishi A6M1 Zero did not come into service until September 1940 with the Japanese navy.) Ninety Nakajima fighters and pilots were deployed to contest the skies over Mongolia.

The Japanese pilots soon made their presence felt. Four Soviet aircraft were shot down for every single loss inflicted on their foe. To reverse that situation, in June the Soviets committed six squadrons of improved model Polikarpov I-152 biplanes and three squadrons of Polikarpov I-16 Type 10 monoplanes, totaling more than 100 fighters. The stubby I-152 proved well-suited to operate from hot and windy desert airstrips. It featured a short takeoff run and was very stable, even in crosswinds. The world’s first production monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear, the I-16 was very demanding to fly and unforgiving to inexperienced pilots. The high landing speed of the I-16 required long airstrips. But the ‘flying barrel,’ as the I-16 was dubbed, was fast, climbed rapidly and possessed an outstanding rate of roll.

Although the I-16 could not match the Ki.27’s maneuverability, it could easily dive onto the tail of its adversary and then climb away. Both Soviet fighters packed double the firepower of their antagonist, being armed with four 7.62mm machine guns versus two 7.7mm guns in the Nakajima. Soviet pilots also enjoyed the protection of armor plate incorporated into the seat of the I-152 and the headrest of the I-16 — a feature that the Japanese, in their obsession with saving weight, had left out of their nimble fighters. Operating in close cooperation, the two Russian fighters proved a match for their Japanese challenger.

Among the Soviet fliers dispatched to Mongolia were veterans of the Spanish Civil War. With experienced leadership and new fighters, the Russians turned the air war to their advantage as the summer wore on. Japanese statistics on casualties suffered by their army air force reveal that of those airmen lost in battle, 10.1 percent were killed and wounded in May and June, 26.5 percent in July, 50 percent in August and the rest in the first half of September. Japanese aces rang up fantastic scores during that period — including 58, a Japanese army record, by Hiromichi Shinohara before he was killed in action on August 27. More recent analysis by Japanese aviation historians, however, revealed that while Soviet pilots claimed four times as many victories as they really achieved, their own pilots had over-claimed by a factor of 6-to-1.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, World War II

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