Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II

by Stuart D. Goldman

  NOMONHAN,

  1939

  STUART D. GOLDMAN

  NOMONHAN,

  1939

  _______________________________________

  THE RED ARMY’S VICTORY THAT SHAPED WORLD WAR II

  Naval Institute Press

  Annapolis, Maryland

  The statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this book are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Government, or the U.S. Navy.

  Naval Institute Press

  291 Wood Road

  Annapolis, MD 21402

  © 2012 by Stuart D. Goldman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Goldman, Stuart D. (Stuart Douglas), 1943-

  Nomonhan, 1939 : the Red Army victory that shaped World War II / by Stuart Goldman.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-1-61251-098-9 (ebook) 1. Khalkhin Gol, Battle of, Mongolia, 1939. 2. Russo-Japanese Border Conflicts, 1932–1941. 3. Mongolia—Strategic aspects. 4. Manchuria (China)—Strategic aspects. 5. Soviet Union. Raboche-Krest?ianskaia Krasnaia Armiia—History—World War, 1939–1945. 6. World War, 1939–1945—Causes. I. Title.

  DS798.9.H33G65 2012

  952.03’3—dc23

  2011048511

  This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

  19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First printing

  FOR MY SISTER CAROL,

  WHO CHEERED ME ON FROM THE SIDELINES

  THROUGH THE DOUBLE MARATHON OF THIS BOOK, AND

  PASSED AWAY JUST BEFORE I CROSSED THE FINISH LINE

  CONTENTS

  LIST OF MAPS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER 1: THE LEGACY OF THE PAST

  CHAPTER 2: THE GLOBAL CONTEXT

  CHAPTER 3: CHANGKUFENG

  CHAPTER 4: NOMONHAN: PRELIMINARIES

  CHAPTER 5: NOMONHAN: A LESSON IN LIMITED WAR

  CHAPTER 6: NOMONHAN, THE NONAGGRESSION PACT, AND THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II

  CHAPTER 7: NOMONHAN CASTS A LONG SHADOW

  EPILOGUE

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INDEX

  LIST OF MAPS

  MAP 1. Manchuria and Environs in the 1930s

  MAP 2. Locale of Changkufeng Incident July-August 1938

  MAP 3. Nomonhan Disputed Border

  MAP 4. Nomonhan, May 28-29

  MAP 5. July 1-3 Japanese Offensive

  MAP 6. August 20-30 Soviet Offensive

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The first glimmering of this project came in the summer of 1965 when I happened upon a footnote in Barbarossa, Alan Clark’s masterful history of the German-Soviet struggle in World War II. Clark cited Georgy Zhukov’s 1939 defeat of the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol as an important battle. With a brand-new master’s degree in history and the naïve belief that I was something of an expert on the Second World War, I was dubious that there could even have been a major Soviet-Japanese conflict in 1939 of which I was unaware. Finding myself in Washington, D.C., with time on my hands, I went to that cathedral of learning, the Library of Congress, and for the first time in my life undertook a serious research project that was not an academic requirement. I discovered that Khalkhin Gol (aka Nomonhan) was indeed a major conflict and the Library of Congress had a lot of unpublished material on the subject. I was struck by the fact that the peak of the fighting coincided with the conclusion of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact and wondered, even then, if there might be some connection. I could hardly imagine that this modest quest would shape my career, or that I would later spend thirty years as a research analyst in the Library of Congress.

  A year later I was back in school, a PhD candidate at Georgetown University. For Tom Helde’s research seminar on modern European diplomatic history, I wrote a paper on the Soviet-Japanese conflict and its possible link to the nonaggression pact. Professor Helde, chairman of the History Department, said, in effect, “Goldman, you have the makings of a doctoral dissertation here.” For that, and Helde’s role in securing for me a university fellowship, I will always be grateful. I also had the good fortune of having Prof. Joseph Schiebel as my dissertation adviser. Academe is notorious for its pettiness. Joe Schiebel took the highly principled—and unusual—position that “even though I disagree with your underlying interpretation of Stalin’s foreign policy, the argument you make in support of your thesis is as plausible as my own, and I will be proud to have my name associated with your work.”

  A broad-based work of scholarship necessarily stands on the shoulders of others. My interpretation of Soviet foreign policy in the 1930s generally follows Adam Ulam’s magisterial Expansion and Coexistence. I am also indebted to George A. Lensen’s multivolume chronicles of Soviet-Japanese diplomatic relations in the interwar period. I cannot fail to mention the Japanologist, Alvin D. Coox, whose exhaustively detailed books on Changkufeng (The Anatomy of a Small War) and especially Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, 1939, made him the acknowledged American expert on these battles. The many footnote references to his work in this book acknowledge his mastery. When I was a graduate student, Professor Coox graciously offered research guidance. He later paid me the “compliment” of viewing me as a competitor and rival.

  When I was still a young assistant professor of history, John K. Fairbanks, dean of American Asian scholars and president of the American Historical Association, saw promise in my project and helped me win an AHA grant to begin Japanese language study at Columbia University’s East Asian Institute. Two years later, a Japan Foundation Fellowship provided for a year in Tokyo studying Japanese and doing research on Nomonhan, which proved invaluable for this project. There I had the help of a brilliant young research assistant, Kose Nariaki, who guided me through the intricacies of prewar Japanese writing and the labyrinth of Japanese archives. Nariaki died tragically in a mountaineering accident at age twenty-seven. A former Library of Congress colleague, Nobuko Ohashi, generously helped me as interpreter, interviewing retired Japanese army officers in Tokyo. Later, Natella Konstantinova put in countless hours helping me comb through Soviet-era documents.

  The renowned military historian, John Toland (Pulitzer Prize for The Rising Sun), was kind enough to read an early version of this manuscript and encourage me to stick with it and seek publication. My friend, David L. Robbins (author of War of the Rats, Last Citadel, Liberation Road, The End of War, Broken Jewel, and many other novels) has been unstinting in his advice and encouragement.

  Imanishi Junko, associate director of the Atsumi International Scholarship Foundation, provided invaluable support for my participation in an international symposium on Nomonhan in Ulaanbaatar. The Sekiguchi Global Research Association of Japan and the Aratani Foundation of Los Angeles provided generous financial support for this symposium and my travel. My five-day adventure driving across the Mongolian steppe and touring the Nomonhan battlefield would have been impossible without my loyal interpreter, “Tom” Urgoo, and resourceful driver, Enkhbat.

  My friend, Sambuu Dawadash, a Mongolian diplomat and adviser to the prime minister, was tireless and enterprising in his support of this project and rendered invaluable assistance i
n the United States and Mongolia. Former Mongolian ambassador to the United States, Dr. Ravdan Bold, whose father was at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol, provided valuable information on the events of 1939 and helped me gain access to the battlefield. Ambassador Khasbazar Bekhbat, who succeeded Dr. Bold as ambassador in Washington, has also been most helpful.

  My friend, Capt. John Rodgaard, USN (Ret.), historian, intelligence officer, and technical expert, provided invaluable advice and support, not least of all by introducing me to Rick Russell, director of the Naval Institute Press—one of a handful of people who, years ago, had actually read my doctoral dissertation on which this book is based. What are the odds of that? Thanks also to Adam Kane, my editor at Naval Institute Press, who made the process of turning a manuscript into a book remarkably painless.

  Finally, to all my beloved family and friends who believed in me, encouraged me, and waited patiently through an absurdly long gestation period for a book I’ve talked about for years and years—Thank You!

  INTRODUCTION

  The Halha River flows from south to north near the tip of a flat, grassy finger of Mongolian territory that pokes eastward into Manchuria. In the 1930s Manchuria’s Japanese masters regarded the river as an international boundary line: Manchuria to the east, Outer Mongolia—the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR), then a protectorate of the Soviet Union—to the west. Those on the Mongolian side claimed that the border ran some ten miles east of the river, roughly parallel to it, near the tiny hamlet of Nomonhan. While the precise location of the border meant little to the Mongol nomads who had led their herds back and forth across the river for centuries, the Kwantung Army, the elite Japanese force that occupied Manchuria, had a different view.

  In April 1939 Major Tsuji Masanobu of the Kwantung Army’s operations staff drafted an inflammatory set of “principles” for dealing with the skirmishes that had been troubling the border region since Japan had seized Manchuria in 1931 and created the puppet state of Manchukuo. Tsuji’s border principles declared that “if the enemy crosses the frontiers … annihilate him without delay… . To accomplish our mission, it is permissible to enter Soviet territory, or to trap or lure Soviet troops into Manchukuoan territory… . Where boundary lines are not clearly defined, area defense commanders will, upon their own initiative, establish boundaries… . In the event of an armed clash, fight until victory is won regardless of relative strengths or of the location of the boundaries. If the enemy violates the borders, friendly units must challenge him courageously … without concerning themselves about the consequences, which will be the responsibility of higher headquarters.”1

  In mid-May, the Kwantung Army officer responsible for the Halha River area, Lieutenant General Komatsubara Michitaro, commander of the 23rd Division, was meeting with his division staff to discuss implementation of the new border principles when he received word of an incursion by MPR cavalry across the Halha River near Nomonhan. In keeping with the new orders, the usually cautious Komatsubara reacted sharply. Irked by the bothersome skirmishes and hoping that a tough response would get the Mongols (and Soviets) to back off, Komatsubara decided on the spot to destroy the invading Outer Mongolian forces.2 That snap decision and the conflict it ignited would have far-reaching consequences.

  General Komatsubara followed up on his decision with action. After a series of indecisive small-unit skirmishes in mid-May, he dispatched a two-thousand-man force under Colonel Yamagata Takemitsu to crush the Mongolian/Soviet “intruders.” Yamagata’s detachment was built around a 23rd Division infantry battalion, a regimental artillery unit of 75-mm guns and smaller rapid-fire guns, and a two-hundred-man truck-borne reconnaissance unit under Lieutenant Colonel Azuma Yaozo.

  Yamagata found that the enemy had constructed a pontoon bridge across the Halha River and 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 the enemy’s escape route. Yamagata’s infantry, with artillery support, would attack frontally, driving the enemy toward the river and the waiting Azuma unit. There the enemy would be trapped between the two Japanese forces and destroyed.

  Because of faulty intelligence, Yamagata believed that the bridgehead was held only by MPR border troops and light cavalry. In fact, the Mongolian forces had been reinforced by Soviet infantry, combat engineers, armored cars, and artillery, including a battery of self-propelled 76-mm guns. The combined force totaled about a thousand men.

  On the morning of May 28, Yamagata’s main force hit the Soviet-Mongolian units near Nomonhan. The attack achieved some initial success, pushing the enemy back toward the bridge. But Yamagata’s advance was checked as Soviet artillery and armor came into action. The attackers were soon forced to dig in for protection from Soviet shelling. Meanwhile, Azuma’s recon unit was startled as it approached the bridge to find its objective held by Soviet infantry with armored car and artillery support. The Soviet armored cars mounted the high-velocity 45-mm 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.

  As the day wore on, the Soviet 149th Infantry Regiment, which had recently been deployed to the area, 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 Lieutenant Colonel Azuma, were killed or captured. In the words of Kwantung Army’s official history, “remorse ate at the heart of General Komatsubara.”3

  Spurred on by Major Tsuji and other hotheaded staff officers at headquarters, the Kwantung Army command resolved to avenge this defeat with a major ground and air offensive across the Halha River, into indisputably Mongolian territory. The assault force was built around Komatsubara’s 23rd Division, reinforced by a regiment from the crack 7th Division, several hundred attack planes, and the Imperial Army’s only independent tank brigade. But the Japanese buildup again was detected by their Soviet-MPR foes. Moscow too dispatched powerful reinforcements to the region, designated as First Army Group, under the command of an as-yet-untested leader named Georgy Zhukov. The Japanese offensive in early July was repulsed by Zhukov, with heavy losses on both sides.

  Kwantung Army continued to escalate the conflict but was checked each time by ever-more-powerful Soviet forces. Josef Stalin decided to send massive reinforcements to Zhukov’s First Army Group, which launched a decisive counteroffensive in August. Intermittent fighting continued into mid-September 1939.

  This conflict was no mere border clash. Nearly 100,000 men and a thousand armored vehicles and aircraft engaged in fierce combat for four months. Thirty to fifty thousand were killed or wounded. This small undeclared war is known in Japan as the Nomonhan incident and in Soviet Union and Mongolia as the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. Tsuji and Zhukov would go on to play critical roles in the Second World War and after—Tsuji as a famous and notorious soldier in the Pacific War and a member of parliament in postwar Japan; Zhukov as the architect of victory over Nazi Germany and later Soviet minister of defense.

  But even more surprising, this little-known conflict fought in remote inner-Asia helped pave the way for Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland—and all that followed. Indeed, the height of the fighting at Nomonhan coincided precisely with the conclusion of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (August 23, 1939), which gave Hitler the green light to invade Poland, triggering the Second World War one week later. This was no coincidence. The Nomonhan conflict is directly linked to the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact and the outbreak of the war in Europe. The nonaggression pact assured Hitler he would not have to fight Britain, France, and Russia, so he felt safe in attacking Poland. The pact (temporarily) kept Russia out of this intracapitalist war in Europe. It also isolated Japan from Germa
ny. This gave Stalin a free hand to deal decisively with Japan at Nomonhan—which is exactly what he did.

  Yet the standard histories of the origins of the Second World War make little mention of the Soviet-Japanese conflict and its connection to the events in Europe. This book does not presume a wholesale reinterpretation of those events. It does suggest, however, that a small but important piece, the Nomonhan conflict, has been overlooked or misplaced in most attempts to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of the origins of the war. This thesis is strongly supported by documents readily available soon after the end of the war, starting with the published volumes of German, British, French, and U.S. diplomatic documents. The Documents on German Foreign Policy provided an especially important window onto the secret German-Soviet negotiations leading to the 1939 nonaggression pact, a record that the Soviet government attempted for decades to deny and conceal. The military history section of the U.S. occupation forces in Japan produced approximately two hundred volumes on Japan’s military experience in Manchuria, including many that focus specifically on the Nomonhan conflict. These monographs, prepared primarily by former Japanese military officers and then translated into English by the U.S. occupation authorities, provided an early, albeit fragmentary, record of the conflict, showing that it was provoked and escalated by the Japanese. The Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East documents Moscow’s allegations of Japanese aggression at Nomonhan.

  Some forty years ago I marshaled evidence from such sources to support a doctoral dissertation arguing a causal link between the Nomonhan conflict, the nonaggression pact, and the outbreak of the war in Europe.4 I could not then read Japanese. In the absence of reliable official Soviet documents, I augmented my interpretation of Soviet foreign policy by deconstructing Comintern publications of the period. Three years after earning my degree, while on the faculty of the Pennsylvania State University, I was fortunate enough to be awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship by the Japan Foundation that allowed me to spend a year in Tokyo studying Japanese and doing further research on Nomonhan. This led me to write a more fully documented and nuanced version of my Nomonhan thesis, which wound up, however, as an unpublished academic exercise. A few years later I left academe and embarked on a thirty-year career as a specialist in Russian political and military affairs in the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress—a splendid institution.