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

by Stuart D. Goldman

  On the morning of May 28, the battle began with Yamagata’s infantry companies attacking the Soviet-MPR units near Nomonhan. The lightly armed Mongolian cavalry was routed and driven back, which forced the Soviet infantry companies to retreat as well, abandoning their positions near Nomonhan and falling back toward the Halha River. In desperation, Colonel Shoaaiibuu shifted his training company from his command post area to the front lines. Japanese infantry overran his command post and the colonel and most of his staff were killed.

  As the fighting gradually moved closer to the river, however, Soviet artillery and armored cars came into action, slowing Yamagata’s advance. At that point, Yamagata decided to shift his main forces’ primary objective from the juncture of the two rivers to a low hill several miles east of the Halha, where Soviet forces were dug in. Unaccountably—and unforgivably—Azuma was not informed of Yamagata’s change of plans.40 Bykov was able to regroup his forces 1–2 miles east of the junction of the Halha and Holsten Rivers and hold there. By late morning, Yamagata’s attacks stalled and his men began to dig in for protection against Soviet shelling and counterattacks.41

  Meanwhile, Azuma, who had been out of communication with Yamagata from the outset because of faulty radio equipment, found himself in an even worse situation. His force was intended to be the anvil against which Yamagata’s hammer blows would crush the enemy. If the hammer lacked power, the anvil was even weaker. When Lieutenant Colonel Azuma approached his objective on the morning of May 28, he was startled to find the bridge held by a Soviet infantry company and combat engineers with armored car and artillery support.

  The commander of the Soviet artillery, Lieutenant Yu. Vakhtin, quickly recognized the Japanese intent and on his own initiative shifted his battery of self-propelled 76-mm guns to the east bank of the Halha to prevent a Japanese seizure of the bridge. The Azuma unit had no artillery or other antitank weapons and was wholly incapable of dislodging the Soviet force. When Yamagata’s attack bogged down, Azuma found himself trapped between two superior enemy forces. The would-be encirclers had become encircled. Unable to contact Yamagata by radio, Azuma sent several runners to report his plight. By the time they reached Yamagata, his main force was dispersed into four separate groups and their offensive energy spent. Even though most of these units were only a few miles apart, radio communication between them and Yamagata’s command post rarely worked and runners had to brave a gauntlet of enemy fire. Yamagata could neither reassemble his main force nor break through Bykov’s position to relieve Azuma.42

  By noon Azuma was surrounded and under increasingly heavy pressure from enemy infantry and cavalry pressing in from the east (away from Yamagata) and under continuous bombardment from artillery, armor, and mortars to the west, on both sides of the Halha. His cavalry had to fight dismounted, and they all struggled under fire to dig defensive positions in the sand. Azuma could probably have broken out of the encirclement at that point, but he understood his mission to be to hold the bridgehead east of the Halha and block enemy retreat while awaiting the arrival of Yamagata’s main force. He refused to abandon his position without orders and determined to hold on there as long as possible, in hope of relief or reinforcement from Yamagata—ignorant of the latter’s change of plans.

  As the day wore on, the pressure on the Azuma unit intensified. The rest of the Soviet 149th Infantry Regiment, with its organic artillery support, joined the fight. This unit, commanded by Major I. M. Remizov, which had only recently been sent to Tamsag Bulak as a precautionary measure, was transported to the combat zone by truck and immediately thrown into battle at the bridgehead, increasing the odds against the beleaguered Azuma. Yamagata’s infantry remained pinned down several miles to the east, unable to relieve Azuma. Several attempts to resupply Azuma with ammunition failed, with the resupply units destroyed.

  The pressure on Azuma slackened somewhat after dark. A major attached to the reconnaissance unit tried to persuade Lieutenant Colonel Azuma to withdraw toward Yamagata, but again he refused, insisting that his mission was to hold the area near the confluence of the rivers. This refusal to retreat on one’s own initiative in the face of a hopeless tactical situation, preferring instead to fight to the last man, was typical of the Japanese army. The word “retreat” literally was not in the army’s vocabulary; instead there were euphemisms such as “advance in a different direction.” But such a step was deemed shameful, and for a combat commander to do so without specific orders was a criminal offense punishable by death.

  At dawn on May 29th, Soviet artillery—122-mm howitzers, field guns, mortars, and armored cars—unleashed even more intense fire against the Azuma unit than the day before, caving in Japanese trenches in the sandy soil. An incendiary shell ignited the gas tank of Azuma’s sedan. The resulting fire engulfed the remaining trucks, including those containing wounded soldiers and the unit’s dwindling ammunition stocks.

  By late afternoon, Soviet troops had advanced to within fifty yards of Azuma’s lines on three fronts and several armored cars had penetrated from the rear. The remaining Japanese fought on desperately. Finally, between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m., Azuma led the fewer than two dozen of his men still standing in a “banzai charge.” He was immediately cut down by machine gun fire. Most of his men fell nearby. The sole surviving officer, a wounded medical lieutenant, ordered any other survivors to try to rejoin the main force. Four men managed to escape that night; the rest were killed or captured.43

  When notified of the seriousness of the situation, General Komatsubara belatedly reinforced Yamagata with more artillery and antitank guns and several fresh infantry companies on May 29. Several Japanese sources assert that Major Tsuji showed up at Yamagata’s command post and berated the colonel for his inactivity on Azuma’s behalf. Tsuji reportedly then cajoled Yamagata into a mission that night to recover corpses. Over the next three nights, the Yamagata detachment managed to recover nearly two hundred bodies of their fallen comrades from the Azuma unit, including its commander. That done, and apparently still unable to dislodge the Soviet-MPR forces from their bridgehead near the junction of the two rivers, Yamagata was ordered to withdraw from the combat zone and redeploy near Kanchuerhmiao.44 Ironically, Major Remizov mistook the headlights of Japanese trucks prowling the battlefield in search of their dead for signs of a renewed Japanese offensive. He temporarily withdrew most of the 149th regiment to the safety of the west side of the Halha. Only on June 3 did Remizov discover that Yamagata had departed, whereupon Soviet-MPR forces redeployed in the disputed territory.

  In evaluating this battle, the Japanese attributed the destruction of the Azuma unit to (1) poor planning and reconnaissance by General Komatsubara and Colonel Yamagata, (2) very poor communications between Azuma and Yamagata, and (3) the Azuma unit’s lack of heavy weapons. In addition to the nearly 200 men lost in the Azuma unit, Yamagata suffered an additional 159 killed, 119 wounded, and 12 missing from his main force. Total Japanese casualties in the battle of May 28 were nearly five hundred, close to 25 percent of the Yamagata detachment.45

  Soviet sources single out Lieutenant Vakhtin for special praise. He and his self-propelled artillery battery are credited with a major role in thwarting the Japanese pincers movement and in destroying the Azuma unit. Soviet sources claimed that Major Bykov’s units suffered sixty to seventy casualties. According to TASS, total Soviet/MPR casualties on May 28–29 were forty killed and seventy wounded.46 A recent Russian account, however, puts Soviet losses at 138 killed and 198 wounded.47 Mongolian cavalry suffered substantial casualties, not only from the initial Japanese attack but, as they were pushed toward the river, from “friendly fire” from Soviet and MPR artillery as well.

  Although the Soviet-MPR forces acquitted themselves creditably on May 28, neither the Soviet press nor their other propaganda instruments made any mention of the battle at that time. The first official Soviet news release regarding the fighting near the Khalkhin Gol did not appear until June 26. KwAHQ also clamped a tight security lid on the events of M
ay 28. This apparently extended as far as misinforming Tokyo about the setback on the Halha River.48 On May 30 General Isogai, Kwantung Army chief of staff, sent an optimistic report to AGS in which he assured the authorities in Tokyo that Kwantung Army planned to avoid a protracted conflict by inflicting heavy losses upon the enemy whenever he violated the frontier. Isogai predicted that the Russians would not be able to deploy large ground forces in the Nomonhan area and that the incident definitely was not expected to expand into a large-scale conflict. Nevertheless, he concluded his report with the following request: “At this time, it is imperative that the [Kwantung] Army be supplied immediately with river-crossing materials—the weakest aspect of the Army’s operational preparations. It is [also] desired that various types of river-crossing craft be provided.”49

  This last request should have alerted AGS that despite General Isogai’s assurances, KwAHQ was contemplating a large-scale crossing of the Halha River. Even according to the Japanese interpretation of the border, this would constitute an invasion of the MPR. Nevertheless, General Hashimoto Gun, who headed the Operations Division at AGS, replied to Isogai the following day, affirming his confidence in Kwantung Army’s intention and ability to keep the incident localized: “The Soviet side will continue to do vexing things, and one must handle them adequately; but looking at various estimates of the situation, we find it hard to believe that any great problem is in the offing in the Nomonhan area. It ought to be rather easy to achieve the objective of chastisement.”50

  Colonel Inada’s AGS Operations Section secretly made the following assessment of the situation on May 31:

  1. The USSR probably does not wish to expand the incident.

  2. The General Staff will trust Kwantung Army to keep the incident limited and localized.

  3. The General Staff will intervene if Kwantung Army plans any action which might provoke the USSR or expand the incident, such as air attacks deep inside Outer Mongolia.51

  Thus ended the first phase of the Nomonhan incident. Kwantung Army described the outcome as, “one victory for each side, one defeat for each side,” but that was hardly accurate. The Azuma unit had been destroyed, other heavy losses sustained, and according to the army’s official history, “remorse ate at the heart of General Komatsubara.”52

  CHAPTER 5

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  NOMONHAN: A LESSON IN LIMITED WAR

  On June 1, 1939, an urgent telephone call from Moscow summoned the young deputy commander of the Byelorussian Military District from his headquarters in Minsk to a meeting with Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, the commissar for defense. Catching the first Moscow-bound train, the deputy commander betrayed no outward sign of apprehension about the abrupt summons that came while the deadly purge of the army was still winding down. But the rising young cavalry and tank commander was not destined to meet a bullet in an NKVD execution cellar. His name was Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, future Hero of the Soviet Union, who would command the defense of Moscow in 1941 and lead the Red Army through Stalingrad and Kursk, all the way to Berlin.

  Zhukov was born in 1896 into a poor Russian family. His father was a cobbler. He was drafted into the Imperial Army in 1915 and served in the cavalry. Of average height but with a solid build, Zhukov possessed unusual physical strength and stamina and became an excellent horseman. In 1916 he received the Cross of St. George and was promoted to NCO for bravery in battle. After the October Revolution, he joined the Red Army and the Bolshevik Party and fought in the Civil War from 1918 to 1921. With his working-class origin, military acumen, and driving ambition, Zhukov rose rapidly through the ranks. By 1923 he commanded a cavalry regiment and, in 1931, a division. He became an early proponent of tank warfare, survived the purge unscathed, and continued to rise in prominence despite a reputation for bluntness and sometimes crude and overbearing behavior toward subordinates. More important, he impressed his superiors as a man who could get things done, which was why he was tapped to deal with the problem on the Mongolia-Manchuria border.

  In Voroshilov’s office on the morning of June 2, Zhukov was briefed on the recent fighting. He was instructed to fly there immediately, assess the situation, and if he deemed it necessary, to take command of Soviet forces in Mongolia. A few hours later, Zhukov met with an old acquaintance, Ivan Smorodinov, who recently had been promoted to acting deputy chief of the General Staff. After reviewing the military situation, Smorodinov added, “Please, the moment you arrive, see what’s going on out there and report to us, without pulling any punches.”1 The growing conflict with Japan was causing concern in Moscow, and apparently in the Kremlin, as war clouds gathered over Europe. A few hours after meetings with Voroshilov and Smorodinov, Zhukov and a small staff were airborne, heading east.

  In the early morning of June 5, Zhukov’s party arrived at Tamsag Bulak, which had become headquarters for the Soviet 57th Corps. Zhukov promptly called a meeting with the corps’ headquarters staff and concluded that corps commander Nikolai Feklenko and most of his staff were completely out of touch with the situation. Only one of the senior officers, regimental commissar M. S. Nikishev, had visited the combat area. That afternoon, Nikishev accompanied Zhukov on an inspection tour of the combat zone near the Halha River. Nikishev impressed Zhukov with his thorough knowledge of the situation. By the end of the day they had completed their inspection and Zhukov reported to Moscow, as directed, without pulling any punches. The gist of Zhukov’s report was that the fighting near the Halha River did not appear to be a mere border clash, the Japanese were likely to escalate their aggression, and the 57th Corps did not seem adequate to stop the Japanese. Zhukov recommended a temporary holding action to safeguard the bridgehead on the east bank of the Halha River until major reinforcements could be brought up for a counteroffensive. He also gave an unflattering evaluation of corps commander Feklenko.2

  One day later came the reply from Moscow, which in both its promptness and its content bespoke the esteem in which Zhukov was held by the High Command. Feklenko was relieved of his command and Zhukov named to replace him. Reinforcements were allocated to strengthen Zhukov’s new command: the 36th Mechanized Infantry Division; 7th, 8th, and 9th Mechanized Brigades; 11th Tank Brigade; and 8th (MPR) Cavalry Division; a heavy artillery regiment; and a tactical air wing of more than one hundred planes, including a group of twenty-one pilots who had won combat citations as Heroes of the Soviet Union while fighting in Spain. This enlarged force was soon given a new designation: First Army Group.3

  Throughout June, as these new forces were pouring into Tamsag Bulak, eighty miles west of the Halha River, Komatsubara’s 23rd Division and KwAHQ remained largely ignorant of the scope of the Soviet buildup and of the change in command. This was an intelligence failure similar to that of the previous month that had contributed to the destruction of the Azuma unit. It owed as much to Japanese carelessness and overconfidence as to Soviet stealth, and like the earlier intelligence blunder, it would have grave consequences on the battlefield.

  The first half of June passed without major incident in the Nomonhan area. The Soviet-MPR forces expanded the perimeter of their bridgehead, in accordance with Zhukov’s recommendations, but they still hugged fairly close to the east bank of the river. There was no significant response from Manchukuoan or Japanese forces. The Kwantung Army commander, General Ueda, hoping that the affair was closed, left Hsinking on May 31 for an inspection tour of the newly formed Fourth Army in Northern Manchukuo. Ueda returned to headquarters on June 18. On the following day, the relative calm on the frontier was shattered.

  On June 19 General Komatsubara reported to KwAHQ that two Soviet air attacks had struck inside Manchukuo. According to his initial report, “Fifteen Soviet planes attacked Arshan, causing some casualties among men and horses. Thirty Soviet planes attacked near Kanchuerhmiao, setting fire to one hundred barrels of petroleum.”4 These air raids were not quite as inflammatory as Komatsubara’s report suggested.

  The market town of Kanchuerhmiao—po
pulation three thousand, situated some forty miles northwest of Nomonhan—was not attacked. Actually, it was an area south of Kanchuerhmiao and only twelve miles from the frontier, where Manchukuoan forces had been stockpiling military supplies, which received the larger of the two air raids. Komatsubara’s report of an air raid at Arshan was interpreted at KwAHQ to mean Harlun Arshan, a railhead and population center of some significance, nearly one hundred miles southeast of Nomonhan. Instead, the smaller air attack struck Arshanmiao, a small village near Kanchuerhmiao and very near the border, which was being used by Manchukuoan cavalry as a bivouac area and supply depot. Also, it appears that the Soviet air raids were strafing rather than bombing attacks.5

  These Soviet air attacks may have been belated retaliation for the Japanese air raid of May 15 that struck MPR Border Outpost Number 7, killing two and wounding fifteen Mongolian border troops. They may have been staged in connection with Zhukov’s expansion of the bridgehead across the Halha. Although the attacks were authorized by Defense Commissar Voroshilov, the rationale behind them is unclear.6 For whatever reason they were launched, the Soviet air raids caused a sensation at KwAHQ. The Japanese army, which had used its air power ruthlessly and with impunity in the conquest of Manchuria, during the Shanghai incident of 1932 and throughout the China War, simply was not accustomed to being subjected to air attacks. Psychologically, it was as if the North Vietnamese Air Force in 1973 had attacked U.S. air bases in Thailand. It could not have been called “unprovoked,” but the effect was startling. KwAHQ was enraged.

  The Operations Staff met at midday to discuss the Soviet air raids. Major Tsuji Masanobu spoke up first, as usual, urging swift retaliation. Colonel Terada Masao initially disagreed, calling for restraint at least temporarily. He argued that Japan’s confrontation with Great Britain over Tientsin was reaching a crucial stage (a Japanese blockade of the British Concession at Tientsin, near Peking, had just begun) and the central authorities in Tokyo ought not to be distracted by an expansion of the Nomonhan incident at that time. Tsuji replied that especially for that reason, Japan must act firmly at Nomonhan to impress the British with their determination. Furthermore, he argued, if Japan offered no firm response to these provocative air raids, the Soviets would be emboldened to bomb further into Manchukuo, and perhaps even attempt an invasion. Tsuji’s arguments won over the Operations Section chief, Colonel Hattori Takushiro, and after further discussion, the entire Operations Staff, including Terada, united around Tsuji’s position.7