General Isogai was the most restrained and circumspect member of that tightly knit Kwantung Army clique of which Tsuji was the spark plug. But on that day, Isogai alone carried Kwantung Army’s banner at General Staff Headquarters, and he argued vigorously against the AGS Essentials, asserting that since it was logistically and politically impossible for the Soviets to mount a major military effort at Nomonhan, “localization” of the dispute best could be achieved by Japan maintaining a firm attitude. Furthermore, argued Isogai, from the standpoint of Kwantung Army’s honor and dignity, he could not approve of a pullback from the east bank of the Halha, where the blood of thousands of his soldiers already had been shed. Isogai asked sharply if the General Staff had decided, in effect, to capitulate and accept the enemy’s claims regarding the boundary. Tension filled the air as General Hashimoto Gun, chief of the Operations Division, answered tersely in the affirmative. A heated argument ensued between the two until General Nakajima, deputy chief of the General Staff, ended the quarrel by declaring that international boundaries could not be determined by the army alone. Isogai pledged to convey the General Staff’s opinions to his commander and to take the Essentials back to KwAHQ for diligent study, and on that note the conference ended.68
Technically speaking, a General Staff document entitled Essentials was not a direct order. In most Japanese field armies, however, AGS Essentials were received and interpreted as orders. Kwantung Army, however, tended to interpret such documents as suggestions, and reserved their own discretion in implementing them. AGS had couched its instructions in the form of Essentials in the hope that Kwantung Army’s injured pride might be assuaged.69 The briefing given to General Isogai at General Staff Headquarters was meant to ensure that Kwantung Army understood and would obey. However, the meeting with Isogai had not gone well and after his departure for Hsinking, doubts remained at AGS concerning Kwantung Army’s attitude.
These doubts were justified, for on July 22 Kwantung Army commander General Ueda, at the urging of his staff, decided to ignore the Essentials.70 AGS learned of this a week later, when two General Staff officers who had been sent to Hsinking for this purpose reported that Kwantung Army had no intention of adopting the Essentials. In the face of this defiance, AGS, astonishingly, decided to let the matter drop. Colonel Inada, who was privy to this decision at AGS, wrote three months later that this was a grave mistake on their part and that the central authorities should have replaced the recalcitrant Kwantung Army staff officers then and there. But they had waited, he said, hoping that the coming of “the cold autumn weather would cool the emotions at KwAHQ.”71 Again the General Staff miscalculated. But this time it would be the Red Army rather than Kwantung Army that would turn up the heat at Nomonhan.
As a temporary measure, on August 4 AGS created a new administrative entity within Kwantung Army, which it designated as the Sixth Army. Command of the Sixth Army was given to General Ogisu Rippei, who had distinguished himself as a division commander in China. Komatsubara’s 23rd Division and other units in that vicinity were attached to the Sixth Army, under Ogisu’s command. Sixth Army also was given primary responsibility for the defense of west central Manchukuo, including the Nomonhan area. Actually, the Sixth Army existed only on paper, a small headquarters staff with no other combat units of its own. It was a device by which AGS endeavored to insert a responsible layer of command between KwAHQ and the Nomonhan combat zone.72 General Ueda and his staff at KwAHQ resented this latest “interference” in their internal affairs by AGS but could do nothing to prevent the move. However, they did not have to cooperate with the intrusion. In the few remaining weeks before the final battle, General Ogisu and his small staff had no significant effect on the situation at Nomonhan.
Zhukov’s August Offensive
Meanwhile, the European crisis over German demands on Poland intensified, moving into a configuration highly favorable to the Soviet Union. By the first week of August, it became evident in the Kremlin that both the Anglo-French powers and the Germans were vying with one another to secure an alliance with Moscow.73 Stalin knew now that in all probability he would be able to keep a free hand in the coming war in the West. At the same time Richard Sorge, the Soviet master spy in Tokyo, reported correctly that Japan’s top political and military leaders sought to prevent the escalation of the Nomonhan incident into an all-out war.74 These developments gave the cautious Soviet dictator confidence to commit the Red Army to large-scale combat operations in eastern Mongolia. In early August, Stalin gave the order to prepare a major offensive to clear the Nomonhan area of the “Japanese samurai who had violated the territory of the friendly Outer Mongolian people.”75
The buildup of Zhukov’s First Army Group accelerated still further. Its July strength was augmented by the 57th and 82nd Infantry Divisions, 6th Tank Brigade, 212th Airborne Brigade, numerous smaller infantry, armor, and artillery units, and two Mongolian cavalry divisions. Soviet air power also was greatly strengthened in the area. When this buildup was completed by mid-August, Zhukov commanded an infantry force equivalent to four divisions, supported by two cavalry divisions, 216 artillery pieces, 498 armored vehicles, and 581 aircraft.76 To bring in the supplies necessary for this force to launch an offensive, General Shtern’s Trans-Baikal Military District Headquarters amassed a fleet of more than 4,200 vehicles, which trucked in some 55,000 tons of materiel from the distant railway depot at Borzya.77
The Japanese intelligence network in Outer Mongolia was weak, a problem that went unremedied throughout the Nomonhan incident. This deficiency, coupled with the curtailment of Kwantung Army’s transborder air operations, helps explain why the Japanese remained ignorant of the scope of Zhukov’s buildup.78 They were aware that some reinforcements were flowing eastward across the Trans-Siberian Railway toward the MPR but had no idea of the volume. Then at the end of July, Kwantung Army Intelligence intercepted part of a Soviet telegraph transmission indicating that preparations were under way for some offensive operation in the middle of August. This caused a stir at KwAHQ. Generals Ueda and Yano suspected that the enemy was preparing to strike across the Halha River. Ueda’s initial reaction was to reinforce the 23rd Division at Nomonhan with the rest of the highly regarded 7th Division. However, the 7th Division was Kwantung Army’s sole strategic reserve and the Operations Section was reluctant to commit it to extreme western Manchukuo, because Soviet forces in the Maritime Province were being mobilized and the Operations Staff feared an attack in the east, perhaps in the vicinity of Changkufeng. The Kwantung Army commander again ignored his own better judgment and accepted the recommendation of the Operations Section. The main strength of the 7th Division remained at its base near Tsitsihar, but another of its infantry regiments, the 28th, was dispatched to the Nomonhan area, as was an infantry battalion from the Mukden Garrison.79 Earlier, in mid-July, Kwantung Army had sent Komatsubara 1,160 individual replacements to make up for casualties from earlier fighting. All these reinforcements combined, however, did little more than make good the losses already suffered by Komatsubara’s forces: as of July 25, 1,400 killed (including 200 officers) and 3,000 wounded.80
Kwantung Army directed Komatsubara to dig in, construct fortifications, and adopt a defensive posture. Colonel Numazaki, who commanded the 23rd Division’s Engineer Regiment, was unhappy with the defensive line he was ordered to fortify. He urged the general to pull back a bit from his forwardmost lines to more easily defensible terrain. Komatsubara, however, refused to pull back at all from ground his men had bled so profusely to take. Komatsubara and his line officers still nourished the hope of a revenge offensive. As a result, the Japanese defensive positions proved to be as weak as Numazaki feared.81 As Zhukov’s First Army Group prepared to strike, the effective Japanese strength at Nomonhan was less than one and one-half divisions.
Major Tsuji and his colleagues in the Operations Section had little confidence in Kwantung Army’s own Intelligence Section. That is part of the reason why Tsuji frequently conducted his own reconnaissance m
issions.82 Also, up to this time it was gospel throughout the Japanese army that the maximum range for large-scale infantry operations was 125–175 miles from a railway. Anything beyond 200 miles from a railway was considered logistically impossible.83 Since Kwantung Army had only 800 trucks available to it in all of Manchukuo in 1939,84 the massive Soviet logistical effort involving more than 4,200 trucks was almost literally unimaginable to the Japanese. Consequently, the Operations Staff was confident that it had made the correct defensive deployments if a Soviet attack really were to occur, which it doubted. If the enemy did strike at Nomonhan, it was believed that it could not possibly marshal enough strength in that remote region to threaten the reinforced 23rd Division. Furthermore, the 7th Division based at Tsitsihar, which was on a major rail line, could be transported to any trouble spot on the eastern or western frontier in a few days’ time.
KwAHQ advised Komatsubara to maintain his defensive posture and prepare to meet a possible enemy attack around August 14 or 15. Kwantung Army took another highly unusual defensive measure at this time. Attached to Kwantung Army was a secret organization whose code name was Unit 731. Its official designation was the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army. Unit 731 specialized in biological and chemical warfare. Its principal production facilities and laboratories—including a notorious prison-laboratory complex where hideous experiments were conducted on hundreds of mainly Chinese human subjects—were in Harbin. During the early August lull in the fighting at Nomonhan, a detachment from Unit 731 infected the Halha River with bacteria of an acute cholera-like strain. There are no reports in the Soviet or Japanese accounts of the conflict suggesting that this attempted biological warfare had any effect. In the last days of the war, Unit 731 was disbanded, its Harbin facilities demolished, and most of its personnel fled to Japan—but not before they gassed the surviving 150 human subjects and burned their corpses. The unit’s commander, Lieutenant General Ishii Shiro, swore his men to secrecy and threatened retribution to any who blabbed. Ishii and his senior colleagues escaped prosecution at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials by trading the results of their experiments to U.S. military authorities in exchange for immunity.85
The Japanese Sixth Army exerted some half-hearted efforts by way of constructing defensive fortifications. The lack of enthusiasm, in part, resulted from the scarcity of suitable building materials. Even wood had to be trucked in from far off. More to the point, Japanese military doctrine despised the concept of static defense and favored offense in virtually all circumstances. Thus, Kwantung Army waited on events.
West of the Halha River, Zhukov accelerated his preparations. Because of the tightness of Komatsubara’s perimeter security, the lack of Japanese deserters, and the nearly total absence of a civilian population in the combat area, it was difficult for Soviet Intelligence to obtain detailed information on Japanese defensive positions in depth. Combat intelligence could only discern the Japanese frontline disposition and their closest mortar and artillery emplacements. Aerial reconnaissance provided photographs, but the skillful use by the Japanese of camouflage and mock-ups limited their usefulness. The new commander of the 149th Mechanized Infantry Regiment (successor to the slain Major Remizov) took personal charge of infiltration and intelligence gathering. Under his expert direction, he and a small group of men succeeded in penetrating the Japanese lines on several nights and brought back the information that Zhukov needed—Komatsubara’s northern and southern flanks were held by Manchukuoan cavalry and he lacked mobile reserves.86
With this information, Zhukov drew up a plan of attack to exploit the enemy’s weaknesses. Zhukov’s operational plan was uncomplicated. The main Japanese strength was concentrated several miles east of the Halha, on both sides of the smaller Holsten River. Their infantry lacked mobility and armor support and their flanks were weakly held. Zhukov decided to divide his First Army Group into three strike forces. The central force, under his direct command, was to launch a frontal assault and tie down the main Japanese strength. At the same time the northern and southern strike forces, with the bulk of his armor, were to turn in the Japanese flanks and force the enemy into a pocket that then would be reduced and destroyed by the concerted efforts of the three forces. The success of the plan depended on achieving tactical surprise and overwhelming force at the points of attack. The offensive—pending a final green light from Moscow—would begin in the latter part of August.87
To ensure tactical surprise, Zhukov and his staff devised an elaborate program of concealment and deception—disinformatsiya. Men and materiel arriving at Tamsag Bulak from the USSR and thence toward the Halha River were transported only at night, with vehicles’ lights blacked out. Noting that the Japanese were tapping their telephone lines and intercepting radio messages, First Army Headquarters sent a series of false messages in an easily decipherable code, dealing with construction of defensive positions and preparations for prolonged autumn and winter campaigning. Thousands of leaflets entitled, “What the Infantryman Should Know about Defense,” were printed and liberally distributed among the troops. Some two weeks before the proposed attack, the Soviets brought in special sound equipment to simulate the noises of tank and aircraft engines and of heavy construction and put on a long, loud performance nightly. At first, the Japanese mistook the sound effects for large-scale enemy activity and fired in the general direction of the loudspeakers. After a few nights, however, the Japanese frontline troops realized that it was only sound effects, became accustomed to the nightly “serenade,” and tried to ignore it. On the eve of the attack, the sounds of actual Soviet troop concentration and preattack staging would go largely unnoticed by the Japanese.88
On August 7–8 Zhukov executed a series of minor attacks to expand his bridgehead on the east bank of the Halha to a depth of two to three miles. That these attacks were “contained” relatively easily by Komatsubara’s troops added to his and to Kwantung Army’s false sense of confidence. In addition, the Japanese military attaché in Moscow misinterpreted Soviet press treatment of the incident. In early August, the military attaché sent a message directly to General Isogai at KwAHQ, advising that unlike the situation a year earlier during the Changkufeng incident, the Soviet press virtually was ignoring the present conflict. This meant, he advised, that the Red Army’s confidence and morale were low and that they were unsure of the outcome on the battlefield. Therefore, Kwantung Army should do nothing to show undue restraint or lack of confidence. That was precisely what most of the KwAHQ staff wanted to hear, and it lulled them still further into an almost casual mood of self-confidence.89
This is not to say that there were no portents of danger. Some three weeks before the Soviet attack, Colonel Isomura Takesuki, chief of Kwantung Army’s Intelligence Section, warned the Operations Section staff of what he saw as the vulnerability of the 23rd Division’s flanks. Tsuji and his colleagues brushed off this observation and explained disingenuously that that defensive disposition had been made intentionally to lure the enemy into attack. A similar warning from General Kasahara Yukio of AGS also went unheeded. The “desk jockey” General Staff officers commanded virtually no respect at KwAHQ by that time. A more ominous warning came from yet another source. General Hata Yuzaburo was Komatsubara’s successor as chief of the Special Services Agency at Harbin and a highly respected intelligence officer. Around August 10 Hata warned that, although he did not know the exact strength of Soviet forces in the Mongolian salient, he believed that enemy strength there was very great and was seriously underestimated at KwAHQ. Even Kwantung Army’s Operations Section was disturbed by Hata’s report, yet no decisive action was taken prior to Zhukov’s attack.90
Kwantung Army’s inaction and unpreparedness prior to the Soviet offensive appears to be a case of faulty intelligence compounded by hubris. But the explanation may be more complicated than that. According to a perceptive observer at KwAHQ, Major Tsuji and his colleagues were not simply blind fools, but also were subject to a kind of fatalistic wis
hful thinking that was prevalent in the Japanese military. In this view the army, in accordance with its emphasis on spiritual power, traditionally believed that it must prevail over the enemy. Given this categorical imperative, they persuaded themselves that they probably would win. In such a frame of mind they could conclude that enemy strength probably was not as great as was reported, because they expected victory. Furthermore, even if enemy strength was overwhelming, there was little they could do about it in view of their meager resources.91 Though such an “explanation” may seem circular and illogical to a Westerner, it derived in part from the tendency of Japanese philosophy and culture to stress subjectivism over empiricism.
Meanwhile, in the rational, objective, and scientifically preeminent West, the Nazi war machine stood poised at the Polish frontier, ready to unleash a new dimension of horror. The Wehrmacht was held in check by an impatient Adolf Hitler, who now was urgently importuning Stalin to conclude a nonaggression pact immediately. The German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact would neutralize the Russian threat of a two-front war against Germany and clear the way for Hitler’s invasion of Poland. But if the Hitler-Stalin pact was a “green light,” the signal flashed in two directions, east as well as west. It also would neutralize the German threat of a two-front war against Russia and clear the way for Zhukov’s offensive at Nomonhan.
Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II Page 20
