Because of his years as head of the Special Services Agency in Harbin, General Komatsubara was familiar with northwest Manchukuo and with the posture of a low profile. Neither reckless nor excitable by temperament, and cognizant of the AGS guidelines, Komatsubara kept his inexperienced 23rd Division near Hailar and left routine border patrols to the 8th BGU. An episode that autumn illustrates how he interpreted those guidelines.
On the morning of November 1, 1938, an 8th BGU border patrol was attacked by MPR forces. According to the Japanese report, the three-man patrol, led by a young lieutenant, carelessly approached the boundary and was attacked by MPR cavalry while still fifty meters within Manchukuoan territory. The lieutenant managed to escape, leaving behind his two men, who were killed. General Komatsubara dispatched a 23rd Division infantry company to the scene later that day to secure the area, but ordered no retaliation. He left recovery of the two bodies to diplomatic negotiations and filed a protest with local MPR and Soviet authorities. Komatsubara’s only other official action was to discipline his officers. The two officers in charge of the local garrison were confined to their quarters for five days each “as punishment for not educating their troops to use more caution.” The lieutenant who led the patrol was confined to quarters for thirty days.8
Despite Komatsubara’s restraint, momentum was building at AGS and at KwAHQ that would plunge the 23rd Division into the cauldron of combat.
Attitude of Kwantung Army
It is normal practice for modern armies to draft operational plans against potential enemies. The existence of such contingency plans does not prove aggressive intent. Nonetheless, changes in Japanese operational planning against the USSR may have contributed to the outbreak of the Nomonhan incident. From 1934 to 1938, Japanese war plans called for a massive surprise attack against the Soviets in the Ussuri River region while fighting a holding action in northwestern Manchuria. However, from mid-1938 to early 1939, proposals for a new operational plan against the USSR were drawn up by a top-secret joint study group from AGS and Kwantung Army’s Operations Departments. The new plan called for a holding action in the east and north while launching an all-out offensive from Hailar on a west-northwest axis toward Chita and on to Lake Baikal, cutting off the trans-Baikal Soviet Far East.9
This new proposal, known as Plan Eight-B, was endorsed by Kwantung Army in March 1939. A group of General Staff officers, Colonels Hattori Takushiro and Terada Masao and Major Shimanuki Takeharu, who had figured prominently in drafting Plan Eight-B, were then transferred from AGS to KwAHQ to phase in the new operational plan, which envisioned a five-year preparation period prior to execution. Colonel Hattori became Kwantung Army’s chief operations staff officer.10
A quick glance at the map reveals that one strategic problem with Plan Eight-B was that the Japanese offensive would be exposed to interdiction along its southern flank by a Soviet counterattack launched from the Mongolian salient. It is likely that in the spring of 1939 Kwantung Army began to view the Mongolian salient as a potential strategic problem. However, at the time of the outbreak of hostilities at Nomonhan, KwAHQ had not yet drafted specific operational plans for the Nomonhan area.
At this same time, the Japanese began preparations for constructing a strategic railroad from Harlun Arshan to Hailar. It is not clear if this was specifically in connection with Plan Eight-B, but the proposed railroad was to run very near the Halha River. The vulnerability of the projected rail line also may have drawn Kwantung Army’s attention to the Mongolian salient and its disputed eastern border near the Halha River. In early 1939 the 23rd Division stepped up reconnaissance patrols in the vicinity of the Halha River. In mid-March 1939, General Grigori Shtern, the new commander of Soviet Far Eastern forces, publically warned that Japan was preparing to attack the MPR.11
At about the same time that Plan Eight-B was being drafted and the Harlun Arshan–Hailar Railway proposed, KwAHQ promulgated an unusually tough and aggressive new set of guidelines for the conduct of its troops on and near the frontiers. These guidelines are widely believed to have played an important part in the outbreak of the Nomonhan incident. Furthermore, they suggest a causal link between the 1937 Amur River incident, the Changkufeng incident of 1938, and the conflict at Nomonhan.
As we have seen, resentment and frustration welled up in KwAHQ because of perceived AGS “interference” in its command prerogatives during the Amur River incident. This was compounded a year later at Changkufeng when, after the mauling suffered there by General Suetaka Kamezo’s 19th Division, the disputed territory, Manchukuoan territory, was surrendered de facto to the enemy. This prompted Kwantung Army to push for taking over responsibility from Chosen Army for the sliver of Manchukuoan territory near Changkufeng. The following month, Major Tsuji Masanobu of Kwantung Army’s Operations Section was dispatched on a reconnaissance mission to ascertain the precise situation at Changkufeng. Major Tsuji, a daring and outspoken officer, did not like what he found. Soviet troops controlled all the territory between the previously contested ridgeline and the Tyumen River.
Tsuji conducted a number of additional reconnaissance trips to the area that winter. On his last such mission in March 1939, he led a detachment of forty men to the foot of Changkufeng Hill, where thousands had bled and died seven months earlier. Tsuji had his men sling their rifles across their backs to show nonbelligerent intent and marched them conspicuously up the hill to within two hundred yards of the Soviet defense lines. There he formed them into a single line abreast, whereupon they all undid their trousers and urinated in unison, to the surprised laughter of the Soviet troops. They then moved off a few yards and, forming a circle, sat down to enjoy obentos (a kind of Japanese box lunch) and sake. Later, after singing some rousing Japanese army songs, Tsuji and his men departed, leaving behind cans of meat, chocolates, and whiskey for the bemused Soviet onlookers. This burlesque performance was an elaborate diversion staged by Tsuji to mask clandestine photography of the enemy positions, showing Soviet fortifications incontrovertibly on Manchukuoan territory.12
Tsuji Masanobu was an extraordinary individual. Despite, or perhaps because of, humble family origins,13 he sought to personify the samurai warrior spirit transmuted to the requirements of twentieth-century warfare. Tsuji possessed a keen mind entrapped in a sickly and often disease-ridden body, upon which he forced an almost superhuman regimen of daring-do. An innovative and sometime brilliant operational planner, he craved the battlefield as much as the planning room. He delighted in personally conducting clandestine intelligence, political intrigue, aerial reconnaissance, operational planning, and battlefield command, and distinguished himself in all of these activities in a long and checkered career. Yet something was lacking. At times he displayed narrow-minded intolerance. He was a violent racist and was capable of inhuman brutality. Despite the enormous influence he came to exercise, he seemed always to have the instincts of the scheming outsider “on the make.” In 1939 Tsuji held the rank of major. The dominant role he played at Nomonhan and after can only be understood in the context of gekokujo, the Japanese tradition of rule from below.
Upon returning to Hsinking from his unusual reconnaissance mission at Changkufeng in March 1939, Major Tsuji drafted plans for dealing with Changkufeng. Tsuji proposed negotiations with the Soviets to “rectify” the border; if negotiations failed, Kwantung Army should attack and drive the invading troops out of Manchukuo.14 This proposal was adopted by Kwantung Army Command. Major General Yano Otozaburo, Kwantung Army deputy chief of staff, flew to Tokyo armed with Tsuji’s photographs to seek approval of the General Staff. At AGS, however, General Yano was told that the Changkufeng incident was a closed case and would remain so and that Kwantung Army should ignore the “technical” border violation there because Tokyo did not seek conflict with the USSR at that time. To Yano’s (Tsuji’s) argument that such a weak policy at Changkufeng would embolden the Russians to further aggression against Manchukuo, a General Staff officer replied that because of the tense European situation in th
e spring of 1939, the Soviet Union could not afford to cause trouble with Japan.15
General Yano’s return to Hsinking brought much gnashing of teeth. Kwantung Army felt that the rejection of their request by AGS prevented their army from fulfilling the sacred mission assigned by the emperor, to defend Manchukuo. It was a frustrating, and for some a mortifying, situation. Resentment ran high throughout KwAHQ, nowhere more than in the Operations Section.
This was the background for the Operations Section’s tough new guidelines for troops on the frontiers, drafted by none other than Major Tsuji. The basic premise of the guidelines, entitled “Principles for the Settlement of Soviet-Manchukuoan Border Disputes,” declared, “If Soviet troops transgress the Manchukuoan frontiers, Kwantung Army will nip their ambitions in the bud by completely destroying them.” Some of the specific guidelines laid down for local commanders were:
If the enemy crosses the frontiers … annihilate him without delay, employing strength carefully built up beforehand. To accomplish our mission, it is permissible to enter Soviet territory, or to trap or lure Soviet troops into Manchukuoan territory and allow them to remain there for some time… .
Where boundary lines are not clearly defined, area defense commanders will, upon their own initiative, establish boundaries and indicate them to the forward elements… .
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 and endeavor to triumph in their zone of action without concerning themselves about the consequences, which will be the responsibility of higher headquarters.16
Tsuji later explained that under the old guidelines, local commanders on the frontier were subject to “contradictory orders,” to scrupulously maintain the inviolability of Manchukuoan territory, but to take no action that would provoke conflict. According to Tsuji, those orders sometimes inhibited local commanders from dealing firmly with border violations for fear of provoking a larger incident. The new guidelines, he claimed, were designed “to remove this anxiety from the local commanders, so that they could act more firmly without fear of personal responsibility for the consequences.”17
In reality, however, Tsuji’s “Principles for the Settlement of Soviet-Manchukuoan Border Disputes” were better suited to provoking than to settling disputes. Such innovations as having local commanders unilaterally establish boundaries in areas not clearly demarcated, ordering them to enforce their decisions on a “shoot first, ask questions later” basis, authorizing invading enemy territory, and encouraging luring enemy troops across the border, all these things not only ignored government policy but also were wholly incompatible with official army doctrine.18
Tsuji’s proposed principles for settling border disputes were discussed heatedly in Kwantung Army’s Operations Section. The section chief, Colonel Hattori, and his colleague, Colonel Terada, both outranked Major Tsuji. However, those two officers, together with Major Shimanuki, had been transferred from AGS to Kwantung Army only a month earlier. Tsuji had served in the Operations Section since November 1937 and had been at KwAHQ since April 1936. In terms of length of service and experience in that post, Tsuji was the “senior” operations staff officer. Hattori and Terada were reluctant to overrule their outspoken colleague. In an interview in 1960, Major Shimanuki stated that Tsuji had enjoyed a very high reputation at KwAHQ because of his intelligence, persuasiveness, forcefulness, and knowledge of Kwantung Army and Manchuria. He had “very positive” views, and he usually spoke up first in staff discussions, advocating his views and carrying the rest of the operations staff with him.19 So it was with the new guidelines for settling border disputes.
The Operations Section, united in support of Tsuji’s proposals, presented them to Kwantung Army Command for approval. The army commander, Lieutenant General Ueda Kenkichi, consulted with his chief of staff and vice chief of staff, Generals Isogai Rensuke and Yano. These three men, sober, experienced, and responsible senior officers, should have recognized the inflammatory nature of the proposed new guidelines. But they were blinded by the resentment and frustration growing out of the friction between their command and AGS. Generals Ueda and Isogai and Major Tsuji were the only three Kwantung Army staff officers in 1939 who had been serving at KwAHQ at the time of the fighting on the Amur River and at Changkufeng. Nor was that the only bond they shared. In 1932 Tsuji, then a thirty-year-old captain, commanded a company in the 7th Regiment of the 9th Infantry Division stationed in China. Tsuji, who already had distinguished himself as an outstanding leader, was the standard-bearer for the 7th Regiment, which was commanded by Isogai, then a colonel. Yano was a 7th Regiment staff officer. The 9th Division was commanded by General Ueda when, in 1932, it saw action in the Shanghai incident, in which Tsuji was wounded.20
Tsuji has written of the intense comradely, almost fraternal relationship between himself and Ueda, Isogai, and Yano, in which Hattori, Terada, and Shimanuki came to share. According to General Isogai, Tsuji was “extremely influential” in this “clique,” although he and General Ueda always took responsibility for the consequences.21 After some initial hesitation on the part of General Isogai, who usually was the most moderate of the group, the proposed guidelines were approved. General Ueda promulgated the guidelines as Kwantung Army Operations Order 1488 on April 25, 1939, at a division commanders conference convened at KwAHQ for that purpose.
A copy of Order 1488 was sent routinely to AGS in Tokyo, which received the report but sent no official response. The General Staff was focused on the China War and negotiations for a military alliance with Germany and may not have been paying much attention to Manchukuoan border security. Colonel Inada, head of the Operations Section at AGS, recalls that the General Staff “basically accepted” Order 1488 but expected Kwantung Army to consult with them before taking any action in response to a specific border violation. This opinion was communicated unofficially to Hattori and Terada, who had served under Inada at AGS until the previous month. This unofficial opinion was rejected at KwAHQ, where it was interpreted as yet another attempt by central authorities to interfere in their legitimate command prerogatives.22
Some authoritative Japanese sources have argued that if AGS had issued a firm and unambiguous repudiation of Order 1488, the disaster at Nomonhan might have been averted.23 That may be so, but taming Kwantung Army at that point probably would have required the forced transfer of much of the KwAHQ staff. No one in authority at AGS wanted to rock the boat so abruptly at that time. Tsuji argues that if AGS had allowed Kwantung Army “to act forcefully at Changkufeng, the Nomonhan incident would not have happened.”24 Besides confirming the link between Changkufeng and Nomonhan, Tsuji’s protest ultimately may come down to questioning the site of the 1939 conflict at Nomonhan rather than at Changkufeng.
There is no doubt that the promulgation of Kwantung Army’s Operations Order 1488 on April 25 was an important factor leading to the outbreak of the Nomonhan incident three weeks later. Japanese records show that Khalkha Mongols and MPR border patrols regularly crossed the Halha River, which in the Mongolian government’s view lay some ten miles within their territory. Such river crossings—border violations in the view of Manchukuo and Japan—occurred without incident as late as March and April 1939. When this activity recurred after the promulgation of Order 1488, General Komatsubara, 23rd Division commander, took action.
The Opening of Hostilities
On May 11–12, 1939, a border clash occurred that escalated into major conflict at Nomonhan. There are more than a dozen “authoritative” versions of the initial clash, differing in perspective, emphasis, and detail.25 After sifting through the mass of purported evidence and checking one account against another, the following reconstruction of events emerges. On the night of May 10–11, a twenty-man MPR border patrol crossed the Halha River moving eastward. Approximately ten miles east of the river, on a sandy hill 150 feet high, stoo
d the tiny hamlet of Nomonhan, a few rough huts, the dwelling places of a handful of Mongols. Just south of Nomonhan is the Holsten River, a stream that flows west below Nomonhan and spills into the broader Halha River. On the morning of May 11, the MPR border patrol was discovered by Manchukuoan forces north of the Holsten River and just west of Nomonhan. In the MPR/Soviet view, the hill on which the hamlet of Nomonhan is located was (and is) on the Mongolia-Manchuria border. In the Manchukuoan/Japanese view, Nomonhan, ten miles east of the Halha River, was ten miles inside Manchukuo.
A Manchukuoan cavalry force of about forty men drove the Mongolian border patrol back across the Halha River. The MPR patrol leader reported the Manchukuoan force that evicted him to be two hundred men. Some casualties were sustained by both sides, but the Manchukuoans had drawn first blood. On the next day, an MPR border troop force of some sixty men, commanded by Major P. Chogdan, pushed the Manchukuoan cavalry out of the disputed area and reestablish their position between the Halha River and Nomonhan. The Manchukuoan cavalry unit reported the MPR force to be seven hundred men.26 Sporadic and indecisive fighting and jockeying for position continued throughout the week. On May 13, however, two days after the initial clash, the local Manchukuoan commander notified General Komatsubara’s 23rd Division Headquarters in Hailar of the situation. At about the same time, MPR Major Chogdan reported the fighting to Soviet military headquarters in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital. A Mongolian-Manchukuoan border skirmish was about to become a Soviet-Japanese confrontation.
Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II Page 13