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

by Stuart D. Goldman

  The Operations Section immediately drafted a position paper that they circulated among the other departments at KwAHQ: “The situation at Nomonhan has become so grave that it is now impossible for us to remain passive… . If we undertake no counteraction, the Soviet Army will attack and invade [Manchukuo] with much larger forces, taking advantage of our passiveness. This in turn will only lead the British to doubt our real military strength and will aggravate their attitude toward Japan.”8

  After joint consultations lasting only two hours, most of the headquarters staff adopted this basic policy of strong action against the enemy at Nomonhan. That same afternoon the hyperactive Major Tsuji drew up plans for a large-scale attack across the Halha River to trap and destroy the Soviet-MPR forces there once and for all.

  Colonels Hattori and Terada then brought Tsuji’s plan to General Isogai Rensuke, Kwantung Army chief of staff, for his approval. Isogai was somewhat embarrassed by the situation. Despite his position as chief of staff, his area of expertise was Manchukuoan internal affairs. He felt out of his depth with major combat operations, responsibility for which he regularly delegated to his deputy chief of staff, General Yano Otozaburo. However, Yano was still at Fourth Army Headquarters in the north. General Isogai suggested to his operations officers that they await Yano’s return before reaching a final decision. They countered stressing the urgency of the situation. Isogai observed that their plans would require approval from AGS in Tokyo anyway, which probably would take several days. To this, Hattori and Terada objected vigorously. The two colonels, who had been transferred from AGS to Kwantung Army only three months earlier, took the position that this was a local matter within the legitimate jurisdiction of Kwantung Army. They then cited the 1937 Amur River incident in which AGS canceled a Kwantung Army attack order. If notified, AGS “surely would object” to this attack also, they argued. Kwantung Army’s traditions of élan and independence evidently had been assimilated quickly by Hattori and Terada, under Tsuji’s influence. The operations officers continued to press Isogai on the grounds that the situation was too critical for delay and that it was both unnecessary and unwise to seek AGS approval. The chief of staff finally yielded and gave his assent to the plan, contingent upon the approval of the commander, General Ueda.9

  Having persuaded—or subdued—the chief of staff, Hattori and Terada brought the attack plan to Kwantung Army’s commanding general for final approval. Unlike Isogai, General Ueda expressed no objection to the basic idea of the offensive. However, he insisted that the primary responsibility be given to General Komatsubara Michitaro’s 23rd Division, rather than to the 7th Division, as proposed in Tsuji’s operational plan. Colonel Hattori replied that the 7th Division was Kwantung Army’s finest, while the 23rd Division was only one year old and had demonstrated “unreliable combat effectiveness” in May. The 7th also was a “square” division with four infantry regiments, compared to the 23rd Division’s three. Ueda agreed with his staff officers’ assessment but reminded them that the Nomonhan area was the direct responsibility of the 23rd Division. He declared that “to assign another division commander to handle the incident … would imply a loss of confidence in the 23rd Division Commander. If I were in Komatsubara’s place, I would commit suicide.”10 Hattori and Terada could not get around this argument, and on that basis the plan won final approval. The entire sequence of events from the report of the Soviet air strikes to General Ueda’s final approval of the attack plan transpired in one day, June 19. This was gekokujo in action.

  The attack plan as finally approved called for reinforcing Komatsubara’s 23rd Division with powerful additional forces. Most notable among these were the 2nd Air Group, with 180 planes under the command of Lieutenant General Gigi Tetsuji, and the Yasuoka Detachment, a powerful strike force commanded by Lieutenant General Yasuoka Masaomi, built around two regiments of medium and light tanks (Japan’s only operational independent tank brigade at that time), a motorized artillery regiment, and the 7th Division’s excellent 26th Infantry Regiment. The total attack force consisted of approximately 15,000 men, 120 artillery and antitank guns, 70 tanks, and 180 aircraft.11 Kwantung Army’s estimate of enemy strength in the Nomonhan area at that time was approximately 1,000 infantry, 10 pieces of field artillery, and about a dozen armored vehicles. KwAHQ was confident that their designated attack force would strike the enemy, “like a butcher’s cleaver dismembering a chicken.” So great was their confidence that the most frequently voiced concern was that they might inadvertently tip off the enemy to the impending attack. Consequently, they curtailed air reconnaissance west of the Halha River so as not to alert or alarm the enemy.12 This overconfidence was both a result and a cause of inadequate Japanese intelligence work, and helps explain Kwantung Army’s consistent underestimation of Soviet strength.

  Not everyone in the 23rd Division shared headquarters staff’s confidence. The division’s ordnance chief, a full colonel, committed suicide on the eve of the offensive, appalled by the “awful equipment,” especially artillery, that he was powerless to improve.13 Toward the end of June, the Japanese military attaché in Moscow, Colonel Doi Akio, stopping briefly at KwAHQ on his way to Tokyo, advised the Operations and Intelligence Sections that Soviet strength in Outer Mongolia had been increased by as much as two divisions in recent weeks and that Kwantung Army’s attack plans were altogether inadequate. The Operations Staff was annoyed by this report and told Doi not to express such pessimistic thoughts when offensive operations were imminent. Kwantung Army’s own Intelligence Section was concerned about Doi’s report and other evidence of Soviet strength, but the Operations Section brushed aside these misgivings.14 Zhukov’s actual strength at that time consisted of approximately 12,500 men, 109 artillery and antitank guns, 186 tanks, 266 armored cars, and more than 100 aircraft.15 The modest quantitative edge the Japanese enjoyed in some categories was offset by the more than 6:1 Soviet advantage in armor.

  The operational plan that Major Tsuji drafted and that, in modified form, had been approved by General Ueda was essentially a more ambitious version of the ill-fated battle plan Colonel Yamagata Takemitsu had employed on May 28. It called for the main body of the 23rd Division to approach the Halha River and seize a group of hills called the Fui Heights near the east bank of the river, some eleven miles north of the confluence of the Halha and Holsten. This force would then cross the Halha on a pontoon bridge built secretly at night and strike southward along the western bank of the river toward the Soviet bridge. Simultaneously, elements of the Yasuoka Detachment, concentrated near Fui Heights, would push southward on different attack axes east of the Halha against Soviet and MPR units identified there. Komatsubara and Yasuoka would trap the Soviet-MPR forces between them in the vicinity of the Soviet-built bridge near the junction of the two rivers and there destroy them.

  On June 20 Tsuji flew to Hailar and communicated the attack plans to General Komatsubara and his divisional staff. On his own initiative, Tsuji related to Komatsubara the gist of the discussion between Ueda and Hattori regarding the roles of the 7th and 23rd Divisions in the attack. Komatsubara was moved to tears by Ueda’s confidence in him and by the opportunity given him to erase the shame of the May 28 defeat.16

  Kwantung Army possessed only a limited amount of pontoon bridge-building materiel. Their bridge would not be strong enough to support the weight of armored vehicles, and if the pontoon bridge were destroyed, there was not enough materiel to build another. The Operations Staff was concerned about the vulnerability of the bridge, and of the men and supplies that must cross it, to Soviet air attack. Consequently, Tsuji took off from Hailar on an aerial reconnaissance mission toward Tamsag Bulak, where he discovered the growing Soviet air strength. He returned to KwAHQ that night with the conviction that the success of their operation depended upon a preemptive air strike to neutralize Soviet air power in the vicinity. This proposal was adopted quickly by the Kwantung Army Command.17

  KwAHQ transmitted to Tokyo a vague outline of the planned offensiv
e, highlighting the provocative Soviet air raids and the need for firm countermeasures, without going into much detail regarding their operational plans. They made no mention whatever of the proposed air strike against the Soviet air base at Tamsag Bulak. Even this intentionally incomplete notification caused some concern at Army Headquarters in Tokyo. Opinions differed within both AGS and the Army Ministry regarding the wisdom of Kwantung Army’s proposed retaliation. At a special liaison meeting of senior AGS and Army Ministry personnel on the evening of June 21, army minister Itagaki Seishiro spoke for the majority when he observed that despite the unfortunate timing of the incident, Kwantung Army should be allowed to go ahead with its planned attack out of respect for the dignity of Kwantung Army commander Ueda, who already had approved the plan. Besides, concluded Itagaki, “There is no need for us to be nervous about the operations of a force of only one division’s strength.” On that note they decided to concur in Kwantung Army’s proposal, ignorant of its scope and of the planned air strike into Mongolia.18

  KwAHQ feared that if Tokyo got wind of their intention to attack a Soviet air base nearly one hundred miles inside the MPR, the attack would be prohibited. They took care to guard the secrecy of the attack not only from the Soviets but from Tokyo. The air strike was scheduled for one or two days before the beginning of the ground offensive on July 1. Orders were sent to Kwantung Army’s 2nd Air Group only by courier, for maximum security. Nonetheless, on June 24, word of the planned air strike leaked to the General Staff in Tokyo.19 An extraordinary exchange of communications ensued between Tokyo and Hsinking, illustrating the spirit of gekokujo that pervaded the Japanese military, especially Kwantung Army.

  Immediately after learning of Kwantung Army’s intention to bomb Tamsag Bulak, General Nakajima Tetsuzo, deputy chief of AGS, sent the following telegram to KwAHQ:

  1. The policy of the Army General Staff is to prevent the border conflict from spreading. In the course of operations to repel enemy forces invading Manchukuoan territory from the west, it is essential that maximum efforts be made to avoid any fighting on other border fronts, and that no air attacks be mounted against Outer Mongolian territory to the west. It is believed that this policy accords with that of Kwantung Army.

  2. In particular, the bombing of Outer Mongolian territory is considered improper in our opinion, as it will lead to the gradual extension of bombing assaults by both sides behind the opposing frontiers, thus prolonging the incident.

  3. For operational liaison purposes, Lt. Colonel Arisue is being flown to Kwantung Army Headquarters on 25 June (italics added).20

  After receiving this telegram, there can have been no doubt about the attitude of AGS toward the planned air raid. Nakajima, however, took care to express the General Staff’s negative views in the form of a subjective opinion rather than as a direct order prohibiting the air raid. This was in keeping with formal Japanese usage, in which direct and explicit statements, requests, orders, even questions, between parties of roughly equal status, are considered curt and impolite, to be avoided when possible in favor of subtle circumlocutions that convey their meaning implicitly rather than directly. AGS regularly adopted this polite and indirect manner in its communications with Kwantung Army out of respect for the latter’s tradition as an elite and independent-minded organization. In this case, middle-echelon Kwantung Army staff officers took advantage of the General Staff’s polite and respectful form of address to thwart Tokyo’s will.

  Despite the unmistakable intent of General Nakajima’s telegram, Kwantung Army’s Operations Section chose to interpret it merely as a suggestion, rather than as an explicit cancellation order. Knowing that more specific orders were being carried from Tokyo to Hsinking by Lieutenant Colonel Arisue Yadoru, the Operations Section decided to act quickly. Tsuji convinced his colleagues in the Operations Section not to reveal the contents of the AGS telegram to Generals Ueda, Isogai, or Yano at that time. Instead, they would advance the date of the air strike against Tamsag Bulak so that it could be accomplished before the arrival of Lieutenant Colonel Arisue from Tokyo. The date for the air attack was advanced secretly from June 29–30 to June 27.21 Meanwhile, Arisue’s flight from Tokyo was delayed by bad weather and did not reach Hsinking until June 27. The restrictive orders that Arisue brought from AGS reached KwAHQ a few hours after the 2nd Air Group hit Soviet air bases at Tamsag Bulak and at Bain Tumen (present day Choibalsan, capital of Dornod Province, even deeper inside Mongolian territory).

  The Japanese air raid was highly successful. The attacking force, approximately 120 planes, achieved complete tactical surprise, catching the newly arrived Soviet squadrons on the ground. The initial Japanese bombing run forced the Soviet fighters to scramble to avoid being destroyed on the ground, but they came up in ones and twos and were overwhelmed by the Japanese fighter squadrons, which had the advantages of surprise, numbers, and altitude. The dauntless Major Tsuji, flying in one of the bombers, counted twenty-five enemy planes destroyed on the ground and nearly a hundred more shot down by Japanese fighters as they tried to take off. The 2nd Air Group’s official report claimed ninety-eight Soviet planes destroyed and fifty-one damaged. An additional fifty to sixty military and civilian personnel were killed on the ground at Bain Tumen.

  Japanese losses were slight: a bomber, two fighters, and a scout plane shot down, seven flyers killed. A second Japanese bomber made a forced landing in Mongolian territory, but its crew was rescued by an accompanying aircraft that landed on the open grassland and plucked the endangered airmen from approaching enemy armored cars. Even allowing for exaggeration and duplicate claims by excited Japanese flyers, they had achieved a major tactical victory that gave them mastery of the air over the Halha at the start of Kwantung Army’s July offensive.22

  Moscow was furious about the losses inflicted by the Japanese air raid, attributed in part to the failure of the early warning system to provide any warning of the approaching Japanese squadrons. In the atmosphere of Josef Stalin’s purges, the deadly questions were: Who was to blame? Was it “merely” incompetence, or treason? In either case, heads would roll. Zhukov and his staff were on the spot. It was found—or claimed—that the telephone lines on which the primitive early warning system relied had been cut. Luvsandonoi, deputy commander of the Mongolian army, and A. M. Kushchev, the former deputy commander of the 57th Corps, were denounced as Japanese agents and saboteurs—perhaps by Zhukov himself—arrested, and bundled off to Moscow. Luvsandonoi was shot. Kushchev, imprisoned for four years, somehow not only survived but was recalled to service in 1943, ending the war as a major general and Hero of the Soviet Union.23

  News of the successful air strike generated tremendous excitement at KwAHQ. In the Operations Section, which had planned the attack and taken responsibility for launching it against the wishes of AGS, emotions ran high. Their nervousness was replaced by exultation as Major Tsuji eagerly recounted details of the attack and the extent of their victory. The Operations Staff went en masse to the communications room and clustered around the radio as Colonel Terada notified AGS of their action. There was silence in the communications room as they waited tensely for Colonel Inada Masazumi, head of the AGS Operations Section, to be summoned to the radio at General Staff Headquarters in Tokyo. Inada was known to be one of the more hawkish officers at AGS. Terada was chosen to convey the news because he was a personal friend and former military academy classmate of Inada. Terada made his report, masking his emotion as best he could. After a pause, Inada’s voice came crackling over the radio’s speaker—“You damned idiot! What do you think will be the real meaning of this little success of yours?!” He went on to vehemently upbraid his listeners for their indiscipline and bad judgment.24

  Terada and his colleagues were stunned by this rebuke, which they considered altogether unjustified both in form and substance. They were stunned but not remorseful. A short time later a formal reprimand reached KwAHQ from Tokyo:

  Report was received today regarding bombing of Outer Mongolian territory
by your air units… . Since this action is in fundamental disagreement with policy which we understood your army was taking to settle incident, it is extremely regretted that advance notice of your intent was not received. Needless to say, this matter is attended with such far-reaching consequences that it can by no means be left to your unilateral decision. Hereafter, existing policy will be definitely and strictly observed. It is requested that air attack program be discontinued immediately.

  By Order of the Chief of Staff25

  By this time, the Kwantung Army staff officers were in high dudgeon. Tsuji later wrote that “tremendous combat results were achieved by carrying out dangerous operations at the risk of our lives. It is perfectly clear that we were carrying out an act of retaliation. What kind of General Staff ignores the psychology of the front lines and tramples on their feelings?”26

  Tsuji drafted a caustic reply, which they shot back to Tokyo, apparently without the knowledge of Kwantung Army commander Ueda or other senior officers at KwAHQ: “There appear to be certain differences between Army General Staff and this Army in evaluating the battlefield situation and measures to be adopted. It is requested that the handling of trivial matters in border areas be entrusted to this Army.”27