After making extremely clever use of deceptive measures, the Russians finally struck with enormous force on August 20. Soviet strength had been underestimated fatally by the Japanese, who remained convinced that the Russians could not amass or deploy sizable forces on the Mongolian frontier.
More captured Soviet equipment. Nere a BT-5 sits next to an armored car. Around them are trucks and lorries used to transport motorized infantry units.
Yet Soviet forward elements alone were now reported to number at least two rifle divisions spearheaded by mechanized formations, and two or three more divisions to the immediate rear.
To neutralize the Soviet Air Force, the Kwantung Army (which had finally wheedled permission from IGHQ) launched two large air raids against Russian bases in the eastern part of Outer Mongolia on August 21-22. Approximately 160 Japanese bombers and fighters participated. Although Japanese plane losses were heavier than they had been in the first raids against Mongolia in June, another 100 Soviet planes were said to have been knocked out.
Nevertheless, the Japanese air offensive seems not to have significantly hindered the fierce Soviet ground attacks. Fatigued and weakened, the veteran Japanese army aviators were being wom down steadily by the numerical weight of the enemy air force.
After initially belittling the strength of the opposing ground forces, the Sixth Army was shaken by the power of the Soviet blows. On August 24, Japanese counterattacks were improvised, but they were easily defeated with heavy Japanese casualties. Whereas no Japanese armor had been in action since the debacle in early July, the Russians had now committed four or five tank brigades. In addition, the 23rd Division had lost one-third of its 60 antitank guns even before the commencement of the Russian offensive, and there had never been any replacements.
Suffering from the August heat, the shortage of water, insufficient antitank defenses, scanty ammunition, and mounting casualties (particularly severe among the officers and noncoms), the Japanese troops underwent unceasing, massive assaults from ground and air. A Japanese brigade commander remembers his astonishment at seeing enemy artillery zero-in on even a single messenger or scout, whereas friendly guns were painfully rationed in ammunition and would attract instant, murderous counterbattery fire if they opened fire once.
Bewildered
Sixth Army headquarters seemed to be bewildered. The 7th Division was already being rushed to the Nomonhan front, but pleas went out to the Kwantung Army for more troops, more antitank guns, and more ammunition. In Hsinking, the visibly shaken Japanese Command now decided upon all-out escalation. The entire strategic reserve of infantry divisions and all of the artillery in Manchuria would be committed at Nomonhan, a calculated risk in view of known Soviet strength on the eastern and northern frontiers of Manchukuo. IGHQ, too, was very worried, and ordered the transfer of two divisions and two 15-cm. howitzer regiments from China and from the homeland.
In the lines, desperate Japanese counterattacks were being shattered. Fast-moving Soviet armored units overran the Japanese artillery batteries and dislocated infantry regiments. The Japanese firepower capability, never impressive, had been almost extinguished, while Soviet capabilities of maneuver and fire were displayed magnificently. Japanese unit commanders committed the "unpardonable" crime of retreating without orders or abandoning their guns and colors. Entire units were encircled and annihilated. Soviet tanks even shot up field hospitals in the chaos. General Komatsubara sought death in battle with the last survivors of his division, but the Sixth Army ordered him to break out and try to return to army headquarters. The general and his ragtag remnants managed to escape the Russian cordon by dawn on August 31.
| OPPOSING FORCES 20 AUGUST, 1939 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | Soviet-Outer Mongolian | Japanese |
| Infantry Bttns | 35 | 25 |
| Cavalry Sqdns | 20 | 17 |
| HMGs and LMGs | 2255 | 1283 |
| Guns, 75mm and heavier | 216 | 135 |
| Guns, AT and Bttn | 286 | 142 |
| Mortars | 40 | 60 |
| Tanks | 498 | ? |
| Armored Cars | 346 | ? |
| Aircraft: Fighters | 376 | 252 |
| Aircraft: Light Bombers | 181 | 144 |
| Aircraft: Heavy Bombers | 23 | 54 |
| Aircraft: Total | 580 | 450 |
Sixth Army headquarters was still dreaming about a decisive Japanese offensive employing the latest ground reinforcements. But, for all practical purposes, the Nomonhan Incident was over and the Russians were the undisputed victors. They had reached a line well east of the Halha which they claimed was the true boundary, and here they held, allowing the Japanese to regroup farther east, untouched.
Fallout
The Japanese Cabinet fell. The Kwantung Army staff was replaced or retired. Surviving front-line commanders committed suicide, under duress, or were sacked. A ceasefire agreement was soon afterwards worked out in Moscow, effective September 16. The Germans had attacked Poland two weeks earlier, and the Soviet Union obviously wanted to liquidate the Nomonhan affair, on favorable terms, by about the first of October. This objective was entirely achieved by Zhukov, the area commander, in his victorious offensive commencing August 20. The Russians had pulled out all the stops. On their left wing they committed elements of one infantry division, one Mongolian cavalry division, three tank brigades, one artillery regiment, and an antitank battalion. On the center, directly controlled by Army Corps Commander Zhukov, there were two Soviet rifle divisions and a machine gun brigade. On the right wing the Russians used elements of two tank brigades, one rifle division, one howitzer regiment, and an antitank battalion, as well as a Mongolian cavalry division. In reserve were portions of two Soviet tank brigades and an airbome brigade fighting as infantry.
In all, according to Soviet military sources, for the August offensive the Russians committed 35 rifle battalions, 20 cavalry squadrons, 542 guns and mortars, 844 tanks and armored cars, 376 fighter planes, and 204 bombers. In decreasing order of superiority, the Russians state that they outnumbered the enemy in tanks and armored cars, artillery, machine guns, and infantry. During the August offensive, the Soviet Air Force recorded the following attack statistics: August 21 - 256 sorties; August 20-23 - 86,000 kilograms of bombs dropped; August 24-25 - 218 sorties; August 24-27 - 96,000 kilograms of bombs dropped.
On the wretched terrain of Nomonhan the Japanese lost about 20,000 men, by their own admission, and 150 planes. The Russians estimated Japanese losses at minimum as 25,000 killed, 27,000 to 30,000 wounded, and 660 planes shot down. The Soviet side admitted casualties of approximately 10,000. According to the Japanese, 1,200 Soviet planes were destroyed and several hundred tanks were knocked out. These figures, of course, reflect the magnitude of a mid-intensity war, not of a border clash.
Nomonhan represented a smashing Soviet ground victory, the successful marriage of firepower with maneuver, to annihilate a foe who relied mainly on firepower, flesh and steel. When the Russians went over to the offensive, they defeated the defenders in short order. Zhukov, as 1st Army Corps Commander in August 1939, made his reputation at Nomonhan. Komatsubara lost his career and his division at the same place; he died next year in seclusion and in grief.
Much of the reason for the Japanese defeat is to be found in the nature of the terrain. At Nomonhan the Russians had space in which to move their armored divisions and their motorized infantry. At first the Japanese tried to use their weak tankettes and horsed cavalry, presumably against mere Mongol cavalrymen.
Russian gunners annihilated them in May. Then the Japanese committed a force that was sizable by their standards, including some 70 tanks, in early July. Japanese tankers expected to encounter Russians now, but they were enormously overconfident. It was a thrilling sight, they said, to see such mobile power en masse -- two elite tank regiments, Japan's best (and only) mechanized forces in Manchuria, roaring in long columns toward the Nomonhan battlefront. The Japanese under Yasuoka expected shock power, almost alone, to overawe and rout the foe. Boasted Kwantung Army staff officers, "We are using a meat cleaver to trim a chicken!"
Soviet artillery, tanks, and piano wire doomed the force, with a lavish quantitative investment that confounded the Japanese. In two days the proud Japanese mechanized units were torn apart, without reaching the Halha objectives.
Nakajima-designed Army Type 94 reconnaissance plane stands ready for take-off as the pilot and observer check map coordinates with staff officers. Again note the table-top like terrain, permitting aircraft to land and take-off virtually anywhere in the Nomonhan area.
The flat, treeless, accessible steppe country of Nomonhan favored the Soviet maneuver forces -- the hordes of tanks, armored cars, and self-propelled artillery -- in a period when tactical aviation was underveloped on both sides. Dominated by commanding heights on the left shore of the Halha, the Japanese infantry became sitting ducks, unable to clear the Soviet bridgehead on the river.But whenthe Russians were ready in August, their skillful and coordinated use of mobile firepower and maneuver wiped out the Japanese in 10 days. Clinging to the dunes, the Japanese were easily outmaneuvered, ringed with firepower and flame, systematically chopped apart. Despite the Japanese brainwashing about Spirit and its eternal superiority over materiel, the bravest defenders could not long endure (with dwindling stocks of grenades, mortars, 37-mm. cannon, and bayonets) against Soviet flamethrowers, 122-mm. artillery, prototypes of the famous T-34 medium tank, and Stormovik fighters.
To the materiel-poor Japanese Army, national deficiencies in strength must be counterbalanced by drawing upon allegedly inherent psychological superiorities, such as the traditional skill in night attack, surprise, and maneuver. But maneuver without superiority in firepower could avail the Japanese naught; "human bullets" proved powerless in the face of modern technology and belts of fire. The later-cashiered Japanese 26th Regiment commander charged that the Kwantung Army had made a critical mistake in judging that victory over the Russians at Nomonhan could be achieved simply on the basis of fighting with the ancient Yamato Spirit. Enemy firepower, ably combined with maneuver and human-sea tactics, was too much for a brave army whose outlook and capability greatly resembled those of an outdated World War I army. Misjudgments rendered these weaknesses deadly.
Among the wost Japanese misjudgments were those bearing upon logistics. Soviet Army strategic maneuver was supported by a truck-borne capability, far from the nearest bases, that dwarfed the Japanese aWity and surpassed Japanese estimates by many times. Japanese Intelligence played a part in the failure, for the Kwantung Army seems not to have known, in 1939, that Soviet rail connections had been constructed as far as Borzya, which meant that the Russians now possessed a railhead only 75 miles away from the battlefront. To the amazement of the Japanese, the Russians has been employing large numbers of trucks across distances as great as 700 kilometers from base. The Japanese thought that the enemy was using more than 20,000 trucks, whereas postwar Soviet records indicate that only 2,600 trucks were available for the August offensive. It was galling the Japanese, operating 200 kilometers from their nearest big base, that they could commit only 2,000 trucks at most, even by commandeering all available transportation within Manchuria.
| JAPANESE AIR UNITS COMMITTED AT NOMONHAN MAY-SEPT. 1939 (Numbers of aircraft in parentheses) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Period | Air Brigades | Air Regiments | Air Squadrons | Total | |||
| Recon | Fighter | Light Bomber | Heavy Bomber | ||||
| Phase I (May) | 2 | 4 | 1 (4) | 6 (54) | 1 (6) | 3 (12) | 11 (78) |
| Phase II (early Aug.) | 2 | 8 | 3 (18) | 10 (90) | 4 (24) | 3 (12) | 20 (144) |
| Phase III (end of incident) | 3 | 14 | 4 (24) | 18 (162) | 10 (60) | 3 (12) | 35 (258) |
With respect to artillery, the Soviet batteries outranged their best counterparts and ably exploited terrain advantages in the area of the river. It was not that the Russian artillery astounded the Japanese qualitatively. Instead it was the "unlimited" Soviet ammunition expenditure which frustrated the Japanese, who were strictly rationed in their daily firing.
The Japanese Air Force proved amazingly successful against the Red Air Force, despite being outnumbered throughout most of the Nomonhan campaign. The main target of the Japanese flyers was Soviet aircraft, to be destroyed on the ground or in dogfights. Two major Japanese pre-emptive raids were mounted against Soviet air bases inside eastem Outer Mongolia, with great results. But neither raid achieved long-temm success, especially in terms of the Japanese ground forces.
The first Japanese air offensive, in June, cleared the skies for about a week but did not insure the triumph of the ground attacks in early July, on either side of the Halha. The second raid, launched just after the Soviets' powerful August 20 offensive got underway, left the Russian ground progress essentially unaffected.
The Russians themselves say that the decisive role in encircling the Japanese forces at Nomonhan was played by armor, which "executed deep maneuvers to the flanks, penetrated the enemy's rear, and then joined forces," relying on momentum and speed. But the Soviets were convinced that such operations could not depend exclusively upon the action of tanks and armored vehicles; motorized infantry were imperative to hold frontages and to mop up. At Nomonhan the Russians successfully employed truck-bome infantry, infantry machine gun elements, and airbome elements fighting as infantry. It may have been an old truism but both sides (even the Russians, with their advantages) relearned the lesson that frontal assaults on strongpoints were inferior to maneuver plus firepower.
A significant Soviet tactic was the use of forward artillery, up to 152-mm. in caliber, to move up with attack infantry and to facilitate armored thrusts against fixed defenses. Only then would the storm infantry complete the job. Each Soviet artillery group headquarters for infantry support would designate, beforehand, those batteries which were to advance immediately behind the Russian foot troops.
For the first time in recent warfare, an army (in this case the Soviet Army) had demonstrated conclusively the immense potentialities of mechanized maneuver, teamed with firepower and airpower, and taking full use of terrain advantages. Japanese swordsmen could not prevail against the shock and fire effects of the ground-air Blitzkrieg teams. Mastering the art of concentric maneuver on the flatlands of Nomonhan, Zhukov was learning the secrets of the ultimate salvation of Russia itself. But he never degraded the Japanese. In a conversation with Eisenhower's chief of staff at the end of World War II, Zhukov said "the Japanese are not good against armor (but) it took about ten days to beat them (at Nomanhan)."
Opinion
When Stalin had asked Zhukov, in May 1940, for his opinion of the Japanese Army, the Soviet field commander replied:
- "Japanese soldiers who fought against us on the Khalkhin-gol are well trained, especially for fighting at close quarters. They are well disciplined, diligent, dogged in combat, especially in defence. Junior commanding officers are well trained and fanatically persistent in battle. As a rule they do not surrender and do not stop short of 'hara-kiri'. . . senior officers are not adequately trained, lack initiative, and are apt to act according to the crammed rulebook. As for the armaments of the Japanese Army, my opinion is that they are obsolete.... I must also say that at the beginning of the campaign the Japanese Air Force
beat ours. Their planes were superior to our machines until we received an improved version of
the 'Chaika' and the I-16. When a group of pilots. . . all of them Heroes of the Soviet Union, arrived, our air superionty was unquestionable."
Nomonhan, however, possesses a significance that transcends the scale of commitment and the tactical lessons. After the defeat on the steppes at the Halha, the Japanese Army never again crossed swords with the Soviet Army until the latter launched its gratuitous, anticlimactical assault in August 1945. In fact, the experience at Nomonhan may well have turned Japanese eyes southward, against the Americans, the British, the French, and the Dutch. Although such a policy was never enuciated overtly, Zhukov foresaw that "the Japanese, too, will draw the right conclusions (from the Nomonhan Incident) about the force and ability of the Red Army." Even at the time of the Soviet Union's mortal peril, in 1941-42, the Kwantung Army made no combat move to exploit the opportunity afforded by Nazi German successes on the European front. For its part, the USSR was able to transfer elite forces west from Siberia to help defend Moscow and Leningrad. In this larger sense, the victory of Zhukov and the defeat of Komatsubara at Nomonhan left an indelible mark, for better or for worse, upon the future fortunes of World War II.
Alvin D. Coox, who possesses a Ph.D. in military history from Harvard University, is the author of Year of the Tiger (1964) and Japan: The Final Agony (1970). He collaborated with Colonel Saburo Hayashi on Kogun (1959) and with Maurice Schneps in editing The Japanese Image in two volumes (1965-66). Dr. Coox is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Asian Studies at California State University, San Diego.
More Nomonhan (Khalkhin-Gol)
-
Introduction
1st Phase (May 1939)
2nd Phase (July 1939)
3rd Phase (August 1939)
Japanese TO&Es: 23rd Div. and Yamagata Detachment
Four Vehicle Specs and Illustrations (72K)
Five Large Combat Maps (extremely slow: 708K)
Four Jumbo Combat Maps (monstrously slow: 1.2MB)
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© Copyright 1998 by Dana Lombardy
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