Japanese in the Pacific and Far Eastern Theatres: Difference

It is unfortunate that there is so little interest in the Western World for the land war on the Asian continent for WW2. Its also unfortunate that most of the West doesn't know whether or not to trust any source of information that might have been tampered with by the People's Republic of China. The irritating thing is that it was the second bloodiest and cataclysmal clash of Armed Forces in human history (second only to USSR vs Germany in WW2.) Many are only vaguely aware of countries like Vietnam and China having even been involved in WW2. Its very sad really.

I'm curious if it was only the Kwan Tung side that saw the mass surrendering that you mentioned. What about Manchuria?
 
The Kwantung army was responsible for all of China, including Manchuria. I far as I can tell, their AO was from the Kuriles and Sakhalin in the east all the way past the Mongolian borders to the west, to central China in the south. The Russians attacked as a front with three major axes of attack, each of which was astoundingly successful. As there were only two sides fighting, it was definitely the Kwantung Army, a unit of the Imperial Japanese Army, which did all the surrendering. This mass surrender would have been received by the Russians, or if none were available, by local chinese civil authorities. (I would imagine).

There is a very interesting theory as to why this campaign has received so little publicity. Many of the admittedly few sources that I have read have stated that this was, in fact, the greatest campaign ever mounted in terms of the amounts of men and equipment fielded in a single attack. At the time, the Russians were also seen in the west as the emerging red menace, so few, if any researchers were ready to baldly state that the Red Commie Russkies had mounted a campaign that the mighty US military could not even imagine doing. So, it was simply ignored here in the west, and the accomplishment was seen as a communist land grab against a poor helpless Japanese army that was simply unable to resist - given that the war was, for all intents and purposes, over. Of course, this view really is nothing but bovine fecal matter, but it was the prevailing view until after the fall of the iron curtain. (Believe it or not, this is how I read it as an adolescent!)

Most of the sources that I have seen do not seem to be 'tainted' by the PRC at all. The PRC did not exist at the time, it was merely a rebellion, and the Nationalists were not very active in the border regions.

A decent but rather short source of information can be found at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1995/HAL.htm

Bulldogg, I hope that you publish the stuff that you got from those interviews. Those people have been completely ignored by history, as all of the informations seems to have come from headquarters level and higher. Interesting, but very one sided. You have the makings of a very interesting book that I would buy.

Dean.
 
Its not terribly surprising that the Soviets were so incredibly successful. The Japanese went from fighting a somewhat-less-than-modern Chinese Army to facing the victor of the Blitzkrieg vs Blitzkrieg grand contest of WW2: the USSR. Neither Japan nor China successfully implemented the concepts of Blitzkrieg and lightning war, so it was just like Germany thru the Ardennes and defeating France in 40 days, all over again. Take that together with the fact that they were technically in a two-front war with China still fighting them on the other end.

My brain failed me on Geography. I saw Kwangtung and my brain was thinking Xianjiang. How weird is that? And Japan never came anywhere near Xianjiang. Heh, I'm at work and a bit distracted. We'll go with that excuse till I come up with a better one. Yeah, I'll shut up now.
 
I think you will find that the troops involved in this sort of fighting did not bother to go around and count the number of people that they killed. They would have been to busy looking after their wounded and get prepared for the next Japanese assault.
 
Its up to the publishers whether its published or not but I will try to make it publicly available once I am clear of this place. ;)
 
Back
Top