Conflict on Lake Khasan - rehearsal before Khalkhin-Gol

Relations between the USSR and Japan in 1938 are not even friendly with the friendly.

As a result of intervention against China on part of its territory, namely in Manchuria, a pseudo-state Manchukuo, ruled from Tokyo, was created. Since January 1938, Soviet military specialists took part in the military operations on the side of the army of the Celestial Empire. The ports of Hong Kong and Shanghai shipped the latest technology (tanks, airplanes, artillery air defense systems). It was not concealed.

By the time the conflict arose on Lake Khasan, Soviet pilots and Chinese colleagues trained by them had already destroyed dozens of Japanese aircraft in the air, inflicted a number of bomb attacks on airfields and military bases. The same in March, the aircraft carrier Yamato was sunk.

The situation in which the Japanese leadership, which was striving for the expansion of the empire, was interested in verifying the strength of the land forces of the USSR. The Soviet government, confident in its capabilities, behaved no less resolutely.

The conflict at Lake Hasan has its own background. On June 13, Henry Samuilovich Lyushkov, the plenipotentiary representative of the NKVD, who was in charge of reconnaissance work in the Far East, secretly crossed the Manchu border. Having crossed over to the side of the Japanese, he revealed to them many secrets. He had something to tell ...

The conflict on Lake Khasan began with an insignificant, at first glance, fact of reconnaissance of Japanese topographical units. Any officer knows that the drawing up of detailed maps precedes the offensive operation, and this is what the special units of the probable enemy were engaged in on two bordering hills of Zaozernaya and Nameless, near which the lake is located. On July 12, a small detachment of Soviet border guards occupied the heights and dug in on them.

It is possible that these actions would not entail an armed conflict near Lake Khasan, but there is an assumption that it was the traitor Lyushkov who convinced the Japanese command in the weakness of the Soviet defense, otherwise it would be difficult to explain the further actions of the aggressors.

July 15, a Soviet officer shoots at the Japanese gendarme, clearly provoking him to this act, and kills him. Then the border begins to be broken by postmen with letters demanding to leave the skyscrapers. These actions had no success. Then on July 20, 1938, the Japanese ambassador in Moscow gives Litvinov the drug commission an ultimatum, which produced about the same effect as the above-mentioned mail items.

On July 29, a conflict began on Lake Khasan. The Japanese gendarmes went to storm the heights of Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya. They were few, the whole company, but the border guards were only eleven, four of them were killed. A platoon of Soviet soldiers hurried to the rescue. The attack was repulsed.

Further - more, the conflict at Lake Hassan gained momentum. The Japanese used artillery, then seized the hills with the forces of two regiments. The attempt to knock them out immediately failed. From Moscow they demanded to destroy the heights along with the troops of the aggressor.

In the air were raised heavy bombers TB-3, they dropped more than 120 tons of bombs on the enemy's fortifications. Soviet troops had such a noticeable technical preponderance that the Japanese had no chance of success. The tanks BT-5 and BT-7 were not very effective on the marshy ground, but the enemy did not have such.

On August 6, the conflict on Lake Khasan culminated in the complete victory of the Red Army. Stalin extracted from it the conclusion about the weak organizational qualities of the OKDVA commander VK Blucher. For the latter, it ended pitifully.

The Japanese command of conclusions did not, obviously, believe that the reason for the defeat was only in the quantitative superiority of the Red Army. Ahead was Khalkhin-Gol.