Siege of Hutou Fortress

Siege of Hutou Fortress
Part of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria of World War II
Date 9–28 August 1945 Location Jixi, Manchuria Result Soviet victory
Belligerents
Soviet Union	Japan
Commanders and leaders
Nikanor Zakhvatayev	Tadashi Oki †
Units involved
1st Far Eastern Front 35th Army	First Area Army Fifth Army
Strength
about 20,000	about 2,000
Casualties and losses
	all killed, deserted or surrendered

During closing stages of the Soviet–Japanese War in August 1945, Japanese Kwantung Army still resisted with strong fortifications in Hutou Fortress. The Red Army with the cooperation of the fighters of local Chinese forces, took the fort on August 26, 1945. As the Hutou battle ended, Japan's unconditional surrender came 11 days later. Only 53 of the 1,400 Japanese soldiers survived one of the last campaigns of the Second World War. A Study on the Hutou Fortress Battle between Japan and the Soviet Union took place in 2009, by the Social Science Academy of Heilongjiang Province, entitled "The final battle of World War II".

Background

At the beginning of the 20th century, Japan regarded the Soviet Union as its greatest potential adversary. in 1931, after the Japanese Kwantung Army invaded the north-east of China, it formed a direct confrontation with the Soviet Army on the Sino-Soviet border. In order to strengthen the preparation for war against the Soviet Union, since 1934, the Japanese Kwantung Army built 17 fortresses, totalling more than 80,000 permanent fortifications, in the 5,000-kilometre border strip starting from Hunchun in Jilin Province in the east, passing through the Sino-Soviet border in Heilongjiang Province in the centre, and extending to Hailar and Arshan in Inner Mongolia in the west.

In order to deal with the Soviet Far East Front, the Japanese Kwantung Army in the East Manchuria region to build the most intensive fortress, accounting for more than half of the total number of fortresses. Among them, the largest is the Tiger's Head Fortress.

Hutou Fortress is located in Heilongjiang Province, Hulin County, Hutou Town, around the hills of the Wunda Mountains, from the west of the Firestone Mountains, east to the Ussuri River. The fortress area is 12 kilometres wide at the front and 6 kilometres deep at the back, consisting of five positions on Mangtu Mountain, Tiger North Mountain, Tiger East Mountain, Tiger West Mountain and Tiger Tsunami Mountain, each of which is connected by pits and traffic trenches. Because of its large scale, complex structure, complete facilities, by the Japanese Kwantung Army boasted as the ‘Oriental Maginot Line’. 1934 to 1939, the Japanese Kwantung Army for the construction of the Tiger's Head Fortress, cost hundreds of millions of dollars, using hundreds of thousands of Chinese labourers and prisoners of war. These labourers were transported to the fortress as if they had entered hell on earth. They were not clothed, not fed, and worked more than ten hours a day with heavy physical labour, and countless labourers died of exhaustion, illness and were killed.

In March 1939, the Japanese Kwantung Army established the 4th Border Guard brigade and stationed it at the Hutou Fortress. 1941 was the heyday of the Hutou Fortress Guard, with its troop strength increasing to 12,000 men and its weaponry being significantly strengthened. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the Japanese army put the strategic focus on the southern battlefield, and constantly from the Kwantung Army, resulting in a substantial decline in the strength of the Kwantung Army, a serious shortage of troops, the force equipped with elasticity, the fortress garrison continued to shrink. Before the Soviet Army attacked the Tiger's Head Fortress, the Japanese Kwantung Army's 15th Border Guard brigade stationed at the fortress had only more than 1,400 soldiers and a small amount of equipment and ammunition.

Battle

With the declaration of war on Japan by the Soviet Union on 8 August 1945 and the start of the invasion in the early hours of 9 August, fighting broke out between the 15th Border Garrison at Tiger Head Fortress and the invading Soviet troops. As the garrison commander, Army Colonel Takeshi Nishiwaki, was on a business trip to the 5th Army Headquarters and could not return to his unit, the artillery commander, Army Captain Tadashi Ohki, took command as acting garrison commander. A large number of civilian Japanese residents from the surrounding area were also evacuated to the fortress, resulting in a total of approximately 1800 people being caged in. According to one theory, 1,400 civilians were evacuated, thus bringing the total number of civilians to nearly 3,000. However, many of the civilians were women and girls due to the 'uprooting mobilisation'. The Type 90 train artillery was dismantled for transportation to Tonga and could not be bombarded, but the 41 cm howitzers shelled the railway bridge on the Siberian Railway's Iman diversions line and continued shelling the Soviet troops until the gun's barrel was disabled on the 19th due to a cavity in the gun barrel.

The Soviet Army, with about 20,000 men in two divisions, set about capturing the fortress. The surrounding Kwantung Army was in retreat and the garrison was isolated and desperate, but it is not clear to what extent the garrison itself understood this. On 15 August, the garrison heard the announcement of the Gyokuon-broadcast, but regarded it as a conspiracy; on 17 August, five Japanese prisoners of war, as military envoys of the Soviet Army, informed the Japanese Government of their unconditional surrender and negotiated a ceasefire to disarm them, but the Soviets refused as a conspiracy; one of the garrison officers beheaded the local branch chairman of the Zainogun-kai, who was also a military envoy; on 18 August, a Japanese officer was killed by the Soviet Army, who had been a member of the Soviet Army. The Soviets then proceeded to negotiate a ceasefire, but this was rejected as a plot. The Soviet army did not send any more military envoys after that and is believed to have adopted a policy of thorough annihilation unless the Japanese surrendered.

Soviet troops also attacked underground facilities by pouring petrol into them, igniting it and sending the smoke through a blower to kill Japanese soldiers through carbon monoxide poisoning. On 26 August, the Hutou Fortress fell completely. Only 53 survivors are reported to have survived. The Japanese had boldly stated that Hutou Fortress would be able to fight for more than half a year, but it could only hold out for more than half a month due to insufficient forces. The Battle of Tiger Head Fortress, which was a fierce battle because of this, is said to be the last fierce battle of the Second World War on the Japanese side (on the Soviet side, many people think of the end of the Second World War as the end of the German-Soviet War, and the Soviet-Japanese war started afterwards and the battle itself ended after less than a month, so there is a general lack of interest.)

See also

• End of World War II in Asia