1939 Nomonhan Incident, part of Japanese/Soviet border war (Why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor)

"A Strange War," observed a 20 July 1939 New York Times editorial about the fighting between the Soviet Army and the Japanese Army on the Mongolian steppes. The Times derided both combatants' claims as exaggerated but inadvertently touched on the distinctive feature of the fighting when it described the battle as "raging in a thoroughly out-of-the-way corner of the world where it cannot attract a great deal of attention."1 Geography, the combatants' compulsive secrecy, and the subsequent outbreak of World War II in September 1939 all combined to overshadow the most massive use of tanks theretofore recorded. The Soviets used over 1,000 tanks during the fighting and, under the command of General Zhukov, evidenced skill and sophistication at mechanized warfare. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), essentially an infantry force, fared poorly, and fell victim to a Soviet double envelopment.

While this "Strange War" may be all but forgotten in the West, the Soviets continue to regard it as a brilliant example of the proper manner in which to fight a limited border war. During the time of border clashes with the Peoples' Republic of China in 1968 and 1969, it was no coincidence that several articles about the 1939 border war appeared in military journals. At least a dozen such articles have appeared in Soviet military literature in the 1970s. Soviet experience gained in 1939 still carries great weight today.

Similarly, IJA staff officers subsequently examined the Japanese Army's performance at Nomonhan in minute detail, and even today the battle serves as a case study at the advanced tactical schools of the Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces. The interest of an ally and of a potential adversary suggests that it would be beneficial for the U.S. Army to know what happened at Nomonhan/Khalkhin Gol in the summer of 1939.

I have always been fascinated by military history. Most people will know operation Overlord (the Allied landing in France, june 1944), operation Barbarossa (the German attack upon the Soviet Union, june 1941) or the naval engagements at Midway and Leyte Gulf.

The Soviet/Japanese border war is mostly unknown to many, and this would include it's deciding battle, known as the Nomonhan Incident or the Battle of Khalkin Gol. I believe that this battle (waged spring/summer 1939), part of an undeclared Japanse/Soviet border war (Manchuria was then a Japanese puppet state known as Manchukuo) may well have been the battle that essentially decided the course of World War II. With the military in control of Japan's government, expansion of the Japanse Empire was one thing that both Army and Navy agreed on.

The Imperial Japanese Army, recalling success of the 1904-5 conflict with then Imperial Russia, favored a strike north to grab resource rich parts of the eastern Soviet Union all the way up to Lake Baikal whilst the Navy favored a strike south to grab everything between Japan and Australia.

After a long stalemate, Soviet commander Zhukov inflicted a decisive defeat upon the Japanese. The final destruction of the Japanese forces involved in this battle happened on 31st of august 1939 (an important date considering what would begin in Poland a day later). There were some Soviet mopping up operations in september but by then the Japanese decision to disengage from the Soviet/Japanese border conflict had already been made.

It was this experience, this humiliating defeat more than anything else that decisively swayed Imperial Japan's war planners to strike south rather than north. In order to get a free hand in the Pacific for their southward expansion, admiral Yamamoto knew that the US Pacific Fleet had to be neutralized, and though he did not favor war with the USA (he predicted that he might raise hell for 6 months to a year, but could give no guarantees thereafter) he was eventually to become the mastermind of the Imperial Navy's attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately for Japan, US carriers were not present when the Japanese struck.

The Nomonhan battle (spring/summer 1939) had more consequences than persuading the Japanese to strike south, rather than north. Stalin knew from intelligence that the Japanese were now looking south and could thus afford to send significant numbers of troops westward. The German High Command, which in 1941 would estimate that the Soviets might have up to 220 divisions, were surprised to learn that in the first 5 weeks of Operation Barbarossa (the German attack upon the Soviet Union) German troops had already identified 600 different Soviet divisions. The Germans quickly destroyed more than a 150 Soviet divisions and assumed that the battle was all but won, causing Hitler to order production to focus on submarines, rather than tanks. A fatal mistake, it later turned out to be. Hitlers Japanese allies had never told him about their experience with the Soviets in 1939. When Hitler declared war upon the United States 4 days after Pearl Harbor, he assumed Japan would declare war upon the Soviet Union, and was surprised they did not. Around that same time in december 1941, it was precisely those Siberian divisions involved in the 1939 Japanese/Soviet border war that would prove to be the key in the succesful Soviet attempt to drive the Germans away from Moscow, which they would never again reach.

So, summarized, the battle had 3 consequences. It caused Japan to look south, rather than north, meaning that the Japanese Navy had to attempt to neutralize the US Pacific Fleet to achieve control of the Pacific. It gave Siberian divisions key battle experience and it gave Stalin the opportunity to concentrate more of his forces westward than the Germans could possibly have imagined.

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