Archival materials, which were first declassified by the Federal Security Service, give a very clear picture of the fact that the Land of the Rising Sun, a year before the start of World War II, was actively preparing for military operations against the Soviet Union.
In particular, the FSB first presented Order No. 70 to units of the 3rd Japanese Army dated August 9, 1938, prepared and issued during the Soviet-Japanese military conflict near Lake Khasan.
The commander of the 3rd Army was then General Otozo Yamada.
11 years later, he, already the former commander-in-chief of the Kwantung Army, which we defeated in August 1945, was interrogated in preparation for the Khabarovsk trial over Japanese war criminals. And the ex-commander-in-chief confirmed the preparations for the war of his country against the USSR, and the presence of not only intentions, but documents on this, and concrete actions.
Yamada admitted that back in January 1938, he “gave an order to units of the 3rd Army to bring them to combat readiness in the event of hostilities with the Soviet Union.”
And what was said in Order No. 70? For example, this:
– Troops of the Kwantung Army, to strengthen their readiness for war against the Soviet Union, part of their forces are moving forward to concentrate in the area of the eastern border.
The clashes between Soviet and Japanese units in the summer of 1938 from the side of the island empire were, in fact, reconnaissance in force.
And although the 3rd Army was then reinforced by the 7th division, two field anti-aircraft artillery detachments, an air regiment and two more air units, the attempt for the Japanese was unsuccessful.
In September 1940, Japan entered into the Triple Pact with Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy, and in April 1940 signed a neutrality treaty with Moscow. But the threat of an attack in the Far East remained, which is why at different times we were forced to keep a military grouping there from 800 thousand to one million people.
As Dmitry Surzhik, Candidate of Historical Sciences, confirmed to RIA Novosti, “Japan throughout the Great Patriotic War, although formally was in a neutral status, did not stop provocations both from its own and from the puppet states located in China.”
Provocations took place both on our borders and on the high seas, where the Japanese sunk American ships delivering goods to the USSR under Lend-Lease.
And here are the data presented to “KP” by the editor-in-chief of the publication “Science. Society. Defense “Vladimir Kiknadze:
– From June 1941 to August 1945, the Japanese violated the land border with the Soviet Union 779 times. Their planes invaded Soviet airspace 433 times. 116 times Japanese artillery fired at Soviet territory. There were also recorded 664 attempts to throw saboteurs from the Japanese side into Soviet territory. 206 times Japanese ships invaded Soviet territorial waters and 178 times the Japanese detained Soviet watercraft. Not only that, but under the current neutrality pact, the Japanese sank 18 of our merchant and fishing vessels! Japan actually closed the most convenient and safest trade sea routes for the USSR through the Sangar and Korean non-freezing straits. On average, Japan carried out one and a half provocations against the USSR every day.
Both these facts and the documents declassified by the FSB testify that all talk about the “unprovoked” aggression of the Soviet Union against Japan in August 1945, allegedly in violation of the 1941 neutrality pact, has no basis. We have been constantly, since 1938, under threat from Japan.
