ABSTRACT
To fulfill the missions the Stavka assigned to it, Vasilevsky’s Far East Command faced a myriad of challenging offensive tasks. The most difficult of these was to penetrate the imposing array of prepared Japanese defensive positions that blocked all feasible routes of advance into eastern Manchuria (see Map 3). Even in the best terrain and weather conditions, a penetration operation can be a costly process. However, the task is doubly difficult to fulfill successfully in the waning days of a Manchurian summer, when the monsoon rains arrive to refresh the verdant landscape of eastern Manchuria. In these circumstances, only intensive, detailed, and meticulous planning and preparations and skillfully conducted offensive operations can produce positive results. Such was the challenge facing the 1st Far Eastern Front’s combat-experienced 5th Army
TERRAIN CONSIDERATIONS IN EASTERN MANCHURIA
The most direct axis of advance from the Soviet Far Eastern provinces into central Manchuria ran directly from the Soviet Far Eastern border near Suifenho across the hills of eastern Manchuria through Mutanchiang to Harbin in the central valley of Manchuria. To the south a secondary axis extended from the Soviet Far Eastern border east of Tungning toward Wangching and Yenchi, and to the north a lesser axis ran cross the Ussuri River north of Lake Khanka toward Linkou and Harbin from the northeast. The Suifenho-Mutanchiang-Harbin axis paralleled the Eastern Manchurian Railroad, and along it, as if attesting to its strategic importance, the Japanese had erected some of their most formidable defensive positions in Manchuria. Anchored on the Suifenho Fortified Region, these Japanese defensive fortifications dominated the principal approach into eastern Manchuria in much the same fashion as the Maginot Line had canalized the main approaches into eastern France in June 1940 (see Maps 4a,b).
