Foreword
Stalin's personality still causes controversy in our society and does not have an unambiguous assessment. Probably cannot have it. In this article you will find interesting information about how the Generalissimo deftly outplayed Roosevelt and Churchill, returning Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to the country.
The funny thing is at their persistent requests and largely at their own expense!
Game of real thrones
In October 1939, after the battle at Khalkhin Gol, the USSR and Japan signed a pact of neutrality. Largely thanks to this pact, the Soviet troops managed to concentrate all their forces in the western direction and defeat Germany along with its many European allies (read more: World War II. A successful business project of the West?).
At the same time, eastward, the United States did not let Japan get bored, distracting it from silly thoughts of helping Germany. The Japanese fought fiercely and selflessly, even over such remote patches of land as the islands of Peleliu or Iwo Jima. American politicians were afraid to imagine what awaits them in the battles in their native Hokkaido and Honshu, where their families live.
Japanese samurai pilot.
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With the cunning and contempt for other peoples typical of the Anglo-Saxons, Roosevelt and Churchill tried for a long time to persuade Stalin to war on two fronts. However, the old underground worker, hardened in the struggle against "tsarism" and the endless intrigues of the Bolsheviks, did not succeed in fooling them.
Only in 1944 did the "Father of Nations" announce to the allies that he would instruct the Red Army to fight the Japanese, only three months after the defeat of Nazi Germany and only if he was provided with ships for this. By that time, he had a plan on how to make Anglo-Saxon snobbery work for the interests of the Land of the Soviets.
Reluctantly, as if by force agreeing to pay a bloody price instead of the Americans, Stalin set a trap, into which Roosevelt happily rushed. If the United States wanted to involve the USSR in providing assistance in the invasion of Japan, they needed not only to provide the Soviet Union with a sufficient number of ships for landing, but also to train crews for them.
Kuril landing, 1945.
Before the throw
In February 1945, Washington and Moscow agreed to arrange for the transfer of ships to Cold Bay (Cold Bay) in Alaska, since this site was an abandoned army base and there was no civilian population. The USSR officially remained neutral with Japan and it was important that the build-up of the navy, codenamed Project Hula, remained secret.
The decision was approved to transfer one hundred and eighty ships. Thirty patrol frigates, thirty-four minesweepers, 92 submarine hunters and wooden auxiliary torpedo boats, and four floating repair shops at sea.
Landing on the Kuril Islands, 1945.
However, of the greatest importance in the transferred flotilla were thirty large landing ships, equipped with ramps, from which two hundred marines could land at once ashore.
From April to July 1945, several parties of Soviet sailors were trained, totaling 12 thousand people (!). Starting on May 17, the ships were decommissioned by the US Navy and sent to the Soviet Union with already trained crews. By July 31, more than a hundred ships arrived at the port of Petropavlovsk.
Capitulation of the Kwantung Army, 1945
Checkmate
The purpose of the attack was Sakhalin, which was under separate Soviet and Japanese control, and the Kuril chain of islands, stretching from the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula to the source of Japan - Hokkaido.
On August 8, 1945, exactly three months after the surrender of Nazi Germany, the Red Army entered the battle with the Kwantung Army in Manchuria. By this time, the transferred ships had already been relocated to the water area lying between the USSR and Japan.
Soviet ground forces stationed in northern Sakhalin began an invasion of its southern part on August 11. On August 15, Japanese forces were ordered to end resistance, and on August 16, the Soviet Union began a series of amphibious assault landings on the Japanese part of the island. The Japanese garrisons there continued to resist until the official surrender was announced.
Japanese troops, World War II.
At dawn on August 18, an even more fierce assault on the Kuril Islands began. Sixteen landing ships transferred to the USSR under the Hula project were deployed for the landing of Soviet marines. The landing force was not dropped back into the sea, only thanks to the combat training and dedication of the Soviet sailors.
A few days later, the Japanese garrison finally complied with the surrender order, and the Soviet naval forces began to provide security for the rest of the Kuriles. The Hula project was only completed on September 4, two days after Japan's official surrender, an act of which was signed aboard the USS Missouri.
The signing of Japan's surrender.
American hangover
The Yankees did not immediately, but realized that they themselves persuaded Stalin to return the captured part of Sakhalin and the Kuril ridge. In addition, (which is especially offensive and offensive for the Anglo-Saxons) they trained his sailors for FREE and transferred a whole fleet of ships.
The offended Americans immediately began to demand the donated ships back. Some were returned to them in 1949, some in 1955, and most were not returned at all. During this time, the ships came to such a sad state that the US Navy did not even want to take on the costs of their disposal, so the remaining ninety ships were flooded or sold back to the Soviets for scrap.
The Cold War began …
