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The road widened somewhat881, but nevertheless only two tanks could advance abreast, almost locked together. We glimpsed wooden peasant huts ahead, and heard explosions as Japanese anti-tank guns opened up from the high ground. The column halted to return fire. Some tank crews found ways to bypass the road across country, and broke through to the strongpoint. Fighting became general. Tank engines raced amid a tangle of trenches, pillboxes, dugouts and gun positions…Japanese shells often struck home, while huts and grass caught fire. For more than an hour, our forces experienced perhaps their bloodiest battle since the campaign began. Finally the enemy faltered. [We could see] hundreds of retreating Japanese dotting the hills and marshy stream beds. The tanks raced after them.

A Japanese account described suicide teams leaping out from the roadside to attack the foremost Russian armour, while anti-tank guns attempted to knock out the rearmost and block the road. “Yet even when tanks were hit882, the damage was slight, for our shells were not armour-piercing,” recorded a despairing officer. “The enemy calmly carried out repairs in full view of our lines, his arrogance mocking our impotence…We noticed that some tank crews included women.” At 0900 on 14 August, a Japanese divisional commander received a report from a position in the Central Sector, delivered by a horseman in the absence of radio or phone links: “Because of the difficulty of holding883 our positions, the regiment will launch a counterattack behind its colours. This may be our last report.”

During the first days, Japanese aircraft offered sporadic resistance. Soviet pilot Boris Ratner’s wing884 began the campaign full of apprehension, given the historic reputation of the enemy’s air force, but quickly found its confidence soaring. One Russian flier was lost on his first ground-attack sortie, none thereafter. Pilots struck repeatedly at Japanese troop and vehicle columns. Anti-aircraft fire occasionally holed Russian planes, but brought down scarcely any. A handful of Japanese reconnaissance aircraft were destroyed wherever they appeared. The Russians were surprised to discover that most enemy airfields contained only dummy planes. They began to perceive how feeble were the defences of Manchuria.

The Japanese high command quickly wrote off its own frontier outposts, and set about creating shorter defensive lines well to the rear. This policy was realistic enough, but became hopelessly compromised when Guandong Army headquarters attempted simultaneously to reorganise its formations. Many officers were left uncertain to whom they were reporting, never mind what they were supposed to hold. They lacked time and mobility to redeploy effectively. Some units were still trying to move to new positions when the war ended. “Many Japanese lacked the will885 to fight hard in Manchuria—they knew the war was lost,” said Chinese historian Wang Hongbin. “A million defenders sounds a lot, but these troops had never been obliged to fight a modern enemy such as the Russians were, fortified with all the experience of their campaigns in Europe, and with very strong air support. The Russian war machine was incomparably more advanced, and the Japanese could enlist no local assistance.”

RUSSIAN TANK columns advanced ninety-three miles the first day across the desert facing the western Trans-Baikal Front. Some units became lost, disorientated by the great dust clouds they threw up. “Units advanced from hill to hill886 under the blazing sun, their men rejoicing at each breath of breeze,” wrote Col.-Gen. Liudnikov Doroga. “The hills seemed endless, and made distances deceptive…Daytime temperature reached ninety-five degrees, and medical officers became alarmed by the threat of heat stroke. Men knew that snatching at a waterbottle only intensified thirst. They endured. Vehicles did not. Engines overheated and radiators boiled. At last, the Grand Hinggang loomed…The mountains were bathed in silence. We had got there before the Japanese, and must scale them