Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [337]
Lt. Alexander Fadin of 20th Guards Brigade said: “We were completely exhausted887 by the heat and the struggle to overcome so many natural obstacles. When the order to halt came and we climbed out of the tanks, men could hardly stand up.” Each division reported thirty to forty heat-stroke cases a day. Flimsy canteens cracked, leaving their owners dependent on more fortunate comrades to assuage thirst. “When we found a well, we had to draw water from thirty or forty feet down,” said Stanislav Chervyakov. “It was ice-cold, and after drinking some men suffered agonies from twisted guts. Several died. We learned that it was essential for officers to get to wells first and carefully supervise men’s drinking. It was an incredibly wild country. We scarcely saw any Japanese. We had been told to expect attacks from their guerrillas, but there were none. We were shocked by the poverty of the Chinese. Their mud huts were such a contrast to what we had grown used to in Europe. Whatever our ranks, they called us all ‘Kapitana’!” The 59th Cavalry Division faced special difficulties888, needing water for its ponies and lacking means to carry much. Its commander detailed a special squadron to ride ahead, identifying and securing wells on the line of advance.
Sgt. Georgy Petryakov’s principal anxiety was not to get himself killed. He had survived four years of war, spent partly on the German front and partly on garrison duty in the east. Now he had applied for Communist Party membership, that passport to all good things in Soviet life. He wanted to be around to enjoy them. “I could never have believed889 such a climate possible—thirty degrees below freezing in January, a hundred degrees in August.” He hated everything he saw of the parched countryside of Manchuria, including the inhabitants whom they had come to liberate: “What hypocrites the Chinese were! Grinning, bowing, fawning on us,” he said in disgust. Yet he was still more repelled by the contempt with which Japanese, even as prisoners, treated Chinese civilians.
Before dawn on 11 August, 39th Army began to force a path up the steep ascent of Grand Hinggang. The Japanese deemed it impassable, and thus had done nothing to fortify the crests. Even small forces covering the approaches would have immensely complicated the invaders’ task. As it was, however, the Russians fought only the mountains. T-34 tanks took the lead—American Shermans were less rugged, and used more fuel. In places, tracks were barely ten feet wide, traversed by streams and gullies, each one of which had to be bridged. Some units found their advances blocked by rock walls. Then heavy rain fell, and the wheeled vehicles thrashed helplessly. “At first, we were so thrilled890 by the rain,” said Oleg Smirnov, “and afterwards, how we learned to curse it!” Soldiers have better cause than other men to hate foul weather, for they can seek no refuge from it. Flooded mountain streams pushed great boulders downhill. Soldiers compared the lightning to the flickering of a katyusha barrage. Men laboured to push and pull stranded trucks through the mire—they later asserted that they got their vehicles up Grand Hinggang by “fart power.” Sometimes a truck slipped off a precipice and sailed into space, to shatter far below. Even in daylight, the low cloudbase forced vehicles to use lights.
On the mountain ascent, engines revved in frenzy as tracks slipped on wet rocks, tanks skidded into deep mud. “Even experienced drivers shook their heads as they gazed up the hills,” said Alexander Fadin. His own tank made three attempts on the highest pass, before negotiating it by linking three T-34s with steel cables. Lt. Stanislav Chervyakov, who had been so careless about his assignment to Manchuria when the campaign began, found himself a much less happy soldier amid the defiles of Grand Hinggang. He and his men had to off-load crates of katyusha rockets, then haul their big, heavy Studebaker trucks up the mountain on ropes, by main force: “It was hopeless terrain for us, and there was nothing for the katyushas to do.”
The descent