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By Root 1004 0

of contradictory sentiments in the Japanese ranks than of a “samurai” ruse, but the Russians were disinclined to generosity. In subsequent skirmishes in the nearby town they found some Japanese troops struggling to escape in civilian clothes, others still offering resistance. By the morning of the twenty-first, however, most of the Japanese had surrendered. Belyaev’s company was guarding 12,000 prisoners. He observed wryly that these seemed too fearful of falling into Chinese hands to attempt escape.

Souhei Nakamura, son of a teacher of Japanese music who had lived in Manchuria since 1941, was inducted into the Japanese army only a week before the Russians attacked. On 12 August, every man of the five hundred at his depot, all either raw recruits or elderly reservists, was issued with a weapon and a stocking full of rice to tie on his pack, then crammed onto a train south, towards the front. During their march to the station, a Japanese bank manager astonished them by rushing into the street with armfuls of paper money. He broadcast banknotes among the soldiers as they passed, rather than leave them for the Russians.

After days of faltering progress, the recruits disembarked at a halt where they were supposed to join a regiment. They found the place already abandoned by the retreating army, the rail bridge ahead cut by Russian bombing. They had no officers, and milled about uncertainly for hours before glimpsing two figures walking down the track carrying white flags. At first these looked like children. As they came closer, however, the Japanese perceived that they were Russian soldiers, who told them the war was over. Without much concern, indeed with relief, the young recruits surrendered their weapons. Some emotional older men drove their swords into the earth and bent them until they broke, rather than present them to the Soviets. Then they lingered, expecting a train to take them to Korea, and thence home to Japan. “I was nineteen943,” said Nakamura. “The whole thing of defeat didn’t mean much to me. I just felt grateful that because there were five hundred of us all together there, it seemed unlikely the Russians would shoot us.”

There was no train to Korea; instead a long, gruelling march under Russian guard. Exhausted soldiers began to throw away packs, personal effects, even boots. It was a time of rains, and they were often trudging through thick mud. They passed a village of Japanese immigrants, where they saw an elderly grandmother beseeching impassive local Chinese to relieve her of a baby which she clutched. A gaggle of Japanese orphans killed a bullock, and distributed slabs of its raw meat to the thankful men. Nakamura noticed that no young women were visible, and guessed that they had been carried off by the Russians. After a few hours, the prisoners were herded on down the road. “I always wondered afterwards what happened to those kids, and all those immigrants.” The likely answer was that they starved.

Russian brutality towards their prisoners was cultural rather than personal. Few Red Army men harboured much animus towards the Japanese, only puzzlement about people beyond their experience in appearance and character. “We felt nothing944 like the hatred we held towards the Germans,” said Sgt. Anatoly Fillipov. In Manchuria’s “liberated” towns and cities, the victors revelled in rickshaw rides and brothels. Lieutenant Chervyakov acquired a kimono for his mother, as did Boris Ratner on Sakhalin. The pilot was bewildered to see a column of Japanese prisoners struggling past, the men encumbered with packs, their officers even in captivity using soldiers to lug their baggage. As Ratner watched, one Japanese fell down and died. A Japanese prisoner who spoke a little Russian said bitterly to Anatoly Fillipov: “Well, you’ve got your prize, but it is an unlawful one. Stalin deceived us. He always promised that he would not attack us.” Thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians in Manchuria killed themselves.

For Manchurian women, rejoicing at the defeat of the Japanese soon gave way to horror at the conduct