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half since 1905, a source of bitter Russian resentment, now to be assuaged. Sakhalin’s terrain was inhospitable—swamp-ridden, mountainous, densely forested. For reasons of prestige, the Japanese had lavished precious resources on fortifying the place. The consequence was that when Soviet troops began an assault on 11 August, their advance made little headway. Only after bitter fighting did they capture the key Honda strongpoint, whose defenders fought to the last man. The weather was poor for air support, and many tanks became bogged. Russian infantry were obliged to struggle through on foot, to outflank Japanese positions. Early on 16 August, however, after the imperial broadcast the Japanese obligingly launched “human wave” counter-attacks, which enabled the Russians to inflict much slaughter. Next day, yard by yard, Soviet troops forced passages through the forests, battering the defenders with air attacks and artillery. On the evening of 17 August, the local Japanese commander in the frontier defensive zone surrendered.

Elsewhere on Sakhalin, however, garrisons continued to resist. When the Soviets’ Northern Pacific Flotilla landed a storming force at the port of Maoka on 20 August, they mowed down civilians at the shoreside. Japanese troops opened fire. Thick fog hampered gunfire observation. Defenders had to be painstakingly cleared from the quays and then the city centre. “Japanese propaganda had successfully imbued947 the city’s inhabitants with fears of ‘Russian brutality,’” declared a Soviet account disingenuously. “The result was that much of the population fled into the forests, and some people were evacuated to Hokkaido. Women were especially influenced by propaganda, which convinced them that the arriving Russian troops would shoot them and strangle their children.” The Soviets claimed to have killed three hundred Japanese in Maoka and taken a further six hundred prisoners. The rest of the garrison fled inland. Sakhalin was finally secured on 26 August, four days behind the Soviet schedule.

Stalin harboured more far-reaching designs on Japanese territory. Before the Manchurian assault was launched, Soviet troops were earmarked to land on the Japanese home island of Hokkaido, and to occupy its northern half as soon as north Korea was secure. On the evening of 18 August, Vasilevsky signalled the Stavka in Moscow, asking permission to proceed with a Hokkaido attack scheduled to last from 19 August to 1 September. For forty-eight hours Moscow was silent, brooding. On 20 August Vasilevsky signalled again, asking for orders. Continue preparations, said Stalin: the assault force should be ready to attack by midnight on 23 August.

Meanwhile the Americans also dallied with possible landings in the Kuriles and at the mainland port of Dalian, to secure bases—in breach of the Yalta agreement—before the Soviets could reach them. Both sides, however, finally backed off. Washington recognised that any attempt to pre-empt the Soviets from occupying their agreed territories would precipitate a crisis. Likewise Truman cabled Moscow, summarily rejecting Stalin’s proposal that the Russians should receive the surrender of Japanese forces on north Hokkaido. At midday on the twenty-second the Stavka dispatched new orders to Far East Command, cancelling the Hokkaido landings. The Americans confined themselves to hastening U.S. Marines to key points on and near the coast of mainland China, to hold these until Chiang Kai-shek’s forces could assume control. A huge American commitment of men and transport aircraft alone enabled the Nationalists to reestablish themselves in the east during the autumn of 1945.

THE LAST BATTLE of the Second World War was fought at a place few Westerners have ever heard of. Hutou means “tiger’s head.” In 1945 there were still some tigers in the Wanda Mountains, where the town stands beside the great Ussuri River, eastern frontier of Manchuria. On the Russian shore, forests stretch for miles across flat country. On the Manchurian side, however, steep bluffs rise from the swamps and railway yard at the