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By Root 952 0

one and twelve were heaped together. In a cavern beneath Strongpoint “Sharp” lay another pile of women’s corpses. There was also the detritus of the dead—cooking pots, wire-rimmed spectacles, gramophones, a few bicycles, pin-up pictures of surprisingly smartly dressed “comfort women.” The Soviets declared the Hutou Fortified Region secure. Yet for four days more, one isolated Japanese company continued its resistance. Only on 26 August was this remnant snuffed out. Thus, today, a huge Soviet war memorial on the site declares Hutou to be the scene of the final battle of the Second World War. Almost 2,000 Japanese men, women and children perished in and around the fortress, days after the rest of the world celebrated peace.

Russians told the Chinese fugitives in the woods behind Hutou that it was now safe to come out. In a curious introduction to their new lives, these bewildered peasants were shown a propaganda film about the Russian Revolution. A commissar addressed them through an interpreter: “Red soldiers have made great sacrifices in this battle to bring you liberty, and now it is yours.” The Japanese were all dead, he said. The villagers could go home. Home? They drifted uneasily back to their huts, to find only ruins and blackened earth. In the ashes of Jiang Fushun’s family home lay the body of his father, a bullet through his head, the price of his rashness in staying behind. Every Chinese who ventured into the village during the battle had met the same fate. Those who had relatives elsewhere began long treks in search of sanctuary, but Jiang’s family had no one to go to. They lingered among the ruins, scrabbling to build themselves a shelter, scavenging for food. The task was made no easier by the fact that Russian soldiers began to remove everything edible or of value. The Chinese were appalled to see the liberators drive off the horses on which their tiny farms depended. Women were raped in the usual fashion.

Soviet soldiers warned peasants not to approach the forts, which were still littered with mines and munitions. After a few days, however, Jiang and a few others wandered up to the blackened casemates, gazing in revulsion at the unburied corpses of Japanese soldiers and their women. When the Russians finally departed, taking with them even the tracks of the local railway, the thousand or so desolate people left in Hutou found themselves existing in a limbo. The village headman was dead. For more than two years thereafter, no one attempted to exercise authority over them, nor to provide aid of any kind. When the Communists eventually assumed control of their lives, “things became a little better.”

Only forty-six Japanese are known to have escaped from the fortress with their lives. “The defence was extraordinarily brave952,” says Chinese historian Wang Hongbin, “which usually demands respect. But it was also completely futile. It is hard to admire blind loyalty to the emperor at that stage. They all died for nothing.”

Lt. Stanislav Chervyakov’s rocket battery entered Shenyang having scarcely fired a salvo, and without meeting serious resistance. The soldiers were amazed to meet Russian émigrés, who welcomed them warmly. Chervyakov found himself billeted on one such family. In this city where Russian influence had always been strong, some local people spoke a few words of the language. Chinese stood outside little cafés, urging the soldiers: “Come in, have a drink or a meal!” “Kapitana, shango! shango!”—“Good! good!” Sgt. Anatoly Fillipov was delighted to be handed a mess tin of pelmeni—ravioli—but became less enthusiastic when he discovered that it was made with donkey meat. “Most of the local people953 welcomed us with open arms,” said tank officer Alexander Fadin. “They were threadbare, in rags, but they gave us masses of flowers, fruit and Chinese food. We could eat all we wanted in the Chinese restaurants for free. We really felt like liberators.”

Stalin had promised the Allies that he recognised Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists as the sole legitimate government of China. This did not prevent Soviet