July 3, 1939, evening. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info Nomenkan.

The Japanese army had a very careful plan for retreat. If they retreat according to this plan, the Japanese will be withdrawn in full force.

In a saying that rotten is true: the ideal is very plump, and the reality is very skinny.

The plan for the retreat was good and orderly. Without the counterattack of the Soviet-Mongolian army, the retreat plan could have been realized.

However, the Soviet-Mongolian army began to block the retreating enemy from Hexi in the afternoon. After dark, a large number of flares were fired, illuminating the battlefield as if it were day.

The intense artillery fire made the Japanese think that they would be attacked by tank units again, and some units began to disorganize. These circumstances were watched by observers of the aircraft on both sides. The Japanese side knew that the Japanese army had developed a certain fear of the Soviet troops, and the Soviet side knew that the dawn of victory had appeared.

In Kobayashi Hengichi's headquarters, even the staff officers could not be found, and Kobayashi's military horses did not know where to go.

The 26th Wing was originally scheduled to be the first to withdraw from the west bank of the river, but due to the blockade of the Soviet army, the battle was in a stalemate and could not be separated.

The commander of the 26th Wing, Suzuki Shinichiro Osa, ordered the officers to rush to the first line of the road and defend it, so that he could hold his position and protect the pontoon bridge. Later, casualties were counted, 143 killed and 278 wounded, and the adjutant of the wing, Maruyama Hiroka, the 1st Captain of the 1st Brigade, Sada Chiga Shosa, and the 3rd Brigade Captain Tetsuo Kikuchi were all killed.

As for the number of casualties, there is another discussion.

On the morning of July 4, the fighting had been concentrated near the pontoon bridge.

At 04:30 in the morning, the Soviets began to attack, and the dense artillery fire of the Japanese troops concentrated on the Fuyi Heights came under attack. This time, the chief of staff of the 23 Division, Major General Dinezi, was killed.

Ouchizi, a native of Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, graduated from the 26th Cavalry Section of the Japanese Army Non-commissioned Officer School in May 1914 and the 34th Cavalry Section of the Japanese Army University in 1922. In December 1935, he was appointed as a member of the General Staff Headquarters, specializing in the study of Soviet military affairs, and was a Soviet general. In August 1937, he was promoted to cavalry chief, and in July 1938, he was appointed chief of staff of the 23rd Division of the Kwantung Army.

After Ouchi's death, he was posthumously promoted to major general. That's an afterword.

The 23rd Division had no troops to move at this time, and the attacking Soviet troops were not far away.

The command of the division commander Michihara Taro Komatsu encountered such a situation not long after crossing the river, and the officers were already preparing to commit suicide.

At this time, a rapid-fire artillery unit that had just crossed the river arrived, and their arrival made the officers of the command give up the idea of suicide.

Rapid-fire artillery units set up their guns and opened fire on Soviet tanks.

The anti-tank battle was fought for seven minutes, the Soviet troops were repulsed, and only one gun remained of the rapid-fire gun, 6 people.

Komatsubara witnessed the battle firsthand, and he mentioned it several times in his later diaries.

When recalling this period of history, the Japanese military doctor Matsumoto Grass Ping repeatedly emphasized the glittering sedan of Taro Michihara Komatsu. He had seen with his own eyes that the two tanks were "rolling up dust from behind their butts and chasing the golden sedan!" ”

"I found out afterwards that there were two people sitting in the glittering car, the commander of the Komatsubara Division of the 23rd Division and the chief of staff of Ouchi... In any case, in the unobstructed and endless wilderness, to go to the front in a sparkling and eye-catching sedan with golden light is in itself a rash act that does not measure its own strength. ”

This is a punishment for hubris. The arrogance of the Imperial Japanese Army, which was the best in the world, has been broken.

Other units of the 23rd Division were forced to fight for another whole day in Hexi, and at night, the Soviet troops contracted, and the Japanese withdrew to Hedong overnight. The 26th Wing did not make the final withdrawal from the pontoon bridge until the morning of 5 July.

By this time, the combat effectiveness of the Japanese army had been seriously reduced, and the Japanese soldiers had not drunk water for 40 hours due to the ban on drinking river water. Komatsubara was surprised, and he later recalled it.

The commander of the 23rd Engineer Wing, Saito Yunakasa, who had sent engineers with explosives to blow up three tanks that the Soviets were breathing fire into the fortifications near the military bridge, did not order the bridge to be demolished until his fellow classmate of the Army Non-commissioned Officer School (25th class, graduated in May 1913) led the 26th Wing by Shinichiro Osa.

This story is widely told in Japan, and there are even early Japanese comic strips that tell this story.

Thousands of Japanese corpses and slain horses were scattered all over the wilderness. The Kwantung Army desperately fled, and many officers and soldiers drowned in the Haraha River.

In this battle, the attacking Japanese army was completely defeated, and the grassland was covered with burning chariots, dead horses, and corpses strewn across the field.

Some studies have seen a lot less than 3,000, and some numbers are much more than 3,000, but the number of officers killed in battle is more accurate, and 40 officers below Major General Ouchi were killed in battle.

The number of losses of the Japanese army should have been large, otherwise, the death of such a large number of officers could not be explained.

From July 3 to 5, the Soviet army's operation against the Japanese army across the river was a three-dimensional operation against the army. This was the formation and test of the new tactics of the Soviet army. Because of this battle, the Japanese army saw the strength of the Soviet army's new tactics, and the battle situation fell into a stalemate.

Lieutenant General Yasuoka, commander of the 1st Tank Division of the Japanese Army, led tanks and combat vehicles into battle on the east bank of the river. His troops were the treasure units of the Kwantung Army and even Japan, with 87 medium tanks and light tanks and 37 armored vehicles.

The 1st Tank Division of the Japanese Army was a temporary unit, and its number was temporary.

On July 4, at noon, the tank units of the two armies met in front of the Balqigar Heights. On the 7-kilometer-wide battlefield, 80 T-28 tanks, 12 T-130 flamethrower tanks and more than 300 armored vehicles of the Soviet army, with the cooperation of the 5th Rifle and Machine Gun Brigade, surrounded 87 tanks and 37 armored vehicles of the Angang Tank Division.

The air forces of both sides also fought in the skies above the tank battle.

On the battlefield of 7 kilometers, a melee of more than 500 combat vehicles began.

The Soviet tanks rushed left and right between the large rippled sand dunes and grasslands, while the Japanese tanks took advantage of each dune to appear and disappear from time to time and shoot skillfully.

At the beginning of the battle, the Japanese command tank was hit, and the commander of the 3rd Tank Wing, Kiyoshi Maru, was killed. Or for that reason, the command tank antenna, which is easy to identify, is the key target of the opponent's attack.

Soon, more than 40 Japanese tanks were destroyed, and 37 armored vehicles were all hit by the Soviet army and caught fire. Soviet T-130 flamethrower tank, jetted at a short distance of 30 meters. Surrounded and burned the toy-like Japanese Type 95 light tank.

In this face-to-face battle with a huge disparity in strength, the Angang Tank Division lost more than half of its tanks and all its armored vehicles. The remnants of the tanks fled back to the General's Temple.

This was the first tank battle of the Japanese army, and the losses were huge. The Soviets benefited greatly.

Many research documents describe this as the first large-scale tank battle in history, and it was the cattle that broke into the sheep and laid the foundation for the later tank battles in the Soviet Union and even Germany. The Japanese tanks were simply beaten and did not have much ability to fight back.

It is also worth mentioning that the casualties of the Soviet army in this battle were very small. The vast majority of the research literature does not pay attention to Soviet casualties, because the casualties are not large and do not deserve attention.

Zhukov reported the victory to Marshal Vroshilov. By now, the Soviet side saw hope for victory.

The battlefield observers of the Northeast Coalition Army recorded the details of the tank battle. They took a lot of photos and took a lot of notes. Later, these materials became important materials for the planning and training of the Northeast Coalition Army.