May 22, 2006 May 22, 2006
The war against militarist Japan had began for me in complete darkness and under downpour. Everything became wet even in a room in such night but we were in field and practically had no any cover.
A terrible thunderstorm was in the night from 8th to 9th of the August of 1945 but we got an order to cross the state border. I never saw such a strong thunderstorm. Lightnings were very dangerous enemy: at first, they blind and I couldn't see anything and lost orientation in the terrain for a few seconds after a lightning; at second, they lighted up our movement better than searchlights. Of course, the Japanese also were blinded with lightnings but they had no to move anywhere and they knew the terrain very well. Some Japanese were in fortifications on a hill and we had an order to capture that hill. The hill was called "camel". And we had captured that "camel" to the morning.
At the day we were loaded on tanks, drove 80-90 km on their armor and had arrived to the military settlement of Siao-Sun-Fynhe to the evening. There we engaged against the local Japanese garrison.
The combat was long and furious; there were a lot of hand-to-hand fighting. A hand-to-hand fighting is not a long but when a hand-to-hand fighting goes after another hand-to-hand fighting again and again so it last for a long time. But nevertheless the Japanese had retreated in the spite of the fact of their furious resistance of doomed. Sergeant Kauzov from my platoon was heavy wounded in those combats - he got 8 wounds with a knife but had survived.
A large combat occurred nearly the settlement of Madaoshi. We were informed later that the settlement was defended by a few battalions of Japanese smertniks. The combat was for a whole day. The Japanese, especially their artillery, occupied very favorable positions. Their large caliber artillery fired in a flank of our troops. And Japanese smertniks were in front of us. The Japanese knocked out 8 of our tanks. At the night our battalion silently had moved through Madaoshi and had dug in on his outskirts, waiting the coming of our main forces. At the next morning the battle continued but at last the Japanese were dislodged from their positions approximately after 3 hours of battle. My soldier Fedotov was killed in that combat, also Sergeant Burin was wounded.
The Chinese population met us enthusiastically, sometimes they showed us the places where Japanese hided. When we met with Chinese we were amazed by their poverty and scare before the Japanese. Local Chinese came to us when we went a halt and we entertained their like good guests.
