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A Model War y 269

sudden, crushing attack followed. All the so-called “mistakes of 1941,” Vasilevsky repeated at
Stalingrad, because they were not mistakes at all, but a preparation for sudden attack.
Vasilevsky received the rank of General of the Army for the defeat of the surrounded
German formations near Stalingrad. He only carried this title for twenty-nine days; after
the Stalingrad operation, Stalin made him a Marshal of the Soviet Union. In the summer of
1944, during the peak of the war with Germany, Stalin not only gave Marshal Vasilevsky the
task of planning a sudden attack on Japan, but appointed him to head all Soviet troops in a
war against Japan. But Stalin had no intention of landing his troops on the Japanese islands.
He had more attractive targets. Korea, Manchuria, the greater part of China, and French
Indochina (Vietnam) were all occupied by Japan. Stalin planned to “liberate” them and take
them under his control.
Starting in the summer of 1944, Soviet military might in the Far East began to grow,
but it could not be observed from outside. ere was rearmament and strengthening of divi-
sions, corps, and armies, as well as a storing of the supplies necessary for a sudden and crush-
ing attack. Roads, air bases, bridges, and command and communications posts were being
built near the borders with great intensity. Soviet commanders, on orders from Moscow,
moved ammunition and fuel storages and hospitals to the borders.
A movement of regiments, brigades, and divisions from the German front to the Far
East began in the early spring of 1945. “ e most important aspect of the preparations for
the operation was the fact that they all had to be done before an official declaration of war on
Japan.” Exceptional measures of concealment were taken. All sergeants and staff sergeants in
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the troops transferred to the Far East wore the insignia of privates. Junior officers had sergeant
epaulets, and the senior officers wore the insignia of lieutenants and captains. Generals had
fewer stars on their epaulets than they had earned. A major general could wear the epaulets
of a lieutenant colonel or a major. Marshal Vasilevsky himself arrived in the Far East with the
papers for a “Colonel General Vasilyev” and in the appropriate uniform. 15
In May 1945, the troop transfer took on truly gigantic dimensions. “ e mass regroup-
ing of troops began with a transport by railroad from Eastern Prussia of the 5th Army, which
had gained rich experience in breaking through fortified regions and operating in forested
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territories.” e 39th Army, also from Eastern Prussia, and the 53rd from Czechoslovakia
were simultaneously moved. e 6th Tank Guards Army was to play the decisive role in the
defeat of Japanese armies. It was moved from the Prague region. To conceal the movement
of the tank army, the tankers not only changed their epaulets, but the insignia on them as
well—they temporarily became medics, repairmen, and construction workers. Most impor-
tantly, the tanks and the rest of the heavy equipment of the 6th Tank Guards Army were left
behind in Czechoslovakia. In Mongolia, near the state border where the tank army was to be
relocated, new tanks had been arriving straight from factories in the Urals. ey were pre-
pared and carefully concealed well ahead of time. e same exact procedure was performed
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in the transfer of most artillery, air force, and other formations and regiments. For example,
in June and July of 1945, 1,155 war planes of the newest models were sent straight from the
factories to the air bases in the Far East. During this time, the pilots and engineer personnel
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of certain air force regiments, divisions, and corps were transported by railroad, without their
equipment. New planes already awaited them in the Far East. On top of all this, the 6th and
7th Bomber Corps and two military-transport air force divisions were moved from air bases
in Germany and Poland.
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