Seisin operation (1945)

Between August 11 and 13, seaports on the Korean coast of Yuki and Rasin were occupied by two Pacific Fleet landings (see Landing at the port of Yuki and Rasinsky landing ), insignificant resistance was provided only in Rasin (now Rason) . Encouraged by the success of the fleet commander, Admiral I.S. Yumashev ordered the landing of the next amphibious landing at Seishin port (now Cheongjin) . Unlike previous ports, Seishin was well fortified and had a strong Japanese garrison (the total number of military units in it numbered up to 4,000 people, in addition, the defeated 3rd Army units (commander Lieutenant General Keisaku Murakami ) hastily retreated to it Due to the successful development of the offensive of the 1st Far Eastern Front , the front commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union K. A. Meretskov , on August 12 ordered to cancel the previously planned landing in Seishin.

However, the fleet command continued preparations for the landing, hoping for easy success. Yumashev managed to get permission to conduct it from the Commander-in-Chief of Soviet troops in the Far East, Marshal of the Soviet Union A.M. Vasilievsky . Since, with the decision of Meretskov to cancel the operation, the fleet did not receive the infantry division previously planned for landing in Seisin, Yumashev was forced to limit the number of troops by the marine brigade and individual units. To compensate for the small number, he ordered a powerful preliminary strike of aircraft and torpedo boats at the port (daily bombing and assault strikes from August 9 to 13). Nevertheless, the general plan of the operation remained unchanged - preliminary landing of reconnaissance groups, then building up the airborne forces. Thus, the advance detachment (numbering about one company) was to engage in battle with many times superior forces!

Since August 9, continuous air strikes have been carried out on the port of Seishin, in which, according to Soviet data, about 10 Japanese ships were sunk. Also, the crews of torpedo boats announced the sinking of 6 ships. On August 12, several boats broke into the harbor and reconnoitered it, finding that there were no Japanese warships there. As a result, it was decided to start the operation, without waiting for the final completion of the battles in Racine and the relocation of light fleet forces there. Therefore, the starting point of the operation was Vladivostok , which was significantly removed from Seisin, which immediately deprived the Soviet command of the possibility of an operational response to changing circumstances.

In total, 1 destroyer , 1 mine-layer , 8 patrol ships , 7 minesweepers , 2 small hunter boats , 18 torpedo boats , 12 landing ships , 7 transports were allocated for the operation. 261 aircraft were allocated for aviation support, including 188 bombers and 73 fighters. The landing commander is Captain 1st Rank A.F. Studenichnikov, the landing commander is Major General V.P. Trushin . General management of the operation was carried out by the fleet commander, Admiral I.S. Yumashev.

The Japanese disposed of an infantry battalion in the city, an officer school, and personnel at a naval base. During the operation, the number of Japanese troops increased significantly due to the retreating units of the Kwantung Army - first 2 infantry regiments , then the Guards Infantry Division . Japanese troops in battles were led by the commander of the Ranan fortified area, Lieutenant General Sokichi Nishivaki .

On the afternoon of August 13, 10 torpedo boats entered the port of Seisin, from which the 140th reconnaissance detachment of the Pacific Fleet headquarters under the command of Hero of the Soviet Union Lieutenant V.N. Leonov and a company of machine gunners from the 13th Marine Brigade landed under cover of smokescreens (total 181 man, detachment commander - head of the intelligence department of the fleet headquarters, Colonel A.Z. Denisin). Leaving 2 boats for cover from the sea, the remaining ships went to Vladivostok.

The landing party easily occupied the port and the adjacent city blocks, taking advantage of the enemy’s astonishment. However, the Japanese soon launched a counterattack, first erratic and fragmented. Quite quickly, the Japanese command restored order and launched an organized offensive against the landing. The position of the scouts immediately deteriorated sharply - they were cut off from the coast in an unfamiliar city, in addition, the Japanese cut the landed detachment in two. By 18-30 p.m., 7 torpedo boats delivered another 90 fighters ( machine-gun company), which was landed away from the battlefield, could not break into the connection with the reconnaissance squad, suffered heavy losses and was forced to conduct a defensive battle on the quays. Thus, a critical situation developed that threatened the death of the landing party.

Meanwhile, by the end of the day, the fleet commander sent 1 patrol ship EK-2 and 2 minesweepers from Vladivostok with the 355th separate battalion of marines on board, which could reach Seishin only the next day. Another major flaw was also revealed - aviation spotters were not included in the landing, so the fleet's aircraft delivered strikes at a distance from the battlefield in order to avoid the bombing of their own troops. That is, as such, direct air support for the landing was absent.

Throughout the night, the paratroopers fought an extremely fierce battle in three separate groups, fighting off continuous counterattacks and lacking ammunition.

On the morning of August 14, a detachment of ships leaving Vladivostok on the eve reached Seisin and landed a battalion of marines (710 men, commander Major MP P. Barabolko). The battalion commander on the move led people to attack. The soldiers again broke into the city and advanced 1-3 kilometers. However, introducing fresh forces into the battle with the support of the artillery fire of the armored train , the Japanese command pushed the paratroopers back to the port by the night of August 14, where they held a bridgehead 2 km along the front and 1 km in depth. Some of the fighters generally fought a defensive battle on the piers, several more groups of fighters were cut off from their units and defended separately in high-rises or in separate buildings. In addition, the battalion, because of the ignorance of the situation by the commander of the landing detachment, was landed aside from all three front-line landing groups fighting in the city and could not connect with them.

The critical situation continued. A crew of volunteers was hastily formed from the crews of the ships (25 people, commander captain 3rd rank G.V. Ternovsky ), landed on the shore. During the night, fighters had to repel 14 enemy attacks. Only thanks to exceptional courage and a high level of combat training, the marines managed to survive. The ships that arrived in the morning remained in the harbor and supported the landing with the fire of their artillery. Due to the bad weather on this day, aviation was practically not used in the operation (only 2 bombers were able to fly to Seishin, but they had to bomb them “by sight”).

The main detachment (23 ships and boats) with the 13th Marine Brigade on board left Vladivostok, and the destroyer Voikov and a tank landing barge with 7 T-26 tanks at night.

Around 4 a.m. on August 15, ships entered the port of Seishin and the main landing force (up to 5,000 people) began to land on a busy bridgehead in the port under heavy enemy fire. The resistance of the constantly increasing enemy was so powerful that the introduction of a whole brigade into battle did not lead to a turning point in the battle. Only in the middle of the day with the help of tanks and artillery fire of ships (they damaged the Japanese armored train, which was forced to leave the battle), the port was finally cleared of the enemy and battles began to take the city. By evening, the city was almost completely cleared of the Japanese, and the fighting groups of paratroopers who had been fighting for two days, were saved. On the dominant heights surrounding the city persistent battles continued. The commander, Lieutenant General S.I. Kabanov , who took over the leadership of the operation, arrived at the port.

The situation with the organization of air support was not corrected, therefore, although significant forces of Soviet aviation were sent to the city with improving weather (157 sorties were made), air strikes were again carried out not in the interests of supporting the attacking forces, but at the rear and concentrations of the enemy . The biggest success of aviation was the destruction of the railway station on the outskirts of the city, where the Japanese armored train was destroyed.

In the afternoon, the next detachment of ships (1 destroyer, 2 minesweepers, 3 vehicles, one patrol boat and a border guard boat) left Vladivostok, on board of which was the third echelon of the landing - 615 people, 60 guns and mortars, 94 vehicles.

Almost all the ships remained in the harbor and supported the offensive with naval artillery fire. The enemy tried to counter them with fire from the still surviving coastal artillery and single-aircraft raids. At Seishin Harbor, a minesweeper was blown up and damaged by previously exposed American naval mines .

On August 16, the third echelon of landing was landed at the port, while two more minesweepers were blown up by mines and suffered significant damage.

The fleet command, realizing that it had underestimated the enemy, now in every way increased the power of the landing. First, another tank landing barge with 7 T-26 tanks and 2 vehicles on board was sent to Seishin under the guise of a patrol ship. Then another detachment of ships, not planned by the initial plan of operation, left Vladivostok - 1 patrol ship, 1 minesweeper, 6 landing ships, 1 tank landing ship, on board of which was the 205th rifle regiment and military equipment.

During the day, the landing led limited offensive operations from Seishin in the north and north-west directions. Japanese troops in the area of ​​the city received a message about the order of the emperor of Japan to end the resistance. Although a number of units refused to lay down their arms, organized resistance by the end of the day had virtually ceased. In some areas, the surrender of Japanese soldiers began.

On August 17, all who arrived there on the eve of the court arrived at the port; the landing of troops was carried out safely. There were minor skirmishes and skirmishes with separate groups and units of the enemy. The Japanese surrender continued, some of them left the front and tried to go south by land.

At about 11.30 a.m., the advance detachment of the 25th Army (commander Colonel-General I.M. Chistyakov ) of the 1st Far Eastern Front came to the landing positions. On this Seisin operation ended.

Generally accepted in Soviet historiography is a general estimate of the enemy’s losses of 3,000 Japanese soldiers and officers killed and captured. 4 Japanese aircraft were shot down, 1 armored train was destroyed. The harbor captured 27 transports and tankers. According to recently published data, Japanese casualties by the end of August 15 amounted to 500 people killed and 385 prisoners. Since no significant hostilities were fought on August 16 and 17, it is unlikely that the Japanese casualties would increase sharply, unlike prisoners.

Soviet casualties in people ranged from 250 to 300 people killed and missing. 352 soldiers of the army and navy were buried in a mass grave in Cheongjin ^[1] (but this number includes an unknown number of fighters of the 1st Far Eastern Front who died in battles even far from the city).

There were no losses in the ship's crew, 3 minesweepers and 2 vehicles received damage from mines. The crews of the Voykov squadron destroyer, the Argun mine-guard, the Metel patrol ship, the EK-9 frigate (the commander -lieutenant V.V. Mikhailin subsequently became admiral) were especially distinguished with the support of the landing. In total, fleet artillery forces destroyed up to two infantry battalions, 13 firing points, eight bunkers, suppressed the fire of two anti-aircraft and 13 artillery and mortar batteries, damaged an armored train, and shot down 2 aircraft.

From August 13 to 16, the fleet aviation carried out 429 sorties to the Seishin area, the results of which were extremely insignificant due to the lack of communication and interaction with the landing force. The main losses of the Japanese from aviation were the destruction of an armored train previously damaged by sailors, 4 railway trains, 14 vehicles with manpower and equipment, 2 oil storage facilities, as well as industrial buildings and bridges in the vicinity of the city. 2 Japanese aircraft were shot down in air battles, our losses - 1 damaged IL-4 bomber made an emergency landing on the water, 1 pilot died from the crew.

If in the Soviet period the operation was unambiguously assessed as necessary and successful, then after 1990 other estimates began to appear. Nevertheless, it is difficult to agree with those who consider this landing not to be caused by military necessity: by its beginning, on August 13, the main forces of the Japanese troops were quite organized in moving away from the attacks of the Red Army and were able to put up stubborn resistance on numerous rear defensive lines. A very likely scenario was the military operations directly on the Japanese islands and both the Soviet and the Allied command made every effort to disrupt the transfer of Japanese troops to the metropolis. The amphibious assault sowed panic and thwarted a planned retreat in the defense sector of the 3rd Japanese Army (commander Lieutenant General Keisaku Murakami). Further Soviet landings — the Odetsinsky landing and the Henzansky landing — were sent from Seisin occupied by Soviet troops.

But the level of preparation of this operation is really extremely low. Apparently, the fleet command, under the influence of the previous successes of the landing forces in Yuku and Rasin, counted on a repetition of easy success and was not ready for the stubborn defense of the Japanese in Seishin. In the memoirs of Lieutenant General S.I. Kabanov, the complete command of the fleet was even ignorant of the situation on August 14 and 15, and the orders of the commander were numerous and abrogating each other. The proper command and control of the landing was not organized (the commander of the operation was the fleet commander himself, who was in Vladivostok for the entire operation and did not have information about its progress, but on the spot the commanding officers and landing forces acted on their own).

The organization of air support for the landing did not hold water (until the end of the operation, no spotter from the Air Force was sent to Seishin). There were many less significant drawbacks caused by inadequate preparation: the first landing detachments were armed only with small arms, the ship detachments were not provided with trawl forces, there were almost no radios in the landing, there were no translators from Korean and Japanese (there was no way to receive information from prisoners and the local population friendly to the USSR), no one in the landing had Seisin's plans and did not know the situation in the city, the considerable remoteness of the starting point of the landing troops from KTA landing.

As a result, the landing was on the verge of total annihilation, suffered significant losses, and only the development of the forces of the 1st Far Eastern Front and the supremacy of the USSR Navy on the sea saved the landing from destruction by the development favorable for the Soviet command.

Several hundred fighters and commanders were awarded state awards. The commander of the 140th reconnaissance detachment V.N. Leonov twice became a Hero of the Soviet Union. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to 16 people: marines, brigade commander Major General V. P. Trushin , battalion commander Major M. P. Barabolko , company commander of machine gunners of the marine corps senior lieutenant I. M. Yarotsky , commander of a platoon reconnaissance squad midshipman A. M Nikandrov , commander of the platoon of the reconnaissance detachment, Chief Marshal M. A. Babikov , commander of the machine gun department of the marine corps, sergeant K. P. Biryulya , commander of the company Red Navy A. N. Komarov , nurse Red Army officer M. N. Tsukanova (posthumous); sailors landing commander and patrol ship brigade commander captain 3rd rank M. G. Bespalov , flagship gunner of the patrol ship division captain 3rd rank G. V. Ternovsky , chief of staff of the 1st brigade of torpedo boats captain 3rd rank L. N. Panteleev , patrol watch commander “Metel” ship, captain-lieutenant L.N. Balyakin , commander of the “EK-2” ship, captain-lieutenant L.S. Mironov , SMERSh officer of the Vladivostok naval defensive area, lieutenant M.P. Krygin (posthumous), electrician of a frigate brigade of patrol ships foreman 2 Sports Articles VG Moiseenko , pilot commander of the 34th Bomber Regiment Major NI Druzdev .

A number of military units (13th Marine Brigade, 355th and 365th Separate Marine Battalions, 34th Fleet Bomber Aviation Regiment, 140th Reconnaissance Unit) were converted into Guards . The 10th Air Division of the Pacific Fleet dive bombers received the honorary name Seisinskaya.

• Zolotarev V.A., Kozlov I.A. Three centuries of the Russian fleet. - T. 4. - SPb: Polygon, 2005.
• Bozhenko P.V. Pacific submarines in battles with the enemy (1941-1945).
• Red Banner Pacific Fleet. - M.: Military Publishing, 1973. Chapter "Landing in Korean ports"
• Kabanov S.I. The battlefield is the shore. Chapter “On the FKP and in the landing zone”
• Leonov V. N. Face to face. Chapter “Last Campaigns”
• Lt Col David Glantz. August Storm: The Soviet 1945 Strategic Offensive in Manchuria, Command and General Staff College, 1983.
• The Great Patriotic War. Day after day. // "Marine collection", 1995, No. 8.
• Zhumatiy V. I. Naval landing operations of the Armed Forces of the USSR. M.: "Centerpolygraph", 2011. - 399 p. - ISBN: 978-5-2270-2784-9.

• Seisin landing operation on the website of the Ministry of Defense of Russia
• Fighters of the 355th battalion land in Seishin