April ‘46 -Japanese Offensive begins in Europe
At the start of the war, Japan was a clear underdog in Europe. It had numerical inferiority to the Russians and most of the forces controlled by Japan were in fact troops from Japan’s protectorates and puppets. The only nation which had troops of acceptable quality was Bulgaria. But she had only six divisions. The second in line was Turkey with another six, but the organisation of the troops was nearly unsatisfactory. The nation with most troops in Europe was Iraq. But to compensate this, their troops were an unorganised bunch of horsemen with rifles. Japan itself had one of its prime armoured formations in Europe, the 17th Armoured Corps. It was experienced in armoured warfare under Field Marshal Hata and had carried through India, Persia, Iraq, Turkey and Bulgaria with distinction. The other Japanese formation was the 1st Army HQ Corps designated in protecting Field Marshal Hata and his staff, as well as working as an active force under the direct disposal of Hata. The Japanese divisions were of extraordinary quality and discipline, but what was to become the battle for Romania and Hungary were going to be the most horrendous combat they were ever going to see.
The war started with the quick march of all troops to the fronts. For three days the eighteen foreign divisions marched, the first to get in touch with the enemy were the Bulgarian and Iraqi troops in Osijek. They were encountered by Soviet armour while still in columns on the 7th of April. The initial engagement ended up with numerous Bulgarian casualties, because the Bulgarian division had been the first one in the column of three divisions. But when the Iraqis got their artillery set up, their accurate barrages drove the Soviets back and on the evening of the 7th, the Bulgarian regiments arranged for attack. Three hours later their spearheading units had breached though the weak Soviet defences and reached the suburbs of Osijek. The Japanese aiforce was on the air and the Close-air-support aircraft with Turbojet engines and missiles, annihilated some one hundred tanks and six thousand Russian soldiers on the roads that lead away from the city. The Iraqi divisions followed up on attack and harried the Russian lines, finally disengaging at 0300 of the 8th day of April. The Bulgarian division went on offensive and soon drove the last Russians away from the city. The battle ended up with the Russians losing a half of an armoured division and losing their beachhead in Yugoslavia. But after this they were defending behind prepared positions behind a river. Dislodging them would not be an easy task. A day later the Turkish 3rd Corps took the undefended city of Novi Sad.
Bulgarian soldiers crossing a road which is littered with left behind Soviet equipment near Osijek
The Russian army in Debrecen tried to break through Zrenjanin and Timisioara during the same week, but its attempts were made empty by the 17th Armoured Corps that attacked its flanks and forced it to commit troops in protecting them, giving the Iraqi cavalry easy victories. None of these attacks aimed for the capture of Debrecen as it was hard to defend.
Notably, the second major confrontation in the conflict was fought by the Bulgarians. The Bulgarian 1st Rifle Corps was on its way towards Constanta when it ran into a Soviet Motorised division that was in column going on the direction where the Bulgarians had came from. This happened on the 9th of April. The Bulgarians quickly spread out and engaged the Russians. Even though they didn’t have any tanks or personnel carriers, they threatened the Motorised division’s flanks as it was too small to defend against all three. The Russians fled in panic after the Bulgarians attacked with minimal casualties. The Bulgarians didn’t stop to rest or sleep after the enemy division was dislodged and they reached Constanta on the 15th of April. Some elements of the Russian division had been left behind and the last Bulgarian division had to clean the rear of the Corps. This took two days.
Bulgarian soldiers of the 1st Rifle Corps walking past a burning Soviet personnel carrier on their way to Constanta.
The last ten days, the front at Hungary had remained silent, but at 0900 hours on the 18th of April the Turkish 3rd Rifle Corps attacked from Novi Sad attacked Soviet forces arranged around the city of Szeged and the Bulgarian and Iraqi divisions attacked Pecs. The Soviets had left Pecs undefended because they disliked its position in the open and were afraid that Japanese armour would engage them on the open. The positions up North offered much better cover. But in Szeged the things were different. The armoured division in there did not want to let go of its carefully dug in positions and the three Turkish divisions had to fight hard for every kilometre they advanced. The Soviets saw the situation unbearable and on the 20th they started an organised retreat, during the time when the main segments of the division retreated towards Miskolc some armoured units stayed and attacked the Turkish lines, faking a counter-attack. The Turkish commander was afraid of losing ground and dug in, giving the Russian the time they needed. The Japanese airforce did bomb the retreating Russians, but the damages were far lesser than in the disorganised retreat from Osijek.
On the 22nd day the Turkish troops had taken Szeged and dug in, they had to hold off two counter attacks. Pecs was taken on the 23rd. On the 25th, the Turkish troops were reinforced with the Bulgarian 5th Army, which was army only in name, not in size.
In the North the 2nd Turkish Corps attacked Cluj-Napoca with the help of some Iraqi troops. The attack went well and the small Soviet corps retreated quickly. The city was taken on the 23rd and the follow-up attack was directed at Satu-Mare. The Turkish troops made good progress and reached Satu-Mare on the 26th of April. This attack was later viewed as a bad military blunder as it caused some of the most awful manpower losses in the whole Spring offensive. On the next day the Bulgarian 1st Rifle Corps reached Tulcea that had been left undefended. The day wasn’t marked by that but by the first major Soviet thrust against the Japanese alliance in Europe. The Soviets launched their 17th and 38th Guards Tank armies against the Turkish position in Satu-Mare. The attack came from every direction and involved some ten Soviet divisions, three of them armoured. The main thrust came from Debrecen, so the Japanese 17th Armoured Corps attacked there to ease off the pressure in Satu-Mare. The veterans in the armoured division never knew what they were going to experience during the following thirteen days when they started up their engines and drove the main roads up to the enemy lines in Debrecen.
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The Armoured jousts of Debrecen
A Japanese medium tank is camouflaged and waiting for prey. This tank is armed with a lighter 47mm tank gun, so it could penetrate the T-34 from closer ranges, but it was till employable against the weaker Soviet tanks.
The attack to Debrecen was very normal at first the enemy lines were penetrated easily on the 28th and the Motorised infantry surged though the breaches. The whole Soviet line was dislodged on the 29th when the 17th Armoured Corps reached Debrecen. Then the hell broke loose, five Soviet armoured divisions decided to force the Japanese back. The Soviet armour drove through the open plains in huge wedges, sometimes even the size of one hundred tanks. The Japanese had no time to dig in so they attacked the Soviets with their own. All airplanes that could be scrounged were used in close support and the airplanes claimed some two hundred Soviet tanks until the evening of the 30th of April. The tank battles in the plains around Debrecen, furiously defended by the just arrived Bulgarian 5th army grew to a massive scale on the morning of the 30th. Over one thousand tanks were in action on that day. The Japanese had some of the new Type 5 Chi-Re tanks, which were armed with the feared 88mm high velocity tank gun. The gun could penetrate the more common Soviet tanks like T-34 from the frontal armour from two kilometres and the open plains gave the Japanese the maximum use of this. The most used tactic during the day was to hide a company of tanks on the edge of a small forested area, camouflage them well and wait for the Soviet armour the get in range. The Soviets lost approximately four hundred tanks during that day, the Japanese lost only one hundred. On the evening of the 30th of April, the commander of the attack, Georgi Zhukov, committed his last reserves, of three mechanised divisions and three divisions of infantry that were of lesser quality, the Japanese situation became unbearable and the Japanese started a fighting retreat to Arad. This was unnecessary, as Stalin ordered the operations to halt on the morning of the 1st of May. The rearguard 5th Army with the Turkish divisions of the 3rd Turkish Corps was surprised of their easy victory.
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