"60th anniversary of Kurily islands operation of 1945" Topic

Kurily islands assault operation started on 17th of August, 1945 and ended on September, 2. Islands were heavily fortified (at least by Japanese standards, with more than 60000 troops garrisoned there. Some of the installations were never fully explored (or at least the results of the investigations are not in public domain). It seems that there was a base to fuel German submarines, some bacteorological weapons labs and probably even some installations used in never-finished Japanese nuclear program.
There's an interesting compilation of pics here, I've learned quite a few things – like Soviet Army still using ATR in 1945 (seems logical against Japanese tanks).
link

Edit: actually it is 70th anniversary, my finger slipped ;)

Nice

I wish I could read the captions

John T

well if there's some captions that you're VERY interested in, I can translate them for you ;)

Great pics, thanks for sharing!

It seems that 16 LC were received by lend-lease, and some were reworked Soviet transports.
There's some text on the operation itself, if you're familiar with Google translate by now…
link

Very pretty island, and though I tend to be called weird for this, I find the ruined bunkers and rusting equipment add to the setting (historical implications of the equipment aside).

Very interesting. Thanks.

Many of the craft used in the operations against the Kuril Islands were provided by the U.S. Lend Lease program.

The largest transfer of naval craft in history was Operation Hula, which brought something like 149 U.S. naval craft -- amphibious warfare craft, escort and patrol craft, and naval transports, to Cold Bay, Alaska, where Soviet crews were trained in their operation and then sailed them under Soviet flag to Siberian bases.

(U.S.N. LCI(L)'s lowering flags as they decomission, in preparation for hand-over to the Soviets in Cold Bay, Alaska, in June of 1945)

The operational ramp-up began in January of 1945, and remained active through early September of 1945.

Those who suggest that the US dropped the A-bombs on Japan mostly to scare off Stalin fail to recognize that the U.S. was going to extraordinary levels to ensure that the Soviets had all the capabilities they needed for conducting amphibious warfare against the Empire of Japan. Far from trying to keep the Soviets OUT of the war against Japan, we very much wanted the Soviets IN the war against Japan!

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Next set of pictures – from Shumshu island – from the expedition, sent for recovery of fallen soldiers, both Soviet and Japanese.
Warning: some pics are with human bones/remnants…
link

Dear Barin,
The pic of the LCI landing horses is priceless.
It is interesting that the Russians did not change her pennant number…. Better things to do I suppose:

Cheers,
Bertie