WW2 Japan's White Soldiers

[Music] in a previous video I told the history of Nazi Germany's most exotic military unit the Turkestan legion recruited from Central Asian peoples in what is now was Becca Stan Kazakhstan and so on this got me thinking if the Germans used agents to their ally the Japanese use any Caucasians the answer is surprisingly an emphatic yes it sounds like an incredible almost unbelievable claim but I'm deadly serious during World War two Japan had a brigade composed almost entirely of Europeans how this came to be is an extraordinary story considering the violent xenophobia the Imperial Japanese Army - all Caucasians that in encountered in the war but it is nonetheless true Japan like Germany was prepared to look the other way regarding questions of race when it was militarily expedient how Europeans ended up in the service of the Imperial Japanese Army is relatively simple to answer they were from one national group that literally had nowhere else to go they were refugees and the remains of a once proud military that had been swept away by revolution the white Russians when I say White Russian I am NOT referring to race but to politics following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 Russia withdrew from World War One and a civil war broke out across its vast empire on the one side with the Bolsheviks the red Russians handle the other elements of the old Russian army still loyal to tsar nicholas ii and the Romanov dynasty these were the white Russians although the whites receive military support from Britain and the United States ultimately they failed to depose Lenin and the Bolsheviks the Czar and his entire family were murdered in 1918 unable to remain in Russia tens of thousands fled via Siberia to China becoming stateless refugees they settled in Shanghai and other cities in the East Coast where aristocratic former Czarist officers sold their military skills to local Chinese warlords as China itself was unstable and riven by corruption and regional conflicts the Europeans who controlled several treaty ports along the Chinese coast also made use of Russian soldiers for example the city of Shanghai ruled by a council of foreign powers led by Britain and the United States created a Russian regiment as part of the Shanghai volunteer corps the SVC the local Defense Force in the city of three and a half million Chinese was another city a foreign settlement made up of the French Concession and the well known international settlement they're the various powers including Great Britain the United States and Japan at station 2 catchments of troops Japanese British Frankie and our own United States Marines to assist the police of the Shanghai Municipal Council in the preservation of peace and order and to protect the boundaries of the International Settlement the SVC was founded by the Municipal Council and contained British uniform troops organized international companies there were a couple of British infantry companies the shanghai scottish company and an american company among others the shanghai russian regiment was an adjunct to the Shanghai Municipal Police well trained and well disciplined military force used to control the local population when Japan took over Manchuria in 1931 the coal-rich northern provinces of China they established a garrison force to control the local population they're called the Guangdong army there was a sizeable refugee white Russian community in the region centered on the city of Harbin many Russians fought for Japanese local militias earning a good reputation for military proficiency and bravery the Japanese realized that they could use the Russians in helping them to defend their new border with the Soviet Union that ran along the Manchuria Mongolia frontier it is no exaggeration to state that Japan in the early to mid 1930s viewed the USSR as its greatest foe not Britain or America and they worried that Stalin might invade Manchuria for its resources as they themselves had done in 1932 the Japanese to attempt to legalize their conquests invited the former emperor of China puyi who had lost his throne in revolution in 1912 to become emperor of Manchuria puyi was chosen by the Japanese because the last imperial dynasty of China the Ching were themselves Manchurian and had seized power from the Ming Dynasty in 1644 but hui soon found that he was nothing more than a Japanese puppet and was powerless to stop the Japanese from ruthlessly and violently exploiting Manchurian people and resources the Japanese changed the name of Manchuria to the empire of Mantua creating an army and a police force in 1938 the Japanese decided to centralize their many Russian volunteers into a new unit the Asano brigade major makoto Asano of the Japanese army was given the task of creating the White Russian unit he would become part of the new Manchurian puppet state military the Imperial Manchu Kuo Army a 100,000 strong force of variable quality and reliability the Asano Brigade which would eventually number some three and a half thousand White Russians was probably the best part of the Manchu Kuo Army in order to assist with the recruitment the Japanese approached the former Zara's general Vladimir Cosmin head of the Russian fascist Party in China to raise units himself in this way many young Russian recruits joined the recruits had mostly been born in China to Russian refugee parents and most were not old enough to have served in the Tsar's army they wore Japanese type 98 infantry uniforms their caps adorned with the multicolored badge of Mantua and they were issued with Japanese type 32 cavalry sabers Arisaka 38 rifles and type 14 Nambu pistols headquartered at virgin near the sun gauri river the Asano brigades job was infiltration and sabotage as well as more mundane patrolling and guarding members often dressed in red army uniforms and crossed into Soviet territory to spy and sometimes blow things up or kill Soviet troops the border incidents came to a dramatic head in 1939 where the Imperial Japanese army attempted to assert domination over the Manchuria mongolia border region fighting broke out along the Kalka River in Mongolia and of the Battle of Nam on Han general Yokosuka decisively defeated a Japanese army ending Japanese aggression in the [Music] a unit of 250 White Russians from the azano brigade fought in the campaign during world war ii the azano brigade remain part of the guangdong army spying on the soviets and combating communist guerrillas in 1943 the unit's name has changed becoming the Russian military unit of the Imperial Manchu crow army and from 1944 cossack colonel Smirnov was in command at war's end the unit numbered four thousand men d-day for the white Russians came in August 1945 when Stalin has per agreements reached with the United States and Britain struck in the Far East operation autumn storm witnessed the battle-hardened Red Army invade Mantua and Korea the depleted Japanese Guangdong Army unable to stop the blitzkrieg the Soviet invasion placed the white Russians in a very difficult position it is said that some swapped sides of the last minute and cooperated with Soviet interior troops from the NKVD some of whom had been parachuted behind Japanese lines in return for immunity from arrest however the White Russians were tricked and later arrested and punished the officers facing show trials in Siberia however credible witnesses have also shown that the Japanese turned on the white Russians at the end of the war had the city of Harbin Japanese troops fearful of the Russians loyalties marched a large disarmed unit out of the city and then shot or bayonetted to death all its members those members of the Asano Brigade who survived the battles were then swept up by the Soviets and disappeared into the gulag system largely never to be seen again so ended the story of Japan's white soldiers a refugee army of divided loyalties stuck in an Asia in turmoil and conflict thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also visit my new audio group channel wall stories with mark Felton you can also help to support both of my channels at PayPal and patreon details in the description box below [Music]

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 1,375,192

Rating: 4.9463239 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, China, Manchuria, Manchukuo, Japanese Army, Pu Yi, Qing Dynasty, White Russians

Id: JvgBicIU9mo

Length: 10min 26sec (626 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 04 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/jisx0208-1983]

In addition to the Russian refugee quasi-mercenaries mentioned in this video, there were other white soldiers who were drafted, being born in Japan or naturalized. Here's one:

https://www.turning-japanese.info/2016/01/harris.html

(This guy's son, until a few years ago, was a DJ on Tokyo's biggest FM pop radio station)

[u/DoaraChan]

related to 1:10: Introducing the most famous sumo wrestler in Showa period, Taiho Koki and one of the legendary pitcher of Tokyo Giants' history, スタルヒン Starffin.

[u/mixAlottaFagina]

So there were weebs back then too?