The Transbaikal Front () was a front formed on September 15, 1941, on the basis of the Transbaikal Military District. Initially, it included the 17th and 36th armies, but in August 1942 the 12th Air Army was added to the front, and, finally, in June–July 1945 the 39th and the 53rd armies, the 6th Guards Tank Army, and the Soviet Mongolian Cavalry Mechanized Group under Issa Pliyev were added. From September 1941 to January 1945, the Transbaikal Front sent to the Soviet fronts in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

about 300,000

personnel Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any othe ...

, 1,440 tanks, and 2,230 guns. On November 1, 1941, the Front included the 17th Army with the 36th and 57th Motor Rifle Divisions and the 61st Tank Division, and four air divisions (two fighter, one bomber, and the 84th Mixed Aviation Division), the 36th Army with the 94th Rifle Division, the 210th Rifle Division, the 51st Cavalry Division, and the 31st and 32nd Fortified Regions, the 111th Tank Division, two independent tank battalions, and the 89th Assault Aviation Division. Front troops included the 209th Rifle Division. On May 1, 1945, the Front included the 17th Army with the 85th Rifle Corps (36th and 57th Motor Rifle Divisions), the 284th Rifle Division, another rifle unit, significant numbers of artillery units, the 61st Tank Division, the 36th Army with the 86th Rifle Corps ( 94th and 298th Rifle Divisions), the 209th, 210th, 278th Rifle Divisions, and 31st Fortified Region, and the 2nd Rifle Corps ( 103rd, 275th, 292nd Rifle Divisions) plus at front level the 293rd Rifle Division, 59th Cavalry Division, and other units.

Soviet invasion of Manchuria

The armies and corps of the front under

Rodion Malinovsky Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky (; ; – 31 March 1967) was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union. He served as Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union from 1957 to 1967, during which he oversaw the strengthening of the Sov ...

participated in the

Soviet invasion of Manchuria The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, formally known as the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation or simply the Manchurian Operation () and sometimes Operation August Storm, began on 9 August 1945 with the Soviet Union, Soviet invasion of the Emp ...

during August 1945 defeating the

Kwantung Army The Kwantung Army (Japanese language, Japanese: 関東軍, ''Kantō-gun'') was a Armies of the Imperial Japanese Army, general army of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1919 to 1945. The Kwantung Army was formed in 1906 as a security force for th ...

of the

Imperial Japanese Army The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA; , ''Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun'', "Army of the Greater Japanese Empire") was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945. It played a central role in Japan’s rapid modernization during th ...

. The fighting had lasted for only about a week when Japan's Emperor

Hirohito , Posthumous name, posthumously honored as , was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, from 25 December 1926 until Death and state funeral of Hirohito, his death in 1989. He remains Japan's longest-reigni ...

read the

Gyokuon-hōsō The Hirohito surrender broadcast (, ), was a radio broadcast of surrender given by Hirohito, the emperor of Japan, on August 15, 1945. It announced to the Japanese people that the Japanese government had accepted the Potsdam Declaration, which ...

on August 15 and declared a ceasefire in the region on August 16. Soviet forces were already penetrating deep into Manchukuo by that time. They continued their largely unopposed advance into Manchukuo's territory, reaching

Mukden Shenyang,; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly known as Fengtian formerly known by its Manchu name Mukden, is a sub-provincial city in China and the provincial capital of Liaoning province. It is the province's most populous city with a p ...

Changchun Changchun is the capital and largest city of Jilin, Jilin Province, China, on the Songliao Plain. Changchun is administered as a , comprising seven districts, one county and three county-level cities. At the 2020 census of China, Changchun ha ...

, and

Qiqihar Qiqihar (also spelled Tsitsihar) is the second-largest city in the Heilongjiang province of China, in the west central part of the province. The built-up (or metro) area made up of Longsha, Tiefeng and Jianhua districts had 959,787 inhabitants, w ...

by August 20. At the same time, Mengjiang was invaded by the Red Army and its Mongol allies, with Guihua quickly taken. The Emperor of Manchukuo (and the former Emperor of China),

Puyi Puyi (7 February 190617 October 1967) was the final emperor of China, reigning as the eleventh monarch of the Qing dynasty from 1908 to 1912. When the Guangxu Emperor died without an heir, Empress Dowager Cixi picked his nephew Puyi, aged tw ...

, was captured by the Soviet Red Army and sent to Chita. After the operation on October 9, 1945, the Transbaikal Front was disbanded and reorganized into the Transbaikal-Amur Military District.

Commanders-in-chief of the front

* Mikhail Kovalyov (July 1941 – July 1945) *

(July–October 1945)

References

{{Fronts of the Red Army in World War II Soviet fronts Military units and formations disestablished in 1945