How it was №1 27.11.2002 (2002)

Video chronicle: The original version of the song "Three Tankists" is played, performed for the first time in the film "Tractor Drivers", filmed based on real events of 1939. Performed by Nikolai Kryuchkov.

The program was prepared for the 70th anniversary of the events when in 1932 the Japanese army, having occupied Manchuria and founded the state of Manchogo there, moved close to the eastern borders of the USSR. Video chronicle: Panorama of the hills of Manchuria.

Battles of 1939. Bank of the Khalkhin-Gol River.

Soldiers look through binoculars.

Infantry divisions exchange fire.

On May 11, Japanese units of the Kwantung Army entered the territory of Mongolia, pushing the border troops beyond Khalkhin-Gol.

Nikolai Ganin talks about the presence of Soviet military units in Mongolia.

About Japan's long-term plans to attack the Soviet Union.

Georgy Pankratyev was in Mongolia from February 1939. He talks about installing the first radio antennas for the Mongolian army, which had no communications at that time.

According to Pankratyev, Soviet troops entered the battle on May 17. The reasons for Nikolay Feklenko's removal from command of the operation are given.

Georgy Zhukov was sent in his place.

Video chronicle: Georgy Zhukov in Mongolia.

The shore of Khalkhin Gol.

Enters the Headquarters.

Works on a map.

Anton Yakimenko talks about how they fought air battles with Japanese pilots, about the injury he received.

How he carried out the first landing in history without landing gear.

He explains why Soviet aviation suffered heavy losses at the beginning of the operation.

Video chronicle: The Kwantung Army on the Khalkhin Gol River crosses by boat, fording, transporting military equipment to the other bank.

They are conducting offensive operations.

Soviet troops pull up tanks to the landing site of the Japanese army.

The program's guests talk about the difficulties of fighting in the Tsagan area and disagree with some experts who accuse Georgy Zhukov of giving orders that resulted in heavy losses for the Soviet troops.

A fragment of a documentary film with an audio recording of Konstantin Simonov (in 1939, he worked as a war correspondent in the combat zone) reading poetry dedicated to the events of Khalkhin Gol.

Video footage: destroyed military equipment on the battlefield.

Nikolai Ganin talks about the feat of Commissar Mikhail Yuyukin, who carried out the first fiery ramming in the history of the Soviet Air Force.

Having ordered the crew of the damaged aircraft to eject, he directed his burning plane towards the enemy troop concentration.

Video chronicle: Soviet troops fighting in the Khalkhin Gol area.

Soldiers dig trenches.

They are reading the newspaper "Geroicheskaya Krasnoarmeyskaya" - issue #67 from August 1939 (large).

Headline: "To the attack!

For the Motherland, for Stalin!" Vasily Rubin and Nikolay Kravets talk about the general offensive of August 20-31, 1939. Video footage: military aircraft, tanks, Mongolian mounted cavalry.

The participants of the program talk about Japanese suicide bombers who were the first to use Molotov cocktails as a separate type of weapon against tanks.

The Soviet army took retaliatory action.

Vasily Rudnev describes the appearance of the first analogue of the Soviet flamethrower (a hose was attached to the tank, into which gasoline was fed under pressure and ignited), the original purpose of which was to "burn out" Japanese "suicide bombers" who dug themselves in trenches along the route of Soviet tanks and threw their bottles at passing combat vehicles.

Participants in the program express the opinion that the "lesson of Khalkhin Gol" received in 1939 predetermined the decision of the Japanese government to refuse to open a second front after its ally Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941. Veterans of Khalkhin Gol agree that the Soviet side forgot about its heroes.

This date is practically not covered in Russia or in the former USSR countries.

Video footage: in Mongolia, local residents erected a monument to Soviet soldiers who died in the battles of 1939.