Big Week

Who sank the Japanese Fleet? I, said the Russian navy. With my Amur River Flotilla I sank the Japanese Fleet.

Writing in Pravda on Russian Navy Day last week, Soviet Admiral I. S. Yumashev gave the following account of the victory: "We faced the fresh, elite Kwantung Army and considerable Japanese naval forces based on Korea and the West Coast of Japan . . . The [Soviet] Pacific Fleet and the Amur Flotilla began a resolute offensive which ended in the complete routing of the enemy . . . We recovered Southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, which had always belonged to Russia,* and the Soviet forces entered Port Arthur. The Japanese beast of prey was forced to his knees; imperialist Japan capitulated."

Rear Admiral N. M. Kulakov celebrated Navy Day by claiming that Russians had invented the torpedo, the ironclad, the submarine, the minelayer and the minesweeper.

* Admiral Yumashev was wrong on two counts: the islands had not "always belonged to Russia," and Russian forces did not win the Kuriles from the Japanese armed forces; Russia got the Kuriles (after VJ-day) in accordance with one of the Yalta deals.

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