The middle and northern Kuriles can safely be called uninhabited. These foggy, volcanic islands are completely deserted. There is not a soul today on Harimkotan, Chirinkotan, Ekarma, Shiashkotan, Matua and Rasshua. And according to the stories of the locals, there is no one further south - on the islands of Ushishir, Ketoi and this unique island of Simushir. Hundreds of kilometers of the coasts of the Russian islands are completely uninhabited, although we have owned the Kuriles since 1945. There are no fishing bases here, therefore, fish are not caught in the adjacent waters.
There is no population here, so there are no hunters, geologists, miners, not even tourists. Even on the air - complete peace. Meanwhile, the Kuril Islands are teeming with living creatures - both water and land. Draw and draw. The Kuriles are also rich in history. Conventionally, it can be divided into 3 stages: early, Japanese and Soviet (Russian).
We more or less know the Soviet and early ones. But about the Japanese - impossibly little.
Therefore, the most mysterious and unexplored island of the Kuril chain is still a small island. Matua
Matua Island is relatively small - 11 kilometers long, 6.5 kilometers wide. The height of the highest point, Sarychev Peak (Fuyo Volcano), is 1485 meters. The island is located in the central part of the Kuril ridge, therefore it is significantly removed from the populated areas of Sakhalin and Kamchatka. There is no connection with the outside world. Yes, actually, and there is no need - the island is uninhabited.
The first mention of the island of Matua was found by Ivan Kozyrevsky, who was on the northernmost islands of Shumshu and Paramushir in 1711 and 1713 and collected a lot of information about the entire ridge. He called Matua the island of Motogo. The Cossack centurion Ivan Cherny, who reached Iturup in 1766-1769, called Matua the island of Mutov.
In his report, he wrote about him:
"Mutova is a hill on it, which, according to the announcement of the Kurils, burned terribly in recent years, and stones were scattered all over the island so that flying birds were killed in many numbers. The root was all burnt out and swept up by a stone."
Until the beginning of the 20th century, there was a permanent settlement of the Ainu. On the eve of World War II, the Japanese turned Matua - by the way, the Japanese themselves pronounce its name as Matsua-to - into a powerful fortress, into an unsinkable aircraft carrier that controlled the northwest Pacific Ocean. There was a large airfield with three long runways, allowing aircraft to be lifted in almost any wind direction. The strips were heated by thermal waters, and therefore could be used all year round. There are enough reasons to believe that there were some secret Japanese facilities on Matua. It is likely that these were laboratories for the development of chemical or bacteriological weapons. Submarines of the Third Reich came here, having made an almost round-the-world trip. The Americans repeatedly tried to destroy airfields and island facilities, losing a dozen aircraft and at least two submarines in battle.
Not only was the island securely protected by impregnable cliffs and high shores, but a whole network of various military fortifications was additionally built on it. Both the Japanese themselves and prisoners of war from China had to work hard on their construction. Fearing bombing and shelling from the sea, the Japanese dug deeper into the ground, and by the summer of 1945 there was no free space on Matua from all kinds of defensive fortifications in the form of ditches, trenches, trenches, dugouts, pillboxes and bunkers, lunettes, underground shelters and entire galleries . By this time, Matua Island, like many other Kuril Islands, had turned into a real fortress in the middle of the ocean, which was problematic to take. But the Russians were lucky enough to storm only one island, the northernmost in the Kuriles - Shumshu, the rest were taken with less blood, or even without a fight. In this row is the island-fortress of Matua. Its garrison laid down their arms in front of our troops on August 26-27, 1945. Since then, the island has become Russian, but to this day it continues to keep many Japanese secrets.
The ceremony of surrendering the soldiers of the 41st separate infantry regiment, which was part of the garrison of the island of Matua. Japanese officer - regiment commander, Colonel Ueda
After the surrender of Japan on August 14 and until the capture of the island by Soviet troops on August 27, 1945, the Japanese had enough time to hide and conserve all the most important and valuable island objects. Surprisingly, judging by the inventory of weapons and equipment captured on the island, the paratroopers did not find a single aircraft, tank or gun on Matua. For 3811 Japanese soldiers and officers who surrendered, only 2127 rifles turned out to be available. At the same time, pilots, sailors and gunners disappeared somewhere, and only construction battalion workers and support personnel were captured. Compare this with the trophies taken on the island of Shumshu, suddenly attacked on August 18, where there were more than 60 tanks alone.
Already after the Japanese were evacuated from Matua, and the Soviet military settled in their place, very strange events began to occur on the island: people disappeared, at night, light flickered on the slopes of the volcano, and out of nowhere our military appeared rare trophies. For example, collectible French cognac ...
After the war, the United States really wanted to get Matua for itself, but Truman did not accept Stalin's crafty offer to change it to one of the Aleutian Islands. Why? This will become clear if one finds quotations from the correspondence between Stalin and Truman on the surrender of Japan. According to a preliminary agreement, the Japanese had to capitulate in the Kuril Islands and the northern part of Hokkaido to the Soviet troops. But Truman "forgot" about this and in his order to General MacArthur, he stipulated the entire surrender of the Japanese only to American troops. Stalin promptly recalled this, but Truman began to break down and eventually expressed a desire "to have the rights to air bases for land and sea aircraft on one of the Kuril Islands, preferably in the central group." Only Matua was such an island with a ready, beautiful airfield. Stalin, in response, asked for one of the islands of the Aleutian ridge for his base. Since then, there have been no such issues. So, in 1944-45, the Americans, it seems, laid eyes on Matua and, by and large, spared his unique defensive structures.
Little is known about what happened on Matua in Soviet times. Civilians did not get here and were not allowed, but the military keep their secrets. Apparently, there was a military unit serving radars on the island. Broken installations and dumps of electronic equipment from the 60s and 70s are scattered throughout the island.
Until about 2001, a frontier post was maintained on Matua. Then it burned down, and the homeless border guards were evacuated to the mainland. There is no one on the island now.
There are no closed bays on Matua. If you look at the island on maps or aerial photography, it may seem that there is no good shelter for a ship near the island at all. In practice, a convenient and relatively safe place is the strait in the southwestern part of the island, covered from the west by the small island of Iwaki (Toporkovy). It was here that the Japanese raid was located, the berths were located. The two-story pillbox on the shore, the beach littered with the wreckage of ships and equipment, the remains of the pier and the skeleton of the Royo-maru transport sunk in the strait are reminiscent of the Japanese. Somewhere at the bottom of the strait lie other Japanese transports - Iwaki-maru and Hiburi-maru, torpedoed by the American submarine SS-233 Herring.
Not far from the Kotojärvi parking lot, at low tide, a huge diesel engine emerges from the water, overgrown with algae and shells. The heart of which of the ships that found their end in the strait, he was, is no longer possible to establish.
We stayed on Matua for several days, and each trip to the island was accompanied by amazing finds and discoveries. The runways of the airfield are well preserved. The concrete on them is still better than what is in Sheremetyevo. There are hundreds of rusty fuel barrels around the airfield. Mostly ours, but there are also German ones marked Kraftstoff Wehrmaght 200 Ltr. ("Fuel of the Wehrmacht, 200 liters"). The dates from 1939 to 1945 are clearly visible on the barrels. Surprisingly, among the German barrels there are also full ones.
Numerous defensive structures are openly available: bunkers, pillboxes, caponiers, equipped artillery positions, tens of kilometers of trenches and ditches. The alder thickets are full of iron rubbish, sometimes the most amazing. You can, for example, stumble upon a cast-iron steam plant, very reminiscent of a small steam locomotive. Cast-iron and ceramic pipes stick out of the ground in ditches and on coastal screes. What's this? Plumbing, sewerage or parts of the airfield heating system?
I walked along the coast - I came across a disguised water station with huge cast-iron mechanisms inside the casemates. Everything is relatively safe. In the back wall of another collapsed building, I found a small door. I opened a path behind it, after 200 meters there was a rock in the forest, I looked closely - and this is skillful masonry, behind which is the entrance to a stone tunnel that goes uphill. Unfortunately, littered with an explosion at the very beginning. Landfill nearby. A cast-iron Japanese “potbelly stove” sticks out of the ground, next to it are fragments of ceramics, on which the markings of the Japanese army are read, bottles and vials with hieroglyphs, cartridge cases, leather shoes ...
Even if you do not try too hard, it is easy to find many structures on the island, the purpose of which is not easy to explain. What kind of load, for example, could be carried by concrete bunkers with meter-long walls, thick steel doors and the same shutters? Barracks, command post, warehouse, bomb shelter? But why then so many windows with a complex system of steel shutters and locks, why an intricate network of air ducts? Maybe a lab? On the island, more than once, some complex devices with sensors, pressure gauges, centrifuges were found ... However, these devices were broken and thrown away by the Japanese themselves. Where is everything else? Technique, equipment, equipment, personal belongings of the garrison? What did German submarines bring or take away here? What did the Americans try to destroy or capture, what have ours already found?
Here is what he writes The crew of the catamaran "Kotojärvi" who explored this piece of Kuril land for several days:
There are many questions. We were able to get answers to some of them in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, having met with Evgeny Mikhailovich Vereshchaga, the permanent leader of the Kamchatka-Kuril expedition.
We contacted Vereshchaga from Moscow and talked about our plans. An experienced Kamchadal looked at the photos of the catamaran and expressed polite bewilderment: this is not the way to go in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Pacific Ocean. But he did not refuse to help - 120 liters of 92nd gasoline were waiting for us on Matua, without which it would have been difficult. We could meet at sea. Around the time when the Kotoyarvi was moving north, the Kamchatka-Kuril expedition with border guards was installing Orthodox crosses in the Kuriles. Near Ushishir Island, we got in touch with a border whaleboat, but could not approach it because of the rough sea and thick fog. We met already in Petropavlovsk - in the museum that Evgeny Vereshchaga, Irina Viter and their associates created as a result of the study of the Kuril Islands and, first of all, Matua.
- Why exactly Matua, because very close to Kamchatka there are Shumshu and Paramushir, larger and better known islands, recaptured from the Japanese in the same 1945?
For a very long time, Matua was completely inaccessible. The opportunity to get there appeared only in 2001, when the outpost burned down and the border guards left. This year we have already completed the 14th expedition, but even now the island shows us only one hundredth of its secrets. Although the conclusion is unequivocal: the island was mothballed by the Japanese garrison before surrendering to Soviet troops.
Did they have time for this?
On August 18, the Kuril landing operation began. Information about this passed through all the Kuril Islands, naturally, on Matua they learned about the start of hostilities by the USSR. On August 23, the Japanese garrison capitulated to Shumshu and Paramushir. And on August 25, the Matua garrison, led by commander Colonel Ledo, surrendered. However, we know from Japanese sources that since February 1945, Ketsu's plan was implemented in Japan, according to which it was necessary to take out everything that was possible from the Kuril Islands, and what could not be taken out, then mothballed, that is, hidden. Equipment, machinery, raw materials ... The country's leadership took such actions due to the fact that there was a forecast about the imminent surrender of Nazi Germany, Japan's main ally. In February-March 1945, the Ketsu plan was put into effect on Matua. Everything that could not be taken out was hidden. And what could not be hidden was destroyed. We found a large amount of burnt equipment, and not just burnt, but burnt and buried 2 meters. Small parts were burned in barrels at high temperatures. Everything there was scorched and melted. Everything was destroyed very carefully. But we assume that especially valuable things were well hidden. After all, it is known how the Japanese acted in such cases in the southern islands, in the same Philippines, for example. According to our assumptions, about 10-15 thousand people left the island before the surrender. And those who surrendered were the so-called funeral brigade, which conserved the island and hid everything.
- But in February 1945, and even more so later, it was very difficult for the Japanese to evacuate such a large and complex military facility as the island of Matua. Maybe they drowned everything in the ocean?
The divers who participated in the expedition examined the shores, including a secret pier. Apart from a few pieces of iron and American shells that were fired at the island, there is nothing there.
- And why was this rather small island, which does not have a convenient bay, so important for the Japanese?
We believe that Matua was built as a powerful reserve base, which was to become a springboard for a possible retreat from the northern islands. Shumshu and Paramushir are the tip of the sword directed at Kamchatka. The structures on these islands are of purely military importance. Nothing exotic, but on Matua we see paved roads, figured walls, decorative finishes, new technologies ... It can be seen that everything was very comfortable here, the blissful Japanese lived, there was a rear. As we learn from the interrogations of General Tsumi Fusaki, the commander of the northern group, the Matua garrison did not obey him and was controlled directly from the Hokkaido headquarters. This indicates some special status of the island of Matua. Japanese and our mentality are very different; on the island, on which it would seem impossible to create a naval base, the Japanese built it. Surprise and paradox are their know-how.
- In Germany, work was underway to create a new weapon. In particular, chemical and bacteriological. They probably did the same in Japan. There is a version that secret laboratories were located on Matua. What did your research show?
The Japanese were doing this. It is known that Detachment 731 was engaged in the development of chemical and bacteriological weapons in Harbin, on the territory of today's PRC. I was there two years ago and saw structures very similar to those on Matua. Of course, we heard all sorts of scary stories, tales, myths, so we try to observe safety precautions as much as possible. If we find something that could potentially be dangerous, then we never touch it. We mask it so that someone else does not find it, and examine it very carefully.
During the war, the island of Matua and its pilots carried a special, strategic mission to protect the base on about. Simushir. And, if it were not for the surrender of Japan, announced by Emperor Hirohito on August 14 and forcing many Japanese island garrisons to surrender without a fight, it is not known how long our landing forces would have stormed Matua, how much blood would have been shed on both sides, especially from the advancing. I think that the use of atomic bombs by the Americans played a significant role in the surrender. A demonstration of overwhelming power, which even the garrisons of these islands would not have resisted, also did its job.
It seems that the island was a kind of transshipment, rear base between the islands of the Kuril chain and Japan. Reserve stocks of fuel, food, equipment were located on the island.
- I saw some chemical flasks, other glass-blown vessels ...
Of course, we also found them. But we did not carry out special excavations. Everywhere in the world there are safety standards. If warehouses of dangerous chemicals or bacteria must be hidden at a depth of 20 meters, it is natural that they are there. In this sense, Matua is safe. Our garrisons have been here for 55 years, and nothing bad has happened.
- What evidence is there that mothballed objects are hidden inside the island?
We found underground communications, 100-200-300 meters of corridors cut in basalt, trimmed with wood, there are many different rooms inside, stoves for cooking and heating ... This is the so-called underground city object. And this is only that part of it that we discovered by accident. There was a scree, an entrance was formed, and we were able to climb through. After earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, more and more objects are accidentally discovered. But we find only that which is not very disguised.
You can take for example the island of Iwo Jima, which everyone has probably heard of. Its garrison consisted of 22 thousand people. The Americans stormed it for three months. The operation involved about 200 thousand soldiers, hundreds of ships, it was only bombed for a whole month ... So, Iwo Jima is three times smaller than Matua. And on Matua, when ours arrived there, not a single plane, not a single tank, not a single gun. And the huge US interest in this island. All this suggests that the main facilities were mothballed by the state resource. I mean the Ketsu plan or something similar. Everything was done by specialists, everything was purposefully disguised, put into storage, then to be taken away, clogged, exploded. With the resources we have, it is very difficult to open what was hidden by the resources of the whole state.
The northern part of the island of Matua is occupied by a mountain range, which is crowned by Sarychev Peak (Fuyo Volcano). The approaches and slopes are densely overgrown with impenetrable alder dwarfs, fresh slag screes begin higher with a steepness of 60-70 degrees. The volcano is alive: the last eruption occurred just two years ago.
We continue our conversation with Evgeny Vereshchaga, the leader of the Kamchatka-Kuril expedition, who has been trying to penetrate the secrets of the island for almost 10 years.
What is the uniqueness of the structures on Matua, in particular the airfield? What we have seen is amazing. After 70 years, the coating is absolutely usable. And what was the airfield under the Japanese?
There were three lanes with asphalt concrete pavement. One - 400 meters, there were four metal hangars on it and taxiing was going on a large strip about 2 kilometers long. Another lane - 1.5 kilometers. The width of the strips is 70 meters, along the edges there are gutters for water flow. Under the coating - laid pipes. Those who served here say that until 1985 the airfield was heated with thermal waters.
It turns out a contradiction: on the one hand, the airfield, and on the other - laboratories. But the very presence of a huge airfield would unmask secret objects. What is primary anyway? Did the airfield serve some important infrastructure or were all these facilities built to serve the airfield?
The Japanese began to explore the island a long time ago. In 1923, there was already the settlement of Matsua-mura. If we imagine that the construction began in the 30s, then it was the interior of Japan and there was hardly any need to hide the work. And then the war began and the situation changed. In American photographs from the war, the airfield is practically invisible from the air. Everything was covered with camouflage nets. Remnants of this disguise are still preserved. We believe that in addition to the airfield, there was some kind of production here. Factories, stocks of raw materials…
It is known that Japanese submarines reached Germany. Barrels of German fuel found on the island may indicate that the Germans also came here. After May 1945, many German submarines simply disappeared. Material values, treasures, documents also disappeared. Later, the crew members of these submarines were announced in different parts of the world. You have found underwater mooring walls, tunnels. Could the Germans deliver something to their allies on Matua?
We consider this possibility quite real. Why, for example, the same Amber Room could not be taken to one of the distant and hard-to-reach islands, and even to the allies? Fantastic version, of course. But it has the right to exist. In terms of communication, the island is so developed that you can hide anything on it. There was no information leak at all. Any cargo that was brought in was kept here in complete secrecy, information could not get away. The Japanese are still silent. The head of the garrison, Colonel Ledo, died in 1985 without leaving any memoirs. Until 2000, the Matua Veterans Society officially existed in Japan. On the island of Iwo Jima, out of a 20,000-strong garrison, only 200 people were captured, and even those were wounded. Japanese society does not perceive them, considers them outcasts, because they surrendered instead of dying for the emperor. And on Matua, 3811 people surrendered, and society excuses them. Why? So that was their mission.
After Russia removed its outpost from Matua, the island was left unattended. Could, say, the same Japanese come here at that time to take something from the island? Is it in principle possible?
If the Japanese faced such a task, then there were opportunities for this. At least Japanese planes in the Matua area were hit more than once.
Almost all ground military facilities have a single connecting underground gallery. Almost everywhere along the upper line of defense there is a narrow-gauge railway, along which trolleys went for a centralized supply of ammunition. Also on the island there are anti-tank ditches, the coastline throughout - in trenches and anti-personnel barriers.
All pillboxes are arranged in a certain sequence for the effective use of crossfire. All pillboxes are in excellent condition, with glass in armored doors and perfectly preserved finishes on the walls and ceiling (something like fiberboard, only from a mixture of seaweed and cement).
There are a lot of secrets here, and one of them is the possible work of the Japanese in the Kuriles on chemical and bacteriological weapons. Submarines and raiders of the Wehrmacht came to the Kuriles, this can be indirectly confirmed even by empty German barrels of those years that are found on Matua.
The airfield is located in such a way that the winds that dominate Matua (east or southwest) could not interfere with either takeoff or landing of aircraft. If the wind suddenly changes - there is a third lane, departing from the first at 145 degrees. Two parallel strips 1570 meters long and 35 meters wide are concreted. Moreover, the quality of concrete is still impressive today: there are practically no cracks on it. It should be noted one very interesting detail that immediately catches the eye: the take-off fields were heated by local thermal water. It was brought along a special concreted ditch (gutter) from the deposit, which was apparently located somewhere on the slope of the Sarychev volcano. The groove runs between two parallel runways, and pipes are laid under each of these runways - water circulates through them. And so - for the entire length, after which the water went under the third lane, and then turned back. Thus, in winter, the Japanese had no problems with snow removal on the runways - they were always clean.
According to the foundations of the barracks, preserved near the airfield, it can be judged that officers lived here. Everyone has their own little room, a narrow corridor. Above the foundation rises the preserved chimney and the stove itself, which was used to heat the bath. The Japanese bath is a communal pool with stone seats on the sides. They went into it, sat down and rinsed for their pleasure.
The airfield was the real pride of the commander of the island garrison, Colonel Ueda and all senior officers, although it was he who, being strategic for the Kuriles, like flies, attracted American bombers. They hardly bombed other targets on Matua, but they plowed up the runways so thoroughly that it took a long time to repair them.
This can be seen in the photo by the numerous patches in the concrete. But what quality patches! (Barrels are from our time.)
The Kuril Islands were bombed by pilots of the 28th group of long-range bombers, which was located in Alaska. This happened from April 1944 to August 1945, until the USSR declared war on Japan. Mostly B-24 and B-25 aircraft were used. The main purpose of the bombing was to draw off part of the Japanese forces, including aviation, from the main American strikes. I must say that the Americans succeeded: if in 1943 Japan kept a total of 262 aircraft in Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands, then in the summer of 1944 there were already about 500 of them. only 18 fighters on Paramushir and 12 naval bombers on Shumshu.
It's the same with people. If until 1943 there were a total of 14-15 thousand people in the Kuriles, then at the end of the year there were already 41 thousand, and in 1945 there were 27 thousand. During raids on the Kuriles, including the island of Matua, the Americans took a big risk because of the long range. There are different opinions about their use of "jump" bases, but I'm not talking about that. Only over Matua were shot down 50 American aircraft with crews of several people. This suggests that the Japanese fought very skillfully and were ready for defense. Yet the Americans bombed the island selectively. Bombs fell mainly on runways and objects such as fuel and lubricants, while other structures were spared.
But since then, the island is full of the remains of rare military equipment, which, fortunately, turned out to be inaccessible to fans of ferrous metals.
The commandant on the island also had another pride - this is a huge hill with regular rounded outlines, towering above the surroundings and second only to the owner - Fuyo volcano. But Ueda preferred not to talk about this object, being proud of it silently, to himself, because in the hill there was a whole underground city with warehouses, housing, a hospital, and headquarters. This is a height of 124.8 meters, according to preliminary information, artificially created by the hands of the Japanese - in other words, bulk. Now all the entrances to the hill have been blown up, and only roads and careful stone finishing indicate that there was an important object here. Moreover, the stones are hewn and carefully fitted to each other. The cement between them gleamed like glass.
Interestingly.
3,795 Japanese soldiers and officers surrendered on the island. Trophies amounted to 2127 rifles, 81 light machine guns, 464 heavy machine guns and 98 grenade launchers. Strange, but among the listed trophies taken on Matua, there were no artillery pieces. Why? In general, there are many questions in the history of the landing of our paratroopers on Matua.
The Japanese garrison on the island of Matua, after the announcement of Japan's surrender, had plenty of time to resolve all issues either with the destruction of all military equipment there, or very professionally hide it just in case. The only thing the Japanese could do was to drown the equipment and secret equipment in the sea, or hide it underground, blowing up the paths to the underground warehouses. Until now, on the island there are disguised units and assemblies of military equipment, strange numbered rods with threads, the purpose of which can only be guessed at. Exploring the island, you can find many things and objects belonging to Japanese soldiers.
Imperial Vase Soldier's Token
Moteta Hirohito in 10 sen Razor bowl
... In the late 1970s, three border guards disappeared here. The sergeant and two enlisted men, out of curiosity, descended into the Japanese installations, and no one else saw them. Then they figured out that they were descending into one of the ventilation shafts of the round hill. Then an order was issued strictly forbidding any climbing on Japanese workings. By the way, because of this ban, many border guards who were on urgent duty on the islands did not leave the location of the unit for their entire service.
Laz, in which the border guards disappeared
Even on Matua there are bays artificially cut down by the Japanese for sheltering boats and submarine mini-boats. Above some bays there are underground shelters in the form of galleries. The crews of the ships could go there in case of an alarm. The ships themselves stood in bays under camouflage nets.
After the withdrawal of the Japanese army, a lot of ammunition remained on the island. They were taken to the airfield area, stacked and blown up.
This pillbox is the most famous on Matua. They say that this is the only pillbox that is not connected by an underground passage to the general underground system of the island. It has no underground outlet at all. Therefore, our border guards called it a "suicide pillbox."
The clue to the island of Matua is waiting for its researchers. The fact that everything is preserved there, as the Japanese left, is a rarity. But, again, the situation with the protection of the Russian maritime borders under Yeltsin was such that foreigners could easily enter and live illegally on the islands for years, and no one could find them. And when discovered, it was impossible to get them - our ships did not have fuel, on which in those years a bunch of swindlers made their fabulous fortunes, and the ships could not go to sea. The border guards only gritted their teeth from impotence. In those shameful, accursed years, everything could be taken out of the foggy Kuriles, everything. Or maybe they took it out. Who knows…
The Zvezda TV channel made a documentary film Matua Island about the research expedition of the Russian Geographical Society and the Russian Ministry of Defense. Experts went to the island back in 2016 and for many months collected materials about its natural, historical and cultural heritage. Why exactly Matua was interested in the Russian Geographical Society and what secrets the island keeps - in the material "360".
From no man's island to mothballed military base
Matua Island is part of the middle group of the Great Kuril Ridge and belongs to the Sakhalin Region. However, this was not always the case. The original population of Matua is considered to be the Ainu, the most ancient people of the Japanese islands. In his language, the island is called "hell mouth".
For a long time, Matua existed on its own, and only in the 17th century did the first expeditions set off for the Kuriles. The Japanese, Russians and Dutch visited there and even declared the land the property of their East India Company.
By 1736, the Ainu converted to Orthodoxy and became Russian subjects, paying the inhabitants of Kamchatka yasak - a tax in kind in the form of furs, livestock and other items. Russian Cossacks regularly visited the island, and the first scientific expedition arrived at Matua in 1813. The population of the island has always been small: in 1831, only 15 inhabitants were counted on Matua, although at that time the census took into account only adult men. In 1855, the Russian Empire officially received the right to the island, but 20 years later Matua was under the rule of Japan - that was the price for Sakhalin.
Shortly before World War II, the island became the main stronghold of the Kuril chain. A fort appeared on Matua with anti-tank ditches, underground tunnels and trenches. An underground residence was created for the officers in the hill. After the outbreak of the war, Nazi Germany supplied fuel to Matua. The island became one of Japan's key naval bases. In August 1945, a garrison of 7.5 thousand people capitulated without firing a shot. Matua passed to the Soviet Union.
Until 1991, there was a military unit on the island. During this time, Matua was interested not only in historians, but also in politicians. US President Harry Truman, immediately after the end of World War II, offered Joseph Stalin to cede the island for a US naval base. Then the leader of the USSR either jokingly or seriously agreed to exchange Matua for one of the Aleutian Islands. Question closed.
The Russian border outpost was on Matua until 2000. Then the entire naval infrastructure of the island was mothballed, and the inhabitants left it. Now Matua is uninhabited. A small island with a length of 11 kilometers and a width of just over six still holds many secrets. Members of the Russian Geographical Society and employees of the Russian Ministry of Defense went to open them.
Secrets of Matua
In September last year, the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Sergei Avakyants, told reporters about the results of the first expedition to Matua. It started in April and lasted almost six months. The expedition was attended by Defense Minister and President of the Russian Geographical Society Sergei Shoigu.
Research on Matua took place for the first time since 1813. According to Avakyants, many underground structures were discovered on the island. Some of them definitely belonged to the fort, but the purpose of the rest has not yet been clarified.
Initially, there was an assumption that these were warehouses, but everything was taken out of them. And if these were warehouses, then any material traces would remain. Moreover, it was found that a high-voltage cable was suitable for these premises, and the power supply system made it possible to supply up to 3 thousand volts there. Naturally, this is an excess voltage for storage facilities. But it is obvious that some work was carried out in these structures.
Sergei Avakyants.
Among the unusual finds is a high-voltage cable on the slope of the Sarychev volcano. Nearby are the remains of an old road that leads to the mouth of the volcano. At the same time, members of the expedition noticed the entrances to underground structures from a helicopter. What exactly is in the thickness of the volcano is still unknown. The experts were also occupied with another question: why the garrison surrendered without a fight in August 1945. This behavior is not typical for Japanese soldiers, which indicates a well-thought-out plan. “We concluded that the garrison had fulfilled its main task - removed all traces and all facts that could lead to the disclosure of the true nature of the activities on this island,” the admiral explained.
Photo: RIA Novosti / Roman Denisov
Last year, the members of the expedition decided to study the collected materials, and a few months later return to Matua to uncover other secrets of the island. What else will surprise the Russians with a small piece of land that has gone from no man's land to a secret Japanese fort, time will tell.
In May of this year, the uninhabited island of Matua suddenly gained strategic status. The Ministry of Defense sent a powerful expedition to him - with equipment, professional search engines, doctors, biologists ... Officially, there are two goals. The first is to understand how the island is suitable for basing parts of the Pacific Fleet. The second is the revision of the inheritance left by the previous owners. After all, 70 years ago, Matua was also a strategic point - Japan. Between the lines, of course, one can also read the third goal of Russia: to designate its presence on the Pacific borders... Beach and trenches
We have been waiting for the weather on Iturup Island for almost a week. The sky was covered with a milky fog, and we read all about the few post-war expeditions to Matua. There were many questions. What did the Japanese do on this small volcanic island? Why did they surrender it to the Soviet troops without a fight? Where did their weapons and equipment go? Why was the island, which was not of key importance, directly subordinate to the imperial headquarters in Hokkaido? The Japanese are silent. The commander of the Matua garrison died without leaving behind any memoirs, unlike his colleagues...
And here we are in the helicopter. The pilot opened the cockpit door so that we could see the majestic Sarychev volcano surging onto the helicopter. The island is small - only 11 kilometers long and 6.5 wide. Below, a rocky beach flashed, zigzags of full-length trenches, caponiers of coastal batteries, and, finally, the gray concrete of a Japanese airfield take-off.
The secret of fresh water
One of the discoverers of the island of Matua, the Cossack centurion Ivan Cherny, wrote that the island did not interest him in anything. There were no sources of fresh water on Matua - only streams with melted snow. Mice and foxes - the whole animal world. And there were few people - the Ainu tribe teetered on the brink of extinction. But in the late 30s, the Japanese military decided to turn the island into a fortress. Construction work went on around the clock for about three years. The northern part, occupied by the volcano, defended itself with the most difficult terrain. Everything else was turned inside out by the Japanese engineering services.
“I was shown American aerial photographs of 1943,” the expedition commander, Vice Admiral Andrey Ryabukhin, tells us. - Shooting was done in winter, there is a fairly high snow cover. And I noticed that all the white snow is in black dots. These are the pipes from the stoves in the dugouts, the holes have melted! 
The volume of fortification work shocked military historians of the 21st century. Behind the obsessed industriousness of the Japanese, they saw some kind of super-goal and mystery. The capitulation of the island without resistance only filled the fog. In the last days of August 45, the Matua garrison surrendered to the Soviet paratroopers without a fight. In the middle of the 20th century, an air defense unit stood on Matua, then there was a frontier post - it was removed in 2001, and the island again became uninhabited for as long as 15 years. But the history of, if not the mysterious, then the strange island of Matua has not yet been written to the end. It is on these days that blank spots are filled with new data, and fantasies are refuted or given a logical explanation. We wander along the coast to where several dozen fighters bite into the fat coastal land. The expedition is trying to find answers to the most important questions: how did the Matua garrison get fuel and water? The dominance of barrels on the island is a legacy of the Soviet period. There are also German barrels with the inscription "Wehrmacht". Some researchers have built dizzying theories about the cooperation of the Third Reich and Japan. But in fact, after the war, several million of these barrels remained, they were used in the national economy of the USSR. And the Japanese garrison, most likely, was supplied with fuel, pumping it from tankers. The mystery of fresh water has not yet been solved either. Near the shore, concrete tanks and a network of ceramic pipes, valves, and pumps have been preserved. On each unit there is a Japanese marking in hieroglyphs. How did the Japanese solve the water problem? As Andrei Ryabukhin put it, “we still do not understand exactly what flowed in and where and where it flowed from.”
Biologists confirm: there is a problem with water supply
“We found only three suitable sources,” Vadim Simakov, head of the sanitary and epidemiological group, told us. - And two have already been exhausted. The water is basically clean, but needs additional mineralization. Mostly flood, due to melted snow. The military brought a whole laboratory to the island. And not in vain.
“From the words of Japanese soldiers prisoners of war, it was possible to judge the presence of biological weapons here,” says Igor Volkov, a bacteriologist at the main center for sanitary and epidemiological supervision of the Ministry of Defense. - There were prerequisites. During the war, Japan actively worked with biological weapons. The famous Detachment 731 tested it on Soviet and Chinese prisoners of war. In Manchuria, they used many pathogens, but without much success. And on Matua, according to legend, there was either a warehouse of this detachment, or some kind of laboratory. But so far no traces of either have been found.
"Fox Holes"
Almost in front of our eyes, an excavator and a bulldozer cut off the slope of the Kruglyaya hill. On satellite images, it really looks perfectly round. On the Internet, you can find a lot of "evidence" that 54 floors of secret communications are hidden inside the hill. This is, of course, a myth. But a powerful power cable really leads uphill, which means that there is still something inside. 
The hill is surrounded by trenches. The Japanese dug them according to special standards: those designed for one soldier should be 120 cm deep. And if two, then 150 cm - the soldiers who met in the trench crawled over each other. The Japanese covered these ditches with branches and camouflage nets, and the soldiers remained invisible to the enemy ... The bucket rakes out cubic meters of earth until a crevice is shown.
It is immediately clear from the wooden spacers that the hole in the rock is the work of human hands. The entrance was blown up by the Japanese, through a narrow gap a flashlight snatches out a long corridor carved into the mountain in human height.
The officers of radiochemical protection were the first to examine the dungeon, taking air samples. The scouts and I waited on the street, cautiously looking at the vertical section of the hill. At first glance, the adit was ennobled - the ceiling was propped up by a miner's lining, the logs were fastened with standard forged staples. But the tree oozed water, although the drift itself was absolutely dry.
The chemists stayed inside the hill for about ten minutes and reported that everything was clean. And intelligence crawled into the dungeon. Ten meters from the entrance, the drift turned left, and everyone really hoped that it ended much further. One of the scouts returned for us:
We walk quietly, we speak in whispers. Don't look at the ceiling, you'll lose your appetite... On the ceiling of the drift, the underground trolls were playing Tetris, folding the crumbling stone into messy heaps that hung over their heads. And two cables snaked under their feet - telephone and power in an armored braid, designed, judging by the cross section, for voltages up to 3000 volts. Porcelain electrical insulators, coconut copra ropes, tin cans, pieces of cartridge zinc, and layers of black paper lay everywhere along the drift.
Ten meters from the blown-up entrance, the drift turned out to be intact, the support was vertical, and the ceiling was without cracks - we went out into a small hall in which the curtains intersected. We came one at a time, and the other two, a hundred meters later, ran into landslides.
“Most likely, they were also blown up,” says Vice Admiral Andrey Ryabukhin. - These drifts were ammunition depots. The standard Japanese fortification was used by them on many islands.
In the dead-end tunnel, where the last blow from the Japanese digger's pick was left on the vertical wall, the scouts were squatting and looking at something. In an oblong object, they did not immediately guess the cult Japanese thing - a katana. The sword just stood leaning against the wall. The wooden sheath flaked, but the blade survived. The wooden handle also survived. Japanese swords are easy to date, on the blade tang, under the handle, the master usually put his brand name, wrote the name or year of manufacture. We did not remove the pen in the dungeon - this is the task of museum workers. The only thing that we saw in the bright light of the lanterns was the remnants of stingray skin on the scabbard and hilt. 
Maybe the officer who left this katana was hoping... In the heavy air that stood motionless in the drift for seventy years, an episode from the last days of Matua's defense was woven: a Japanese officer leaves his family katana to return. Sappers lay charges, and hundreds of people descend from the hill to the coast, where the Soviet troops are waiting for the island to officially capitulate. VERBATIMFrom the protocol of interrogation of the commander of the 91st Infantry Division, Lieutenant General Tsutsumi Fusaki:“... Of the other islands of the Kuril chain, Fr. Matsuva, located in the center of the Kuril ridge and is an intermediate air base, as well as a base for parking ships. With the capture of this island, a good base for operations against Hokkaido can be created, and communications with the northern islands are also cut. The Americans were interested in this island, so Japan kept a lot of forces there and built a good defense. This island was defended by the 41st separate mixed regiment, which was directly subordinate to the headquarters of the 5th Front and had no connection with the 91st Infantry Division.
Original taken from atrizno in Secrets of the mysterious island of Matua in the Kuriles
Following up on a recent post
(from archive)
Original taken from masterok to the Mysterious Island of Matua in the Kuriles
The middle and northern Kuriles can safely be called uninhabited. These foggy, volcanic islands are completely deserted. There is not a soul today on Harimkotan, Chirinkotan, Ekarma, Shiashkotan, Matua and Rasshua. And according to the stories of the locals, there is no one further south - on the islands of Ushishir, Ketoi and this unique island of Simushir. Hundreds of kilometers of the coasts of the Russian islands are completely uninhabited, although we have owned the Kuriles since 1945. There are no fishing bases here, therefore, fish are not caught in the adjacent waters.
There is no population here, so there are no hunters, geologists, miners, not even tourists. Even on the air - complete peace. Meanwhile, the Kuril Islands are teeming with living creatures - both water and land. Draw and draw. The Kuriles are also rich in history. Conventionally, it can be divided into 3 stages: early, Japanese and Soviet (Russian).
We more or less know the Soviet and early ones. But about the Japanese - impossibly little.
Therefore, the most mysterious and unexplored island of the Kuril chain is still a small O. Matua
Matua Island is relatively small - 11 kilometers long, 6.5 kilometers wide. The height of the highest point, Sarychev Peak (Fuyo Volcano), is 1485 meters. The island is located in the central part of the Kuril ridge, therefore it is significantly removed from the populated areas of Sakhalin and Kamchatka. There is no connection with the outside world. Yes, actually, and there is no need - the island is uninhabited.
The first mention of the island of Matua was found by Ivan Kozyrevsky, who was on the northernmost islands of Shumshu and Paramushir in 1711 and 1713 and collected a lot of information about the entire ridge. He called Matua the island of Motogo. The Cossack centurion Ivan Cherny, who reached Iturup in 1766-1769, called Matua the island of Mutov.
In his report, he wrote about him:
"Mutova - there is a hill on it, which, according to the announcement of the Kurils, burned terribly in recent years, and stones were scattered all over the island so that many flying birds were killed by them. The root is all burned out and swept up by a stone".
Until the beginning of the 20th century, there was a permanent settlement of the Ainu. On the eve of World War II, the Japanese turned Matua - by the way, the Japanese themselves pronounce its name as Matsua-to - into a powerful fortress, into an unsinkable aircraft carrier that controlled the northwest Pacific Ocean. There was a large airfield with three long runways, allowing aircraft to be lifted in almost any wind direction. The strips were heated by thermal waters, and therefore could be used all year round. There are enough reasons to believe that there were some secret Japanese facilities on Matua. It is likely that these were laboratories for the development of chemical or bacteriological weapons. Submarines of the Third Reich came here, having made an almost round-the-world trip. The Americans repeatedly tried to destroy airfields and island facilities, losing a dozen aircraft and at least two submarines in battle.
Not only was the island securely protected by impregnable cliffs and high shores, but a whole network of various military fortifications was additionally built on it. Both the Japanese themselves and prisoners of war from China had to work hard on their construction. Fearing bombing and shelling from the sea, the Japanese dug deeper into the ground, and by the summer of 1945 there was no free space on Matua from all kinds of defensive fortifications in the form of ditches, trenches, trenches, dugouts, pillboxes and bunkers, lunettes, underground shelters and entire galleries . By this time, Matua Island, like many other Kuril Islands, had turned into a real fortress in the middle of the ocean, which was problematic to take. But the Russians were lucky enough to storm only one island, the northernmost in the Kuriles - Shumshu, the rest were taken with less blood, or even without a fight. In this row is the island-fortress of Matua. Its garrison laid down their arms in front of our troops on August 26-27, 1945. Since then, the island has become Russian, but to this day it continues to keep many Japanese secrets.
The ceremony of surrendering the soldiers of the 41st separate infantry regiment, which was part of the garrison of the island of Matua. Japanese officer - regiment commander, Colonel Ueda.
After the surrender of Japan on August 14 and until the capture of the island by Soviet troops on August 27, 1945, the Japanese had enough time to hide and conserve all the most important and valuable island objects. Surprisingly, judging by the inventory of weapons and equipment captured on the island, the paratroopers did not find a single aircraft, tank or gun on Matua. For 3811 Japanese soldiers and officers who surrendered, only 2127 rifles turned out to be available. At the same time, pilots, sailors and gunners disappeared somewhere, and only construction battalion workers and support personnel were captured. Compare this with the trophies taken on the island of Shumshu, suddenly attacked on August 18, where there were more than 60 tanks alone.
Already after the Japanese were evacuated from Matua, and the Soviet military settled in their place, very strange events began to occur on the island: people disappeared, at night, light flickered on the slopes of the volcano, and out of nowhere our military appeared rare trophies. For example, collectible French cognac ...
After the war, the United States really wanted to get Matua for itself, but Truman did not accept Stalin's crafty offer to change it to one of the Aleutian Islands. Why? This will become clear if one finds quotations from the correspondence between Stalin and Truman on the surrender of Japan. According to a preliminary agreement, the Japanese had to capitulate in the Kuril Islands and the northern part of Hokkaido to the Soviet troops. But Truman "forgot" about this and in his order to General MacArthur, he stipulated the entire surrender of the Japanese only to American troops. Stalin promptly recalled this, but Truman began to break down and eventually expressed a desire "to have the rights to air bases for land and sea aircraft on one of the Kuril Islands, preferably in the central group." Only Matua was such an island with a ready, beautiful airfield. Stalin, in response, asked for one of the islands of the Aleutian ridge for his base. Since then, there have been no such issues. So, in 1944-45, the Americans, it seems, laid eyes on Matua and, by and large, spared his unique defensive structures.
Little is known about what happened on Matua in Soviet times. Civilians did not get here and were not allowed, but the military keep their secrets. Apparently, there was a military unit serving radars on the island. Broken installations and dumps of electronic equipment from the 60s and 70s are scattered throughout the island.
Until about 2001, a frontier post was maintained on Matua. Then it burned down, and the homeless border guards were evacuated to the mainland. There is no one on the island now.
There are no closed bays on Matua. If you look at the island on maps or aerial photography, it may seem that there is no good shelter for a ship near the island at all. In practice, a convenient and relatively safe place is the strait in the southwestern part of the island, covered from the west by the small island of Iwaki (Toporkovy). It was here that the Japanese raid was located, the berths were located. The two-story pillbox on the shore, the beach littered with the wreckage of ships and equipment, the remains of the pier and the skeleton of the Royo-maru transport sunk in the strait are reminiscent of the Japanese. Somewhere at the bottom of the strait lie other Japanese transports - Iwaki-maru and Hiburi-maru, torpedoed by the American submarine SS-233 Herring.
Not far from the Kotojärvi parking lot, at low tide, a huge diesel engine emerges from the water, overgrown with algae and shells. The heart of which of the ships that found their end in the strait, he was, is no longer possible to establish.
We stayed on Matua for several days, and each trip to the island was accompanied by amazing finds and discoveries. The runways of the airfield are well preserved. The concrete on them is still better than what is in Sheremetyevo. There are hundreds of rusty fuel barrels around the airfield. Mostly ours, but there are also German ones marked Kraftstoff Wehrmaght 200 Ltr. ("Fuel of the Wehrmacht, 200 liters"). The dates from 1939 to 1945 are clearly visible on the barrels. Surprisingly, among the German barrels there are also full ones.
Numerous defensive structures are openly available: bunkers, pillboxes, caponiers, equipped artillery positions, tens of kilometers of trenches and ditches. The alder thickets are full of iron rubbish, sometimes the most amazing. You can, for example, stumble upon a cast-iron steam plant, very reminiscent of a small steam locomotive. Cast-iron and ceramic pipes stick out of the ground in ditches and on coastal screes. What's this? Plumbing, sewerage or parts of the airfield heating system?
I walked along the coast - I came across a disguised water station with huge cast-iron mechanisms inside the casemates. Everything is relatively safe. In the back wall of another collapsed building, I found a small door. I opened a path behind it, after 200 meters there was a rock in the forest, I looked closely - and this is skillful masonry, behind which is the entrance to a stone tunnel that goes uphill. Unfortunately, littered with an explosion at the very beginning. Landfill nearby. A cast-iron Japanese “potbelly stove” sticks out of the ground, next to it are fragments of ceramics, on which the markings of the Japanese army are read, bottles and vials with hieroglyphs, cartridge cases, leather shoes ...
Even if you do not try too hard, it is easy to find many structures on the island, the purpose of which is not easy to explain. What kind of load, for example, could be carried by concrete bunkers with meter-long walls, thick steel doors and the same shutters? Barracks, command post, warehouse, bomb shelter? But why then so many windows with a complex system of steel shutters and locks, why an intricate network of air ducts? Maybe a lab? On the island, more than once, some complex devices with sensors, pressure gauges, centrifuges were found ... However, these devices were broken and thrown away by the Japanese themselves. Where is everything else? Technique, equipment, equipment, personal belongings of the garrison? What did German submarines bring or take away here? What did the Americans try to destroy or capture, what have ours already found?
There are many questions. We were able to get answers to some of them in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, having met with Evgeny Mikhailovich Vereshchaga, the permanent leader of the Kamchatka-Kuril expedition.
We contacted Vereshchaga from Moscow and talked about our plans. An experienced Kamchadal looked at the photos of the catamaran and expressed polite bewilderment: this is not the way to go in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Pacific Ocean. But he did not refuse to help - 120 liters of 92nd gasoline were waiting for us on Matua, without which it would have been difficult. We could meet at sea. Around the time when the Kotoyarvi was moving north, the Kamchatka-Kuril expedition with border guards was installing Orthodox crosses in the Kuriles. Near Ushishir Island, we got in touch with a border whaleboat, but could not approach it because of the rough sea and thick fog. We met already in Petropavlovsk - in the museum that Evgeny Vereshchaga, Irina Viter and their associates created as a result of the study of the Kuril Islands and, first of all, Matua.
Why exactly Matua, because very close to Kamchatka there are Shumshu and Paramushir, larger and better known islands, recaptured from the Japanese in the same 1945?
For a very long time, Matua was completely inaccessible. The opportunity to get there appeared only in 2001, when the outpost burned down and the border guards left. This year we have already completed the 14th expedition, but even now the island shows us only one hundredth of its secrets. Although the conclusion is unequivocal: the island was mothballed by the Japanese garrison before surrendering to Soviet troops.
Did they have time for this?
On August 18, the Kuril landing operation began. Information about this passed through all the Kuril Islands, naturally, on Matua they learned about the start of hostilities by the USSR. On August 23, the Japanese garrison capitulated to Shumshu and Paramushir. And on August 25, the Matua garrison, led by commander Colonel Ledo, surrendered. However, we know from Japanese sources that since February 1945, Ketsu's plan was implemented in Japan, according to which it was necessary to take out everything that was possible from the Kuril Islands, and what could not be taken out, then mothballed, that is, hidden. Equipment, machinery, raw materials ... The country's leadership took such actions due to the fact that there was a forecast about the imminent surrender of Nazi Germany, Japan's main ally. In February-March 1945, the Ketsu plan was put into effect on Matua. Everything that could not be taken out was hidden. And what could not be hidden was destroyed. We found a large amount of burnt equipment, and not just burnt, but burnt and buried 2 meters. Small parts were burned in barrels at high temperatures. Everything there was scorched and melted. Everything was destroyed very carefully. But we assume that especially valuable things were well hidden. After all, it is known how the Japanese acted in such cases in the southern islands, in the same Philippines, for example. According to our assumptions, about 10-15 thousand people left the island before the surrender. And those who surrendered were the so-called funeral brigade, which conserved the island and hid everything.
But in February 1945, and even more so later, it was very difficult for the Japanese to evacuate such a large and complex military facility as the island of Matua. Maybe they drowned everything in the ocean?
The divers who participated in the expedition examined the shores, including a secret pier. Apart from a few pieces of iron and American shells that were fired at the island, there is nothing there.
And why was this rather small island, which does not have a convenient bay, so important to the Japanese?
We believe that Matua was built as a powerful reserve base, which was to become a springboard for a possible retreat from the northern islands. Shumshu and Paramushir are the tip of the sword directed at Kamchatka. The structures on these islands are of purely military importance. Nothing exotic, but on Matua we see paved roads, figured walls, decorative finishes, new technologies ... It can be seen that everything was very comfortable here, the blissful Japanese lived, there was a rear. As we learn from the interrogations of General Tsumi Fusaki, the commander of the northern group, the Matua garrison did not obey him and was controlled directly from the Hokkaido headquarters. This indicates some special status of the island of Matua. Japanese and our mentality are very different; on the island, on which it would seem impossible to create a naval base, the Japanese built it. Surprise and paradox are their know-how.
In Germany, work was underway to create a new weapon. In particular, chemical and bacteriological. They probably did the same in Japan. There is a version that secret laboratories were located on Matua. What did your research show?
The Japanese were doing this. It is known that Detachment 731 was engaged in the development of chemical and bacteriological weapons in Harbin, on the territory of today's PRC. I was there two years ago and saw structures very similar to those on Matua. Of course, we heard all sorts of scary stories, tales, myths, so we try to observe safety precautions as much as possible. If we find something that could potentially be dangerous, then we never touch it. We mask it so that someone else does not find it, and examine it very carefully.
During the war, the island of Matua and its pilots carried a special, strategic mission to protect the base on about. Simushir. And, if it were not for the surrender of Japan, announced by Emperor Hirohito on August 14 and forcing many Japanese island garrisons to surrender without a fight, it is not known how long our landing forces would have stormed Matua, how much blood would have been shed on both sides, especially from the advancing. I think that the use of atomic bombs by the Americans played a significant role in the surrender. A demonstration of overwhelming power, which even the garrisons of these islands would not have resisted, also did its job.
It seems that the island was a kind of transshipment, rear base between the islands of the Kuril chain and Japan. Reserve stocks of fuel, food, equipment were located on the island.
I saw some chemical flasks, other vessels blown out of glass...
Of course, we also found them. But we did not carry out special excavations. Everywhere in the world there are safety standards. If warehouses of dangerous chemicals or bacteria must be hidden at a depth of 20 meters, it is natural that they are there. In this sense, Matua is safe. Our garrisons have been here for 55 years, and nothing bad has happened.
What evidence is there that mothballed objects are hidden inside the island?
We found underground communications, 100-200-300 meters of corridors cut in basalt, trimmed with wood, there are many different rooms inside, stoves for cooking and heating ... This is the so-called underground city object. And this is only that part of it that we discovered by accident. There was a scree, an entrance was formed, and we were able to climb through. After earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, more and more objects are accidentally discovered. But we find only that which is not very disguised.
You can take for example the island of Iwo Jima, which everyone has probably heard of. Its garrison consisted of 22 thousand people. The Americans stormed it for three months. The operation involved about 200 thousand soldiers, hundreds of ships, it was only bombed for a whole month ... So, Iwo Jima is three times smaller than Matua. And on Matua, when ours arrived there, not a single plane, not a single tank, not a single gun. And the huge US interest in this island. All this suggests that the main facilities were mothballed by the state resource. I mean the Ketsu plan or something similar. Everything was done by specialists, everything was purposefully disguised, put into storage, then to be taken away, clogged, exploded. With the resources we have, it is very difficult to open what was hidden by the resources of the whole state.
The northern part of the island of Matua is occupied by a mountain range, which is crowned by Sarychev Peak (Fuyo Volcano). The approaches and slopes are densely overgrown with impenetrable alder dwarfs, fresh slag screes begin higher with a steepness of 60-70 degrees. The volcano is alive: the last eruption occurred just two years ago.
We continue our conversation with Evgeny Vereshchaga, the leader of the Kamchatka-Kuril expedition, who has been trying to penetrate the secrets of the island for almost 10 years.
What is the uniqueness of the structures on Matua, in particular the airfield? What we have seen is amazing. After 70 years, the coating is absolutely usable. And what was the airfield under the Japanese?
There were three lanes with asphalt concrete pavement. One - 400 meters, there were four metal hangars on it and taxiing was going on a large strip about 2 kilometers long. Another lane - 1.5 kilometers. The width of the strips is 70 meters, along the edges there are gutters for water flow. Under the coating - laid pipes. Those who served here say that until 1985 the airfield was heated with thermal waters.
It turns out a contradiction: on the one hand, the airfield, and on the other - laboratories. But the very presence of a huge airfield would unmask secret objects. What is primary anyway? Did the airfield serve some important infrastructure or were all these facilities built to serve the airfield?
The Japanese began to explore the island a long time ago. In 1923, there was already the settlement of Matsua-mura. If we imagine that the construction began in the 30s, then it was the interior of Japan and there was hardly any need to hide the work. And then the war began and the situation changed. In American photographs from the war, the airfield is practically invisible from the air. Everything was covered with camouflage nets. Remnants of this disguise are still preserved. We believe that in addition to the airfield, there was some kind of production here. Factories, stocks of raw materials…
It is known that Japanese submarines reached Germany. Barrels of German fuel found on the island may indicate that the Germans also came here. After May 1945, many German submarines simply disappeared. Material values, treasures, documents also disappeared. Later, the crew members of these submarines were announced in different parts of the world. You have found underwater mooring walls, tunnels. Could the Germans deliver something to their allies on Matua?
We consider this possibility quite real. Why, for example, the same Amber Room could not be taken to one of the distant and hard-to-reach islands, and even to the allies? Fantastic version, of course. But it has the right to exist. In terms of communication, the island is so developed that you can hide anything on it. There was no information leak at all. Any cargo that was brought in was kept here in complete secrecy, information could not get away. The Japanese are still silent. The head of the garrison, Colonel Ledo, died in 1985 without leaving any memoirs. Until 2000, the Matua Veterans Society officially existed in Japan. On the island of Iwo Jima, out of a 20,000-strong garrison, only 200 people were captured, and even those were wounded. Japanese society does not perceive them, considers them outcasts, because they surrendered instead of dying for the emperor. And on Matua, 3811 people surrendered, and society excuses them. Why? So that was their mission.
If the Japanese faced such a task, then there were opportunities for this. At least Japanese planes in the Matua area were hit more than once.
Almost all ground military facilities have a single connecting underground gallery. Almost everywhere along the upper line of defense there is a narrow-gauge railway, along which trolleys went for a centralized supply of ammunition. Also on the island there are anti-tank ditches, the coastline throughout - in trenches and anti-personnel barriers.
All pillboxes are arranged in a certain sequence for the effective use of crossfire. All pillboxes are in excellent condition, with glass in armored doors and perfectly preserved finishes on the walls and ceiling (something like fiberboard, only from a mixture of seaweed and cement).
There are a lot of secrets here, and one of them is the possible work of the Japanese in the Kuriles on chemical and bacteriological weapons. Submarines and raiders of the Wehrmacht came to the Kuriles, this can be indirectly confirmed even by empty German barrels of those years that are found on Matua.
The airfield is located in such a way that the winds that dominate Matua (east or southwest) could not interfere with either takeoff or landing of aircraft. If the wind suddenly changes - there is a third lane, departing from the first at 145 degrees. Two parallel strips 1570 meters long and 35 meters wide are concreted. Moreover, the quality of concrete is still impressive today: there are practically no cracks on it. It should be noted one very interesting detail that immediately catches the eye: the take-off fields were heated by local thermal water. It was brought along a special concreted ditch (gutter) from the deposit, which was apparently located somewhere on the slope of the Sarychev volcano. The groove runs between two parallel runways, and pipes are laid under each of these runways - water circulates through them. And so - for the entire length, after which the water went under the third lane, and then turned back. Thus, in winter, the Japanese had no problems with snow removal on the runways - they were always clean.
According to the foundations of the barracks, preserved near the airfield, it can be judged that officers lived here. Everyone has their own little room, a narrow corridor. Above the foundation rises the preserved chimney and the stove itself, which was used to heat the bath. The Japanese bath is a communal pool with stone seats on the sides. They went into it, sat down and rinsed for their pleasure.
The airfield was the real pride of the commander of the island garrison, Colonel Ueda and all senior officers, although it was he who, being strategic for the Kuriles, like flies, attracted American bombers. They hardly bombed other targets on Matua, but they plowed up the runways so thoroughly that it took a long time to repair them.
This can be seen in the photo by the numerous patches in the concrete. But what quality patches!
(Barrels are from our time.)
The Kuril Islands were bombed by pilots of the 28th group of long-range bombers, which was located in Alaska. This happened from April 1944 to August 1945, until the USSR declared war on Japan. Mostly B-24 and B-25 aircraft were used. The main purpose of the bombing was to draw off part of the Japanese forces, including aviation, from the main American strikes. I must say that the Americans succeeded: if in 1943 Japan kept a total of 262 aircraft in Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands, then in the summer of 1944 there were already about 500 of them. only 18 fighters on Paramushir and 12 naval bombers on Shumshu.
It's the same with people. If until 1943 there were a total of 14-15 thousand people in the Kuriles, then at the end of the year there were already 41 thousand, and in 1945 there were 27 thousand. During raids on the Kuriles, including the island of Matua, the Americans took a big risk because of the long range. There are different opinions about their use of "jump" bases, but I'm not talking about that. Only over Matua were shot down 50 American aircraft with crews of several people. This suggests that the Japanese fought very skillfully and were ready for defense. Yet the Americans bombed the island selectively. Bombs fell mainly on runways and objects such as fuel and lubricants, while other structures were spared.
But since then, the island is full of the remains of rare military equipment, which, fortunately, turned out to be inaccessible to fans of ferrous metals.
The commandant on the island also had another pride - this is a huge hill with regular rounded outlines, towering above the surroundings and second only to the owner - the volcano Fue. But Ueda preferred not to talk about this object, being proud of it silently, to himself, because in the hill there was a whole underground city with warehouses, housing, a hospital, and headquarters. This is a height of 124.8 meters, according to preliminary information, artificially created by the hands of the Japanese - in other words, bulk. Now all the entrances to the hill have been blown up, and only roads and careful stone finishing indicate that there was an important object here. Moreover, the stones are hewn and carefully fitted to each other. The cement between them gleamed like glass.
Interestingly.
3,795 Japanese soldiers and officers surrendered on the island. Trophies amounted to 2127 rifles, 81 light machine guns, 464 heavy machine guns and 98 grenade launchers. Strange, but among the listed trophies taken on Matua, there were no artillery pieces. Why? In general, there are many questions in the history of the landing of our paratroopers on Matua.
The Japanese garrison on the island of Matua, after the announcement of Japan's surrender, had plenty of time to resolve all issues either with the destruction of all military equipment there, or very professionally hide it just in case. The only thing the Japanese could do was to drown the equipment and secret equipment in the sea, or hide it underground, blowing up the paths to the underground warehouses. Until now, there are disguised components and assemblies of military equipment on the island, strange numbered rods with threads, the purpose of which can only be guessed. Exploring the island, you can find many things and objects belonging to Japanese soldiers.
imperial vase
soldier token
Hirohito's motnet in 10 sen
razor rinse
... In the late 1970s, three border guards disappeared here. The sergeant and two enlisted men, out of curiosity, descended into the Japanese installations, and no one else saw them. Then they figured out that they were descending into one of the ventilation shafts of the round hill. Then an order was issued strictly forbidding any climbing on Japanese workings. By the way, because of this ban, many border guards who were on urgent duty on the islands did not leave the location of the unit for their entire service.
Laz, in which the border guards disappeared
Even on Matua there are bays artificially cut down by the Japanese for sheltering boats and submarine mini-boats. Above some bays there are underground shelters in the form of galleries. The crews of the ships could go there in case of an alarm. The ships themselves stood in bays under camouflage nets.
After the withdrawal of the Japanese army, a lot of ammunition remained on the island. They were taken to the airfield area, stacked and blown up.
This pillbox is the most famous on Matua. They say that this is the only pillbox that is not connected by an underground passage to the general underground system of the island. It has no underground outlet at all. Therefore, our border guards called it a suicide pillbox.
The clue to the island of Matua is waiting for its researchers. The fact that everything is preserved there, as the Japanese left, is a rarity. But, again, the situation with the protection of the Russian maritime borders under Yeltsin was such that foreigners could easily enter and live illegally on the islands for years, and no one could find them. And when discovered, it was impossible to get them - our ships did not have fuel, on which in those years a bunch of swindlers made their fabulous fortunes, and the ships could not go to sea. The border guards only gritted their teeth from impotence. In those shameful, accursed years, everything could be taken out of the foggy Kuriles, everything. Or maybe they took it out. Who knows…
well, for fun, you can rememberMatua is a small island located in the very center of the Kuril chain. During the Great Patriotic War, the Japanese turned it into an impregnable fortress, planning to use it as a springboard in case of war with the USSR.
The Russian Ministry of Defense is taking unprecedented measures to develop military infrastructure on Sakhalin and the Kuriles. The expedition of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the Russian Geographical Society (RGS) has begun engineering work to study fortifications on the Kuril island of Matua. This was announced by the head of the press service of the Eastern Military District, Colonel Alexander Gordeev.
"On the slopes of the hills and at the foot of the Sarychev volcano, the liberation of potterns (underground corridors for communication between fortifications, fortress forts or strongholds of fortified areas) and warehouses from rubble has begun," Gordeev said. -Five groups of searchers "carry out earthworks using a bulldozer, excavator and other special equipment."
According to the participants of the military-historical expedition, scientific research will help to find answers to many questions and "dispel the halo of mystery of the island of Matua." Before starting work in each fortification, air samples are taken, which are carefully analyzed in the laboratory for the presence of toxic substances.
Until the end of World War II, Japan actively explored these islands, including the mysterious island of Matua, located in the center of the Kuril chain. On this island, Japan mined some valuable minerals. After the end of World War II, Truman even turned to Stalin with a request to transfer the island of Matua to the United States. The island was not given away, but for some reason we don’t use its dungeons ourselves.
During the Second World War, allied aircraft, bombing everything that belonged to Japan in the Pacific, bypassed Magua. And when the war ended, President Truman turned to Stalin with an unexpected request to provide the United States with only one of the islands in the center of the Kuriles occupied by Soviet troops. Why did the small island of Matua attract the president of America so much?
Matua is a small island located in the very center of the Kuril chain. During the Great Patriotic War, the Japanese turned it into an impregnable fortress, planning to use it as a springboard in case of war with the USSR. The war really began, but in 1945, 3811 Japanese soldiers and officers "valiantly" surrendered to 40 Soviet border guards.
The island, which went to the USSR, was pitted up and down with ditches, trenches and artificial caves. Numerous pillboxes and hangars were built to last. The entire coast of Matua along the perimeter was cordoned off by a dense ring of pillboxes made of stone or hollowed out in the rock. They were made so soundly that members of amateur expeditions, who have been studying the island for many years, claim that today the pillboxes could be used for their intended purpose. Moreover, their device was not limited only to preparing a point for firing. Each such position had an extensive network of underground passages, also carved into the rock.
The island's airfield was built even more carefully. It is located so well and made so technically competently that the planes could take off and land in the wind of any strength and direction. Japanese engineers also provided for an "anti-snow" design. Pipes were laid under the concrete pavement, into which hot water from thermal springs flowed. So the icing of the runway did not threaten the Japanese pilots, and the planes could take off and land both in winter and in summer.
In one of the coastal cliffs, the industrious Japanese cut down a huge cave, where a submarine could easily hide. Nearby was the underground residence of the garrison command, disguised in one of the surrounding hills. Its walls were carefully lined with stone, nearby there is a pool and an underground bathhouse.
One of the secrets of the island is the disappearance of all military equipment without a trace. Despite extensive searches since 1945, nothing has been found on the island. Moreover, there is an amazing, downright mystical pattern - people who tried to search, died in fires, which often happened on the island, fell into avalanches.
In the late 1990s, as a result of an accident, the deputy head of the frontier post, who led these searches, died. And when they tried to restore the destroyed communications, a volcano suddenly woke up, located in the center of the island. The eruption occurred with such force that huge blocks flying out of the vent knocked down birds that soared hundreds of meters from the crater!
Here is the opinion of the enthusiastic researcher Yevgeny Vereshchaga about the unsolved mysteries of the island of Matua: “There is an unusual hill on Matua, more than 120 meters high and 500 meters in diameter.
Nature does not like such regular forms. This involuntarily suggests that all this whopper is made by human hands. This is an artificial hill that served as a camouflaged aircraft hangar. A very wide man-made depression, overgrown with trees and shrubs, clearly stands out on its slope. Probably, the gate to the hangar was located here, which were first blown up and then covered with ash from an erupting volcano.
In addition, hundreds of rusty fuel barrels are scattered on the island - mostly German, and absolutely intact and with fuel from the times of the fascist Third Reich. In translation, the markings on them read "Fuel Wehrmacht, 200 liters." And the dates - 1939, 1943 - up to the victorious 1945.
So, having circled the globe, Hitler's allied submarines moored at Matua and delivered cargo!?
By the way, about the volcano. There were many questions about where the military equipment disappeared, which, judging by the underground structures, was literally stuffed with the island-fortress. One of the participants in amateur expeditions made a seemingly incredible assumption: “Perhaps the Japanese threw all their ammunition into the mouth of the volcano, and then blew it up, causing a powerful eruption. This version, at first glance, sounds like a fantasy. But a road has been laid up the cone of the volcano, where traces of caterpillar vehicles can be discerned even decades later. One can only guess what the Japanese carried along it.”
But all these conspicuous grandiose structures are only the external, visible part of the Japanese secret underground fortress. More than half a century has passed since the end of World War II, but no one has managed to unravel the secrets of the dungeons.
The Japanese, referring to the secrecy of this information, stubbornly did not respond to requests from first Soviet and then Russian researchers of the island of Matua. It was also not possible to understand the strange interest in the island of the American president.
What does the Kuril Island hide in its depths? But what if the death of the military researchers of the island, and the volcano that woke up at the wrong time, and the interest of the American president in Matua, and the refusal of the Japanese to provide materials are not a random chain of events? Perhaps, in the secret, not yet found dungeons of the island-fortress, there is not rusted and no one needs military equipment today, but secret laboratories that developed secret weapons that were never used during the war?
At dawn on August 12, 1945, three days before Japan announced its surrender, a deafening explosion sounded in the Sea of Japan, not far from the Korean Peninsula. A fireball with a diameter of about 1000 meters rose into the sky. It was followed by a giant mushroom cloud. According to American expert Charles Stone, Japan's first and last atomic bomb was detonated here, and the explosion power was about the same as that of the American bombs detonated a few days earlier over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Ch. Stone's statement that during the Second World War Japan was working on the creation of an atomic bomb and achieved success was met with great doubts by many US scientists. The military historian John Dower was more cautious about this information.
According to this famous scientist, it is impossible to completely exclude the possibility that at dawn on August 12, 1945, Japan's first and last atomic bomb was detonated in the Sea of Japan off the coast of Korea. Evidence of this can serve as a huge secret military Khinnam complex, located on the territory of modern North Korea. It was powerful enough and equipped with everything necessary for the production of an atomic bomb.
The plausibility of Ch. Stone's unexpected hypothesis is confirmed by the research of the former American intelligence officer Theodore McNally. At the end of World War II, he served in the analytical intelligence headquarters of the commander of the Allied forces in the Pacific, General MacArthur.
In his article, McNally writes that American intelligence had reliable data on a large Japanese nuclear center in the Korean city of Heungnam, but kept information about this facility secret from the USSR. Moreover, on the morning of August 14, 1945, American aircraft brought back to their airfields air samples taken over the Sea of Japan near the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. The processing of the obtained samples gave stunning results. She showed that in the aforementioned area of the Sea of Japan on the night of August 12-13, an unknown nuclear device exploded!
If we assume that the development of the most terrible weapon of the 20th century, nuclear, was really going on in the underground city on the island-fortress, then this gives an answer to many questions that baffle the organizers of amateur research expeditions.
Why did President Truman, addressing Stalin, ask to transfer the island of Matua to the USA?
Even before the end of World War II, the Americans began to prepare for an armed clash with the USSR. After the declassification of materials about the Second World War, a folder with the inscription "Unthinkable operation" was found in the British archives. Indeed, no one could think of such an operation! The date on the document is May 22, 1945. Consequently, the development of the operation was started even before the end of the war. The plan was described in the most detailed way ... a massive strike on Soviet troops!
The main trump card in a military clash could be nuclear weapons, available only to the United States. Soviet tank divisions that went through the Second World War were located in the center of Europe. If Stalin, in addition to his superiority in ground forces, also received nuclear weapons created by Japanese scientists, then in the event of a military clash, the outcome of the war would be a foregone conclusion and Europe would become completely socialist.
Why do the Japanese, referring to the secrecy of information, stubbornly refuse to respond to requests from first Soviet and then Russian researchers of the island of Matua?
And how should they act?
If an underground secret center were discovered on the island of Matua, in which nuclear weapons were developed, and not only developed, but also the technology for their manufacture was brought to practical implementation, this would lead to a reassessment of the events of the Second World War. The atomic bombing of Japanese cities would have been justified: the American pilots simply outstripped the future Japanese atomic raids. Demands for the return of the South Kuriles could be seen as a desire to continue work on the creation of secret weapons, which stopped as a result of the defeat of Japan.
And on this mysterious island, the Russian Pacific Fleet launched an unprecedented survey.
The representative of the Eastern Military District recalled that "mobile airfield complexes have already been deployed on the island to ensure the flights of aircraft." The drainage system has been cleared and preparations for the landing of helicopters of any type have been completed.
The personnel of the military-historical expedition continues its active work in Dvoinaya Bay in order to "prepare the coastal section of the island for the approach of a large landing ship to the shore using the "point-blank" method for loading equipment and materiel," Gordeev said.
As previously reported, 200 members of the expedition of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Russian Geographical Society, the Eastern Military District and the Pacific Fleet, led by the Deputy Commander of the Pacific Fleet, Vice Admiral Andrei Ryabukhin, on six ships and vessels left Vladivostok on May 7 and arrived on May 14 on the island of Matua.
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