Video: 'The Japanese Attack Manchuria 1931'

(Friday, September 18, 1931, at around 10:20 p.m. local time; during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, part of the Interwar period) — The Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria tonight immediately following the Mukden Incident, a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the invasion.

Believing that a conflict in Manchuria would be in the best interests of Japan, and acting in the spirit of the Japanese concept of gekokujo, Kwantung Army Colonel Seishiro Itagaki and Lieutenant Colonel Kanji Ishiwara independently devised a plan to provoke Japan into invading Manchuria by setting up a false flag incident for the pretext of invasion.

The plan was executed when 1st Lieutenant Suemori Komoto of the Independent Garrison Unit of the 29th Infantry Regiment, which guarded the South Manchuria Railway, placed explosives near the tracks, but far enough away to do no real damage. At around 10:20 p.m., the explosives were detonated.

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However, the explosion was minor and only a 1.5-meter section on one side of the rail was damaged. In fact, a train from Changchun passed by the site on this damaged track without difficulty and arrived at Shenyang at 10:30 p.m.

On the morning of Sept. 19, 1931, two artillery pieces installed at the Mukden officers’ club opened fire on the Chinese garrison nearby, in response to the alleged Chinese attack on the railway.

Zhang Xueliang’s small air force was destroyed, and his soldiers fled their destroyed Beidaying barracks, as five hundred Japanese troops attacked the Chinese garrison of around seven thousand. The Chinese troops were no match for the experienced Japanese troops.

By the evening, the fighting was over, and the Japanese had occupied Mukden at the cost of five hundred Chinese lives and only two Japanese lives, thus starting the greater invasion of Manchuria.