“The sea waves dragged a large number of corpses to the shore, the black uniforms they wore indicated that they were Japanese soldiers,” the Sakhalin media lifted the veil of secrecy over the events that occurred in 1945.
Ivan Trubin / sakh.online
According to various sources, between 900 and 1,224 people died as a result of the torpedo attack.
According to the online publication Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, we are talking about a mysterious place in the area of Lake Ptichye, on the southeastern coast of Sakhalin. Probably, in 1945, some event related to the military campaign took place there. At least this is what some facts indicate.
“This story was told to the famous Sakhalin archaeologist Sergei Gorbunov by the elder Nivkh Okuda Cheo Di,” the publication reports. “He was born in a Nivkh village located on a section of the coast between capes Ptichy Nos and Vesely, in the area. from Lake Ptichy When the boy grew up, his adoptive mother told him an event that still excites the imagination of local historians and searchers.”
From family legend it is clear that the Nivkh hunted marine animals, and one night in August 1945 they heard sounds of battle coming from the sea and observed flashes in the night sky.
In the morning they were awakened by the roar of a bear, and when they disembarked, they saw a large number of human bodies dressed in black uniforms washed up by the waves. Judging by the uniform, they could have been Japanese soldiers. From the description it appears that the corpses were washed ashore for three days. The Nivkh collected them and burned them, after taking documents from their pockets, which they then buried somewhere.
This story was not known until 2005, when Okuda Cheo Di told it to Sergei Gorbunov. Since then, local investigators have tried to uncover the mystery of the events that occurred 79 years ago. The search is complicated not only by the lack of living witnesses, but also by the fact that the village of Nivkh itself has long since disappeared.
However, fragments of charred human bones were still found at the supposed corpse cremation site. Researchers have suggested that the corpses of Japanese soldiers could have washed ashore after a fierce naval battle known to historians, the only question is how long they may have been in the water;
Various sources report that in May 1945 two Japanese transport ships sailing from the Kashiwabara naval base on Paramushir Island to the port of Otaru on Hokkaido Island were sunk.
The route passed through Sakhalin. On 29 May, the convoy was torpedoed by the American submarine USS SS-392 Sterlet. One transport sank immediately and the second sank in the early hours of 30 May.
According to various sources, between 900 and 1,224 people died as a result of the torpedo attack, including three American prisoners of war who were transported by the Japanese.
Perhaps the bodies of these same victims were washed ashore. But researchers are confused by the dates: the battle took place on May 29, and the events described by the Nivkh took place in the second half of August. This mystery has not yet been solved.
