Damansky incident - How China and USSR Almost Went to War - Cold War

Our historical documentary series on the history of the Cold War continues with a video on the Damansky (Zhenbao) Island border incident - a minor skirmish that almost led to a war between the USSR and China.

#ColdWar #SovietUnion #China #Mao #Khrushchev #Brezhnev

[yiqin]

My dad served in Shenyang Military Region at that time. Basically, his unit was at the 'frontline'. As a combat engineer, he spent hundreds of hours on anti-tank training with all kinds of TNT, and tank traps. Because they didn't have enough proper anti-tank weapons, the anti-tank mission basically is suicide. He said if USSR launched a full attack, his whole platoon probably will be killed.

[davidlisovtsev]

my father served until 1988 in the Soviet army in East Germany, but most of his friends served on the Chinese border, and they described the situation as such "we had disagreements with the Chinese, but we were ready to compromise, the Chinese on the other hand were nuts, running into machine gun fire unarmed just to stoke up the tensions, they were industrially weak, but insane."

[julianshepherd]

Worse the De Gaulle. That's got to hurt.

[Davidpapa]

My mom was originally born in Harbin (the largest Chinese city near China-Soviet border), which was a major industrial hub in northern China, less than 800 kilometers from Damansky Island. During and after the Damansky Incident, my grandparents were given the impression that an imminent WW3 was about to happen. So they sent my mom who was less than 9 years old to Shanghai to live with my great-grandparents, just to avoid the potential war.

[SarimDeLaurec]

During the military service of my dad (beginning of the 1980s") the red army still had strong garrisons on the border to China. The servicemen were not allowed to light fires, even in winter, to not give away the position of their glorified holes in the ground, which were their posts.
My dad was station in Mongolia and one of his fellow servicemen was stationed on the Chinese garrison before transfer and according to my dad, those had the hardest lot of military service.
They were almost feral and more prone to violent reactions due to the tense cirmumstances. The service in Mongolia on the other hand was more comfortable. More and better rations and they had actuall functioning central heating.

[galvanic.warlock]

Just a fun fact: after this conflict, Damansky became a colloquial name for far-off parts of some cities in the USSR, like the northernmost residential area in 65-kilometre long Kryvyi Rih

Also, our basic military training teacher in high school served in artillery back there. Didn't share many details though

[whiskeysk]

all this was general knowledge, obviously not at this level of detail, on the wrong side of the iron curtain. A classic joke from the 70s/80s in Czechoslovakia goes something like this:
TASS news report
A soviet tractor peacefully ploughing the fields on the bank of the Amur river was ambushed by Chinese military units. The tractor returned fire. After the firefight lasted for half an hour, the tractor got airborne and returned to base.

[lwty]

When I was young, I thought the 1969 conflict was the result of fanatic Culture Revolution. But looking deeper into it, you will find it is a carefully prepared conflict with strategic design. This video said that Chinese side launched the conflict out of fear. But it is out of totally another kind fear that the US and the USSR will reach high degree of reconciliation. If this happens, China will face two superpowers, with both as its enemy. So the 1969 conflict is not about winning or losing, it’s about showing to the West that the USSR is still a huge threat and China is no longer in the Soviet controlled socialist camp. This contributed to following Sina-US reconciliations.

[dominic]

My family came to know a Soviet officer who was there on the ground during this incident. During his telling of the events he recanted that the casualties on both sides were much higher than what was stated on record.

[rosalb]

In the Damansky（zhen bao） Island conflict, a soviet T62 tank's track was destroyed and the tank was abandoned. The Chinese PLA army captured the tank. Now this tank exhibit in the Chinese Military Museum in Beijing, alongside with a Sherman tank captured during the Korean War.

[Yamato-tpkf]

Finally, there's an history channel that talks about this forgotten conflict... And it shows that the "enemy of my enemy is my ally" quote sometimes is not what we think...

[alexeishayya-shirokov]

My mom, who grew up on the other side of the USSR, once told me an anecdote from her childhood: she was spending her summer holidays at her grandmother's house in the village, and at night before going to bed, her grandmother would tell her to close her bedroom windows "just in case the Chinese launched gas". People were just that frightened that an NBC war would break out.

[spicedpudding]

My father's side had lived in Heilongjiang, the northernmost province of China which shared a border with the USSR. My grandfather was a political commissar with a rank of senior colonel. Although I know little about his service, my father did talk about how even when he was growing up in the 70s civilians would be trained on what to do in the event of a potential war/nuclear conflict along the border. It would be mostly remembering where the nearest shelter or bunker was and escaping to it. Rations then also sucked, with the rank and file having to deal with compressed bars of some sort of grain when a field kitchen wasn't available.

[JosephKeenanisme]

This video still has that new car smell :). The Berlin Wall hadn't come down when I graduated high school (was still 2 years in the future). Here in the US no one was teaching about the Sino-Soviet split in history classes even though it had been going on for 30+ years.

Thank you guys for bringing us some of the lesser known stories and more details of the cold war over the past few years. I don't have a history degree but I do study a few times/places on my own. When I see a new video from the channel I know that I'm in store to chuck some new stuck in my knowledge buckets. Happy New Years to every and their families who are involved in the channel.

You guys might want to look into some sort of box set deal (thumb drive or download) for schools. With some kind of lesson plan and tests the subject matter is on par with The Great Courses and other educational use services. You guys have a higher entertainment value but it doesn't diminish the educational value.

[jliller]

I would be interested in a video about Mongolia during the Cold War, especially considering how it was caught between the Soviets and Chinese.

[JaykPuten]

I enjoy these videos on Sino-Soviet relations, and would definitely enjoy more being made
Either way, awesome video as always, Keep up the excellent work!

[Numba]

I didn't realize just how tense things got on the Chinese-Soviet border. I knew they weren't tight allies after the war, but I didn't know it came so close to all-out war. Thank you for this. I would enjoy more videos on the topic in the future too!
God be with you out there everybody! ✝️ :)

[marcusott]

Much awaited much appreciated excellent insights as always.
Great piece to end the year.
Frohes neues Jahr! Prosit!
From Vienna

[stevendepuy]

I was stationed in West Germany in 1979, I have no idea what went on, but something happened between them, May or June I think, and we had an alert beyond anything in my 3 years there. We were told that Russia and China were fighting, and NATO was going to attack Russian in support of China. I was due to go home in a few months, and thought oh crap. It lasted for days, where a normal alert was see how long it took to get most of the tanks and APC's off the post, and then return. This one was just all leaves were cancelled, but we didn't move the vehicles out. Not saying scuttlebutt is always true, but something went on, and I have never heard anything about what happened between them. The humor to us was that poster in the barracks hall that said how we were outnumbered 13-1 in men, 7-1 in tanks, 4-1 in planes, or something along those lines, and we thought we are going to attack them?

[tylerk]

Thank you many people do not know of this incident thank you for shedding light on it