Office of the Historian

761.9315 Manchuria/182

Memorandum by the Consul at Taihoku (Warner), Temporarily in the United States

[Washington,] September 15, 1939.

Colonel Bratton80 telephoned to state that it is reliably reported that the last battle on the Manchurian-Mongolian border was concluded on September 10 by a Japanese counterattack at the conclusion of which the Japanese had succeeded in driving the Soviet-Mongol forces to the west of the Halha (Khalta) River, which the Japanese consider demarks the Manchurian-Mongolian border at that point. Colonel Bratton stated that it is noteworthy that the Japanese did not pursue the Soviet forces beyond the border, lending support to the Japanese statement that they are interested only in defending the Manchurian border and not in invading Mongolian territory.

  1. Col. Rufus S. Bratton, of the Military Intelligence Division, War Department.↩