Japanese evacuation of Karafuto and the Kuril Islands

Severe fighting with heavy losses on both sides continued for over a week, with Soviet troops breaking the Japanese defenses on 18 August.

[1] On 20 August, after Japan's surrender, fearing that they would be raped by the invading Soviet troops, nine of the twelve female operators poisoned themselves.

The troops instantly engaged the Japanese in fierce battle and by morning of the next day had captured four populated areas and the port city of Esutoru (now Uglegorsk), Anbetsu (now Vozvrashcheniye) and Yerinai).

They were preceded by a group of scouts, landed secretly by a submarine, in the Maoka area to successfully complete their task.

[1] The rout of Japanese forces in Manchuria and Sakhalin created favorable conditions for invasion of the Kurile Islands.

Bloody battles took place in Shumushu and Paramushiro with varying success till 23 August when the Japanese garrison surrendered.

Similar things happened to White Russians living in Manchukuo, Kwantung or North Chosen (Korea).

allege that Japanese forces during wartime sent certain Western POWs (Americans, British, Dutch, and the like) to detention camps in Karafuto and the Kuriles from other areas in Southeast Asia as well as to detention centers in Hokkaidō (Otaru POW center) and North Honshū, Manchukuo or Chōsen (the Japanese name for Korea).

The final fate of the supposed Allied POWs when Soviet forces arrived in these areas previously under Japanese administration, if unknown, is very similar to Americans captured or interned in Vladivostok (during the Doolittle Raid or B-29 strikes against Manchukuo industry) or Kamchatka (when Americans carried out some air strikes against North Kuriles Islands).