Matua (Japanese 松輪島, Matsua) is an island of the middle group of the Great Ridge of the Kuril Islands. Administratively, it is part of the North Kuril urban district of the Sakhalin region.
Area - 52 km², length from northwest to southeast about 11 km, width 6.4 km. The island contains non-residential settlements of Sarychevo and Gubanovka. Off the eastern coast, at a distance of 1.3 km, is Toporkovy Island (area about 1 km², maximum height 70 m).
On the island there is an active Sarycheva volcano with a height of 1446 m, a small Hesupo stream with drinkable water. Anchorage in Dvoynaya Bay.
Covered with bushes and dwarf trees. In the hollows there are thickets of shrubby alder. There are foxes and small rodents. Sea lion rookeries. There are ringed seals in the surrounding area. Guillemots, cormorants, and gulls nest.
Separated by the Golovnin Strait from the island of Raikoke, located 18 km to the north; the Strait of Hope - from the island of Rasshua, located 28 km southwest.
The mysterious island of Matua.
The middle and northern Kuril Islands can safely be called uninhabited. These misty, volcanic islands are completely deserted. There is not a soul today on Harimkotan, Chirinkotan, Ekarma, Shiashkotan, Matua and Rasshua. And according to the stories of the locals, there is no one further south - on the islands of Ushishir, Ketoi and this unique island of Simushir. Hundreds of kilometers of the coasts of the Russian islands are completely uninhabited, although we have owned the Kuril Islands since 1945. There are no fishing bases here, so no fishing is done in the adjacent waters.
There is no population here, so there are no hunters, geologists, miners, or even tourists. Even on the air there is complete peace. Meanwhile, the Kuril Islands are teeming with living creatures - both aquatic and land. I would scoop and scoop. The Kuril Islands are also rich in history. Conventionally, it can be divided into 3 stages: early, Japanese and Soviet (Russian).
We more or less know the Soviet and early ones. But about Japanese there is incredibly little.
Therefore, the most mysterious and unexplored island of the Kuril ridge still remains a small island. Matua
Matua Island is relatively small - 11 kilometers long, 6.5 kilometers wide. Height highest point, Sarychev Peak (Fuyo Volcano), – 1485 meters. The island is located in the central part of the Kuril ridge, therefore it is significantly removed from populated areas Sakhalin and Kamchatka. There is no connection with the outside world. Yes, in fact, there is no need - the island is uninhabited.
The first mention of the island of Matua was found in Ivan Kozyrevsky, who was on the northernmost islands of Shumshu and Paramushir in 1711 and 1713 and collected a lot of information about the entire ridge. He called Matua the island of Motogo. The Cossack centurion Ivan Cherny, who reached Iturup in 1766–1769, called Matua the island of Mutova.
In his report he wrote about him:
"Mutova - there is a hill on it, which, according to the Kuril residents, was burning terribly in recent years, and stones were scattered all over the island so that many flying birds were killed by them. The roots were all burned out and covered with stones."
On the eve of World War II, the Japanese turned Matua - by the way, the Japanese themselves pronounce its name as Matsua-to - into a powerful fortress, into an unsinkable aircraft carrier that controlled the northwest Pacific Ocean. There was a large airfield here with three long runways, allowing aircraft to fly in almost any wind direction. The strips were heated by thermal waters, and therefore could be used year-round. There is enough reason to believe that there were some secret Japanese facilities on Matua. It is likely that these were laboratories for the development of chemical or bacteriological weapons. They came here after almost circumnavigating the world, submarines Third Reich. The Americans repeatedly tried to destroy airfields and island facilities, losing a dozen aircraft and at least two submarines in battles.
(This pillbox is the most famous on Matua. They say that this is the only pillbox that is not connected by an underground passage to the general underground system of the island. It has no underground exit at all. Therefore, our border guards called it a suicide pillbox.)
Not only was the island reliably protected by inaccessible cliffs and high banks, but an entire network of various military fortifications was additionally built on it. Both the Japanese themselves and the prisoners of war from China had to work hard on their construction. Fearing bombing and shelling from the sea, the Japanese dug deeper and deeper into the ground, and by the summer of 1945 there was no free space on Matua from all kinds of defensive fortifications in the form of ditches, trenches, trenches, dugouts, pillboxes and bunkers, lunettes, underground shelters and entire galleries . By this time, the island of Matua, like many other Kuril Islands, had turned into a real fortress in the middle of the ocean, which was problematic to take. But the Russians were lucky enough to storm only one island, the northernmost one in the Kuril Islands - Shumshu; the rest were taken with less blood, or even without a fight. In this series is the fortress island of Matua. Its garrison laid down arms in front of our troops on August 26–27, 1945. Since then, the island has become Russian, but to this day continues to keep many Japanese secrets.
(The ceremony of surrender of military personnel of the 41st separate infantry regiment, which was part of the garrison of the island of Matua. The Japanese officer is the regiment commander, Colonel Ueda.)
After the surrender of Japan on August 14 and before the capture of the island by Soviet troops on August 27, 1945, the Japanese had enough time to hide and mothball all the most important and valuable island objects. Surprisingly, judging by the inventory of weapons and equipment captured on the island, the paratroopers did not find a single plane, tank or gun on Matua. Of the 3,811 surrendered Japanese soldiers and officers, only 2,127 rifles were available. At the same time, the pilots, sailors and artillerymen disappeared somewhere, and only construction battalion soldiers and support personnel were captured. Compare this with the trophies taken on the island of Shumshu, which was suddenly attacked on August 18, where there were more than 60 tanks alone.
After the Japanese were evacuated from Matua, and the Soviet military settled in their place, very strange events began to occur on the island: people disappeared, light flickered on the slopes of the volcano at night, and from nowhere, rare trophies appeared from our military. For example, collectible French cognac...
After the war, the United States really wanted to get Matua for itself, but Truman did not accept Stalin’s crafty offer to exchange it for one of the Aleutian Islands. Why? This will become clear if you find quotes from the correspondence between Stalin and Truman on the surrender of Japan. According to a preliminary agreement, the Japanese had to capitulate in the Kuril Islands and the northern part of Hokkaido to Soviet troops. But Truman “forgot” about this and in his order to General MacArthur stipulated the entire Japanese surrender only to American troops. Stalin immediately recalled this, but Truman began to break down and eventually expressed a desire to “have the rights to air bases for land and sea aircraft on one of the Kuril Islands, preferably in the central group.” Only Matua was such an island with a ready-made, excellent airfield. Stalin responded by asking for one of the islands of the Aleutian chain for his base. Since then, questions of this kind have not arisen. So, in 1944-45, the Americans, it seems, had their eye on Matua and, by and large, spared its unique defensive structures.
Little is known about what happened on Matua during Soviet times. Civilians did not get here and were not allowed, but the military kept their secrets. Apparently, a military unit serving radars was located on the island. Broken installations and junkyards of electronic equipment from the 60s and 70s are scattered throughout the island.
Until about 2001, a border post remained on Matua. Then it burned down, and the homeless border guards were evacuated to the mainland. There is no one on the island now.
There are no closed bays on Matua. If you look at the island on maps or aerial photography, it may seem that there is no good shelter for a ship near the island. In practice, it is convenient and relatively safe place is a strait in the southwestern part of the island, covered from the west by the small island of Iwaki (Toporkovy). It was here that the Japanese raid was located and the berths were located. The Japanese are reminiscent of a two-story pillbox on the shore, a beach littered with the wreckage of ships and equipment, the remains of a pier and the remains of the Royo-maru transport sunk in the strait. Somewhere at the bottom of the strait lie other Japanese transports - the Iwaki-maru and the Hiburi-maru, torpedoed by the American submarine SS-233 Herring.
Not far from the Kotojärvi parking lot, at low tide a huge diesel engine appears from the water, overgrown with algae and shells. It is no longer possible to determine which of the ships that found their end in the strait was the heart.
We stayed on Matua for several days, and every trip to the island was accompanied by amazing finds and discoveries. The airfield's runways have been perfectly preserved. The concrete on them is still better than what is in Sheremetyevo. There are hundreds of rusty fuel barrels around the airfield. Mostly ours, but there are also German ones marked Kraftstoff Wehrmaght 200 Ltr. (“Wehrmacht fuel, 200 liters”). The dates from 1939 to 1945 are clearly legible on the barrels. Surprisingly, among the German barrels there are also full ones.
Numerous defensive structures are openly accessible: bunkers, pillboxes, caponiers, equipped artillery positions, tens of kilometers of trenches and ditches. The alder thickets are full of iron rubbish, sometimes the most amazing. You may, for example, stumble upon a cast-iron steam installation that closely resembles a small steam locomotive. In ditches and on coastal screes, cast iron and ceramic pipes protrude from the ground. What is this? Plumbing, sewerage or parts of the airfield heating system?
I walked along the shore and came across a camouflaged water station with huge cast-iron mechanisms inside the casemates. Everything is relatively safe. I found a small door in the back wall of another collapsed building. I opened it, there was a path behind it, 200 meters later there was a rock in the forest, I looked closer - and this was skillful masonry, behind which there was an entrance to a stone tunnel going up the mountain. Unfortunately, it was overwhelmed by the explosion at the very beginning. There is a landfill nearby. A cast-iron Japanese “potbelly stove” sticks out of the ground, next to it there are fragments of ceramics on which the markings of the Japanese army are read, bottles and vials with hieroglyphs, shell casings, leather shoes...
Even if you don't try too hard, you can easily find many structures on the island whose purpose is not easy to explain. What kind of load, for example, could concrete bunkers with meter-long walls, thick steel doors and the same shutters carry? Barracks, command post, warehouse, bomb shelter? But why then are there so many windows with a complex system of steel shutters and locks, why a sophisticated network of air ducts? Maybe laboratories? More than once, some complex devices with sensors, pressure gauges, centrifuges were found on the island... True, these devices were broken and thrown away by the Japanese themselves. Where is everything else? Equipment, equipment, equipment, personal belongings of the garrison? What did German submarines bring or take away here? What did the Americans try to destroy or capture, what did ours already find?
This is what the crew of the catamaran “Kotojärvi” writes for several days exploring this piece of Kuril land
There are many questions. We were able to get answers to some of them in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, meeting with Evgeniy Mikhailovich Vereshchaga, the permanent leader of the Kamchatka-Kuril expedition.
We contacted Vereshchaga from Moscow and talked about our plans. An experienced Kamchatanian looked at photographs of the catamaran and expressed polite bewilderment: Sea of Okhotsk and they don’t sail on the Pacific Ocean like this. But he didn’t refuse help - 120 liters of 92-octane gasoline were waiting for us on Matua, without which things would have been difficult. We could have met at sea. Around the time when “Kotoyarvi” was moving north, the Kamchatka-Kuril expedition with border guards was installing Orthodox crosses in the Kuril Islands. Near the island of Ushishir we contacted the border whaleboat, but were unable to approach it due to the stormy sea and thick fog. We met already in Petropavlovsk - in the museum that Evgeniy Vereshchaga, Irina Viter and their associates created as a result of research on the Kuril Islands and, first of all, Matua.
– Why Matua, because very close to Kamchatka there are Shumshu and Paramushir, larger and better known islands, recaptured from the Japanese in the same 1945?
– For a very long time, Matua was absolutely inaccessible. The opportunity to get there appeared only in 2001, when the outpost burned down and the border guards left. This year we already had our 14th expedition, but even now the island shows us only one hundredth of its secrets. Although the conclusion is clear: the island was mothballed by the Japanese garrison before surrendering to Soviet troops.
– Did they have time for this?
– On August 18, the Kuril landing operation began. Information about this spread throughout the Kuril Islands; naturally, on Matua they learned about the start of hostilities on the part of the USSR. On August 23, the Japanese garrison on Shumshu and Paramushir capitulated. And on August 25, the Matua garrison, led by commander Colonel Ledo, surrendered. However, from Japanese sources we know that since February 1945, Ketsu’s plan was implemented in Japan, according to which it was necessary to remove everything that was possible from the Kuril Islands, and what could not be taken out, then mothballed, that is, hidden. Equipment, technology, raw materials... The country's leadership took such actions due to the fact that there was a forecast about the imminent capitulation of Nazi Germany, Japan's main ally. In February-March 1945, the Ketsu plan was put into effect on Matua. Everything that could not be taken out was hidden. And what could not be hidden was destroyed. We found a large number of burned equipment, and not just burned, but burned and buried 2 meters deep. Small parts were burned in barrels at enormous temperatures. Everything there was sintered and melted. Everything was destroyed very carefully. But we assume that especially valuable things were well hidden. After all, it is known how in such cases the Japanese acted on southern islands, in the Philippines, for example. According to our assumptions, about 10–15 thousand people left the island before the capitulation. And those who surrendered were the so-called funeral brigade, which mothballed the island and hid everything.
“But in February 1945, and even more so later, it was very difficult for the Japanese to evacuate such a large and complex military facility as the island of Matua. Maybe they drowned everything in the ocean?
– The divers who participated in the expedition examined the shores, including the secret pier. Apart from a few pieces of iron and American shells that were fired at the island, there is nothing there.
– Why was this rather small island, without a convenient bay, so important for the Japanese?
“We believe that Matua was built as a powerful reserve base, which was supposed to become a springboard for a possible retreat from the northern islands. Shumshu and Paramushir are the tip of a sword aimed at Kamchatka. The structures on these islands are of purely military importance. There is no exoticism, but on Matua we see paved roads, figured walls, decorative trim, new technologies... It is clear that everything was very comfortable here, relaxed Japanese lived here, there was a home front. As we learn from the interrogations of General Tsumi Fusaki, commander of the northern group, the Matua garrison was not subordinate to him and was controlled directly from headquarters in Hokkaido. This speaks of some special status of the island of Matua. The Japanese mentality and ours are very different; on an island on which it would seem impossible to create a naval base, the Japanese built one. Surprise and paradox are their know-how.
– In Germany, work was underway to create a new weapon. In particular, chemical and bacteriological. They probably did the same in Japan. There is a version that secret laboratories were located on Matua. What did your research show?
– The Japanese carried out such work. It is known that in Harbin, on the territory of what is now the People's Republic of China, Detachment 731 was engaged in the development of chemical and bacteriological weapons. I was there two years ago and saw structures very similar to those on Matua. Of course, we have heard all sorts of scary stories, tales, myths, so we try to observe safety precautions as much as possible. If we find something that could potentially pose a danger, we never touch it. We disguise it so that no one else finds it, and examine it very carefully.
During the war, the island of Matua and its pilots carried out a special, strategic mission to protect the base on the island. Simushir. And, if not for the surrender of Japan, announced by Emperor Hirohito on August 14 and forcing many Japanese island garrisons to surrender without a fight, it is unknown how long our landing forces would have stormed Matua, how much blood would have been shed on both sides, especially on the part of the attackers. I think the use of atomic bombs by the Americans played a significant role in the surrender. The demonstration of all-crushing power, which even the garrisons of these islands could not resist, also did its job.
– I saw some chemical flasks, other vessels blown from glass...
- Of course, we found them too. But we did not carry out any special excavations. Everywhere in the world there are safety standards. If warehouses of dangerous chemicals or bacteria must be hidden at a depth of 20 meters, it is natural that they are located there. In this sense, Matua is safe. Our garrisons were here for 55 years, and nothing bad happened.
– What evidence is there that preserved objects are hidden inside the island?
– We found underground communications, 100–200–300 meters of corridors carved out of basalt, trimmed with wood, inside there are many different rooms, stoves for cooking and heating... This is the so-called object underground city. And this is only the part of it that we discovered by accident. A scree occurred, an entrance formed, and we were able to crawl through there. After earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, more and more new objects are accidentally discovered. But we only find what was not really disguised.
You can take for example the island of Iwo Jima, which everyone has probably heard of. Its garrison consisted of 22 thousand people. The Americans stormed it for three months. About 200 thousand soldiers, hundreds of ships took part in the operation, it was only bombed for a whole month... So, Iwo Jima is three times smaller than Matua. And on Matua, when our people arrived there, not a single plane, not a single tank, not a single gun. And the huge interest of the United States in this island. All this suggests that the main objects were mothballed as a state resource. I mean Ketsu's plan or something similar. Everything was done by specialists, everything was purposefully disguised, put into storage to be taken away later, sealed, exploded. With the resources we have, it is very difficult to discover what was hidden with the resources of an entire state.
The northern part of the island of Matua is occupied by a mountain range, crowned by Sarychev Peak (Fuyo Volcano). The approaches and slopes are densely overgrown with impenetrable dwarf alder trees; higher up, fresh slag screes begin with a steepness of 60–70 degrees. The volcano is alive: the last eruption occurred just two years ago.
We continue our conversation with Evgeniy Vereshchaga, the leader of the Kamchatka-Kuril expedition, who has been trying to penetrate the secrets of the island for almost 10 years.
– What is unique about the facilities on Matua, in particular the airfield? What we saw was amazing. After 70 years the coating is absolutely usable. What was the airfield like under the Japanese?
– There were three lanes with asphalt concrete pavement. One is 400 meters long, there were four metal hangars on it and taxiing was going on for a large strip about 2 kilometers long. Another lane – 1.5 kilometers. The width of the strips is 70 meters, along the edges there are gutters for water drainage. Under the covering are laid pipes. Those who served here say that until 1985 the airfield was heated with thermal waters.
– It turns out to be a contradiction: on the one hand, the airfield, and on the other, the laboratories. But the very presence of a huge airfield would unmask secret objects. What comes first? Did the airfield serve any important infrastructure or were all these structures built to serve the airfield?
– The Japanese began to develop the island a long time ago. In 1923, there was already a village called Matsua-mura. If we imagine that construction began in the 30s, then this was the internal territory of Japan and there was hardly a need to hide the work. And then the war started and the situation changed. In American wartime photographs, the airfield is practically invisible from the air. Everything was covered with camouflage nets. Remnants of this disguise are still preserved. We believe that in addition to the airfield there was some kind of production here. Factories, raw material reserves...
– It is known that Japanese submarines reached Germany. Barrels of German fuel found on the island may indicate that the Germans also came here. After May 1945, many German submarines simply disappeared. Material assets, treasures, and documents also disappeared. Later, crew members of these submarines appeared in different parts of the world. You have found underwater quay walls and tunnels. Could the Germans have delivered something to their allies on Matua?
“We consider this possibility to be quite real.” Why, for example, could not the same Amber Room be taken to one of the distant and inaccessible islands, and even to the allies? A fantastic version, of course. But it has a right to exist. In terms of communications, the island is so developed that you can hide anything on it. There was no information leakage at all. Any cargo that was imported was kept here in complete secret; information could not escape. The Japanese are still silent. The head of the garrison, Colonel Ledo, died in 1985 without leaving any memoirs. Until 2000, the Matua Veterans Society officially existed in Japan. On the island of Iwo Jima, out of a 20,000-strong garrison, only 200 people were captured, and even those were wounded. Japanese society does not accept them and considers them outcasts because they surrendered instead of dying for the emperor. And on Matua, 3811 people gave up, and society excuses them. Why? So this was their mission.
– After Russia removed its outpost from Matua, the island was left unattended. Could, say, the same Japanese have been here at this time to take something from the island? Is this possible in principle?
– If the Japanese were faced with such a task, then there were opportunities for this. At least Japanese planes were spotted in the Matua area more than once.
Almost all ground-based military facilities have a single connecting underground gallery. Almost everywhere along the upper line of defense there is a narrow-gauge railway, along which trolleys ran for the centralized supply of ammunition. Also on the island there are anti-tank ditches, the entire coastline is filled with trenches and anti-personnel barriers.
All pillboxes are placed in a specific sequence to effectively use crossfire. All bunkers are in excellent condition, with glass in the armored doors and perfectly preserved decoration on the walls and ceiling (something like fiberboard, only from a mixture of seaweed and cement).
There are a lot of secrets here, and one of them is the possible work of the Japanese in the Kuril Islands on chemical and bacteriological weapons. Submarines and raiders of the Wehrmacht came to the Kuril Islands; even empty German barrels from those years that are found on Matua can indirectly confirm this.
The airfield is located in such a way that the winds that prevail on Matua (east or southwest) could not interfere with either the takeoff or landing of aircraft. If the wind suddenly changes, there is a third stripe, departing from the first at 145 degrees. Two parallel strips, 1570 meters long and 35 meters wide, are concreted. Moreover, the quality of concrete is still impressive today: there are practically no cracks on it. It should be noted one very interesting detail that immediately catches the eye: the take-off fields were heated by local thermal water. It was supplied through a special concreted ditch (trench) from the deposit, which was apparently located somewhere on the slope of the Sarychev volcano. The groove runs between two parallel runways, and pipes are laid under each of these strips - water circulated through them. And so on for the entire length, after which the water went under the third stripe and then turned back. Thus, in winter the Japanese had no problems removing snow from the runways - they were always clean.
Based on the foundations of the barracks, preserved near the airfield, it can be judged that officers lived here. Everyone has their own small room, a narrow corridor. Above the foundation rises a preserved chimney and the stove itself, which was used to heat the bathhouse. The Japanese bathhouse is a communal pool with stone seats on the sides. They entered it, sat down and rinsed to their heart's content.
The airfield was the real pride of the commander of the island garrison, Colonel Ueda, and all senior officers, although it was he who, being strategic for the Kuril Islands, attracted American bombers like flies. They hardly bombed other targets on Matua, but the runways were plowed so thoroughly that repairing them took a long time.
This can be seen in the photo by the numerous patches in the concrete. But what a quality of patches!
(Barrels are from our time.)
The Kuril Islands were bombed by pilots of the 28th long-range bomber group, which was located in Alaska. This happened from April 1944 to August 1945, until the USSR declared war on Japan. The aircraft used were mainly B-24 and B-25. The main purpose of the bombing was to delay some of the Japanese forces, including aviation, from the main attacks of the Americans. It must be said that the Americans succeeded: if in 1943 Japan kept a total of 262 aircraft in Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands, then in the summer of 1944 there were already about 500. However, by the spring of 1945, the Japanese took almost all aircraft from the Kuril Islands, leaving only 18 fighters on Paramushir and 12 naval bombers on Shumshu.
It's the same with people. If before 1943 there were a total of 14-15 thousand people in the Kuril Islands, then at the end of the year there were already 41 thousand, and in 1945 there were 27 thousand left. When raiding the Kuril Islands, including the island of Matua, the Americans took great risks due to the long range. There are different opinions about their use of "jump" bases, but that's not what I'm talking about. Over Matua alone, 50 American planes with crews of several people were shot down. This suggests that the Japanese fought very skillfully and were ready to defend. And yet the Americans bombed the island selectively. Bombs fell mainly on runways and objects such as fuel and lubricants, while other structures were spared.
Interestingly.
3,795 Japanese soldiers and officers surrendered on the island. Trophies amounted to 2,127 rifles, 81 light machine guns, 464 heavy machine guns and 98 grenade launchers. Strangely, among the listed trophies taken on Matua, there were no artillery pieces. Why? In general, there are many questions in the history of the landing of our paratroopers on Matua.
The Japanese garrison on the island of Matua, after the announcement of Japan's surrender, had plenty of time to resolve all issues either with the destruction of all military property there, or to very professionally hide it just in case. The only thing the Japanese could do was to drown the equipment and secret equipment in the sea, or hide it underground by blowing up the access routes to underground warehouses. Until now, on the island there are camouflaged components and assemblies of military equipment, strange numbered rods with threads, the purpose of which can only be guessed at. While exploring the island, you can find many things and objects belonging to Japanese soldiers.
After the withdrawal of the Japanese army, a lot of ammunition remained on the island. They were taken to the airfield area, stacked and blown up.
The solution to the island of Matua awaits its researchers. The fact that everything has been preserved there, as the Japanese left it, is rare. But, again, the situation with the protection of Russia’s maritime borders under Yeltsin’s rule was such that foreigners could easily penetrate and live illegally on the islands for years, and no one would be able to detect them. And when discovered, it was impossible to get them - our ships did not have fuel, on which in those years a bunch of scoundrels made their fabulous fortunes, and the ships could not go to sea. The border guards only gritted their teeth from impotence. In those shameful, damned years, everything could have been taken out of the foggy Kuril Islands, everything. Or maybe they took it out. Who knows…
Matua is the most mysterious and enigmatic island of Russia. The crew of the catamaran “Kotojärvi” explored this piece of Kuril land for several days and only became stronger in the idea that we had not seen the most important thing. Secret chemical laboratories, underground cities - yes, it all happened. But clearly there remains something that escaped us. Perhaps it was here that the Nazis hid part of the looted treasures: we were convinced that German submarines visited the Allies even after the surrender of Berlin.
Matua Island is relatively small - 11 kilometers long, 6.5 kilometers wide. The height of the highest point, Sarychev Peak (Fuyo Volcano), is 1485 meters. The island is located in the central part of the Kuril ridge, therefore it is significantly removed from the populated areas of Sakhalin and Kamchatka. There is no connection with the outside world. Yes, in fact, there is no need - the island is uninhabited.
on Iwo Jima it has 45 floors of communications. We assume that on Matua there are at least 45 floors of communications and galleries in the hill
Until the beginning of the 20th century, there was a permanent Ainu settlement here. On the eve of World War II, the Japanese turned Matua - by the way, the Japanese themselves pronounce its name as Matsua-to - into a powerful fortress, into an unsinkable aircraft carrier that controlled the northwest Pacific Ocean. There was a large airfield here with three long runways, allowing aircraft to fly in almost any wind direction. The strips were heated by thermal waters, and therefore could be used year-round. There is enough reason to believe that there were some secret Japanese facilities on Matua. It is likely that these were laboratories for the development of chemical or bacteriological weapons. Submarines of the Third Reich came here after almost circumnavigating the world. The Americans repeatedly tried to destroy airfields and island facilities, losing a dozen aircraft and at least two submarines in battles.
After the surrender of Japan on August 14 and before the capture of the island by Soviet troops on August 27, 1945, the Japanese had enough time to hide and mothball all the most important and valuable island objects. Surprisingly, judging by the inventory of weapons and equipment captured on the island, the paratroopers did not find a single plane, tank or gun on Matua. Of the 3,811 surrendered Japanese soldiers and officers, only 2,127 rifles were available. At the same time, the pilots, sailors and artillerymen disappeared somewhere, and only construction battalion soldiers and support personnel were captured. Compare this with the trophies taken on the island of Shumshu, which was suddenly attacked on August 18, where there were more than 60 tanks alone.
After the Japanese were evacuated from Matua, and the Soviet military settled in their place, very strange events began to occur on the island: people disappeared, light flickered on the slopes of the volcano at night, and from nowhere, rare trophies appeared from our military. For example, collectible French cognac...
After the war, the United States really wanted to get Matua for itself, but Truman did not accept Stalin’s crafty offer to exchange it for one of the Aleutian Islands.
Little is known about what happened on Matua during Soviet times. Civilians did not get here and were not allowed, but the military kept their secrets. Apparently, a military unit serving radars was located on the island. Broken installations and junkyards of electronic equipment from the 60s and 70s are scattered throughout the island.
Until about 2001, a border post remained on Matua. Then it burned down, and the homeless border guards were evacuated to the mainland. There is no one on the island now.
There are no closed bays on Matua. If you look at the island on maps or aerial photography, it may seem that there is no good shelter for a ship near the island. In practice, a convenient and relatively safe place is the strait in the southwestern part of the island, covered from the west by the small island of Iwaki (Toporkovy). It was here that the Japanese raid was located and the berths were located. The Japanese are reminiscent of a two-story pillbox on the shore, a beach littered with the wreckage of ships and equipment, the remains of a pier and the remains of the Royo-maru transport sunk in the strait. Somewhere at the bottom of the strait lie other Japanese transports - the Iwaki-maru and the Hiburi-maru, torpedoed by the American submarine SS-233 Herring.
Not far from the Kotojärvi parking lot, at low tide a huge diesel engine appears from the water, overgrown with algae and shells. It is no longer possible to determine which of the ships that found their end in the strait was the heart.
We stayed on Matua for several days, and every trip to the island was accompanied by amazing finds and discoveries. The airfield's runways have been perfectly preserved. The concrete on them is still better than what is in Sheremetyevo. There are hundreds of rusty fuel barrels around the airfield. Mostly ours, but there are also German ones marked Kraftstoff Wehrmaght 200 Ltr. (“Wehrmacht fuel, 200 liters”). The dates from 1939 to 1945 are clearly legible on the barrels. Surprisingly, among the German barrels there are also full ones.
Numerous defensive structures are openly accessible: bunkers, pillboxes, caponiers, equipped artillery positions, tens of kilometers of trenches and ditches. The alder thickets are full of iron rubbish, sometimes the most amazing. You may, for example, stumble upon a cast-iron steam installation that closely resembles a small steam locomotive. In ditches and on coastal screes, cast iron and ceramic pipes protrude from the ground. What is this? Plumbing, sewerage or parts of the airfield heating system?
I walked along the shore and came across a camouflaged water station with huge cast-iron mechanisms inside the casemates. Everything is relatively safe. I found a small door in the back wall of another collapsed building. I opened it, there was a path behind it, 200 meters later there was a rock in the forest, I looked closer - and this was skillful masonry, behind which there was an entrance to a stone tunnel going up the mountain. Unfortunately, it was overwhelmed by the explosion at the very beginning. There is a landfill nearby. A cast-iron Japanese “potbelly stove” sticks out of the ground, next to it there are fragments of ceramics on which the markings of the Japanese army are read, bottles and vials with hieroglyphs, shell casings, leather shoes...
Even if you don't try too hard, you can easily find many structures on the island whose purpose is not easy to explain. What kind of load, for example, could concrete bunkers with meter-long walls, thick steel doors and the same shutters carry? Barracks, command post, warehouse, bomb shelter? But why then are there so many windows with a complex system of steel shutters and locks, why a sophisticated network of air ducts? Maybe laboratories? More than once, some complex devices with sensors, pressure gauges, centrifuges were found on the island... True, these devices were broken and thrown away by the Japanese themselves. Where is everything else? Equipment, equipment, equipment, personal belongings of the garrison? What did German submarines bring or take away here? What did the Americans try to destroy or capture, what did ours already find?
There are many questions. We were able to get answers to some of them in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, meeting with Evgeniy Mikhailovich Vereshchaga, the permanent leader of the Kamchatka-Kuril expedition.
We contacted Vereshchaga from Moscow and talked about our plans. An experienced Kamchatanian looked at photographs of the catamaran and expressed polite bewilderment: they don’t sail on such a thing in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Pacific Ocean. But he didn’t refuse help - 120 liters of 92-octane gasoline were waiting for us on Matua, without which things would have been difficult. We could have met at sea. Around the time when “Kotoyarvi” was moving north, the Kamchatka-Kuril expedition with border guards was installing Orthodox crosses in the Kuril Islands. Near the island of Ushishir we contacted the border whaleboat, but were unable to approach it due to the stormy sea and thick fog. We met already in Petropavlovsk - in the museum that Evgeniy Vereshchaga, Irina Viter and their associates created as a result of research on the Kuril Islands and, first of all, Matua.
– Why Matua, because very close to Kamchatka there are Shumshu and Paramushir, larger and better known islands, recaptured from the Japanese in the same 1945?
– For a very long time, Matua was absolutely inaccessible. The opportunity to get there appeared only in 2001, when the outpost burned down and the border guards left. This year we already had our 14th expedition, but even now the island shows us only one hundredth of its secrets. Although the conclusion is clear: the island was mothballed by the Japanese garrison before surrendering to Soviet troops.
– Did they have time for this?
– On August 18, the Kuril landing operation began. Information about this spread throughout the Kuril Islands; naturally, on Matua they learned about the start of hostilities on the part of the USSR. On August 23, the Japanese garrison on Shumshu and Paramushir capitulated. And on August 25, the Matua garrison, led by commander Colonel Ledo, surrendered. However, from Japanese sources we know that since February 1945, Ketsu’s plan was implemented in Japan, according to which it was necessary to remove everything that was possible from the Kuril Islands, and what could not be taken out, then mothballed, that is, hidden. Equipment, technology, raw materials... The country's leadership took such actions due to the fact that there was a forecast about the imminent capitulation of Nazi Germany, Japan's main ally. In February-March 1945, the Ketsu plan was put into effect on Matua. Everything that could not be taken out was hidden. And what could not be hidden was destroyed. We found a large amount of burned equipment, and not just burned, but burned and buried 2 meters deep. Small parts were burned in barrels at enormous temperatures. Everything there was sintered and melted. Everything was destroyed very carefully. But we assume that especially valuable things were well hidden. After all, it is known how the Japanese acted in similar cases on the southern islands, in the Philippines, for example. According to our assumptions, about 10–15 thousand people left the island before the capitulation. And those who surrendered were the so-called funeral brigade, which mothballed the island and hid everything.
“But in February 1945, and even more so later, it was very difficult for the Japanese to evacuate such a large and complex military facility as the island of Matua. Maybe they drowned everything in the ocean?
– The divers who participated in the expedition examined the shores, including the secret pier. Apart from a few pieces of iron and American shells that were fired at the island, there is nothing there.
– Why was this rather small island, without a convenient bay, so important for the Japanese?
“We believe that Matua was built as a powerful reserve base, which was supposed to become a springboard for a possible retreat from the northern islands. Shumshu and Paramushir are the tip of a sword aimed at Kamchatka. The structures on these islands are of purely military importance. There is no exoticism, but on Matua we see paved roads, figured walls, decorative trim, new technologies... It is clear that everything was very comfortable here, relaxed Japanese lived here, there was a home front. As we learn from the interrogations of General Tsumi Fusaki, commander of the northern group, the Matua garrison was not subordinate to him and was controlled directly from headquarters in Hokkaido. This speaks of some special status of the island of Matua. The Japanese mentality and ours are very different; on an island on which it would seem impossible to create a naval base, the Japanese built one. Surprise and paradox are their know-how.
– In Germany, work was underway to create a new weapon. In particular, chemical and bacteriological. They probably did the same in Japan. There is a version that secret laboratories were located on Matua. What did your research show?
– The Japanese carried out such work. It is known that in Harbin, on the territory of what is now the People's Republic of China, Detachment 731 was engaged in the development of chemical and bacteriological weapons. I was there two years ago and saw structures very similar to those on Matua. Of course, we have heard all sorts of scary stories, tales, myths, so we try to observe safety precautions as much as possible. If we find something that could potentially pose a danger, we never touch it. We disguise it so that no one else finds it, and examine it very carefully.
– I saw some chemical flasks, other vessels blown from glass...
- Of course, we found them too. But we did not carry out any special excavations. Everywhere in the world there are safety standards. If warehouses of dangerous chemicals or bacteria must be hidden at a depth of 20 meters, it is natural that they are located there. In this sense, Matua is safe. Our garrisons were here for 55 years, and nothing bad happened.
– What evidence is there that preserved objects are hidden inside the island?
– We found underground communications, 100–200–300 meters of corridors carved into basalt, trimmed with wood, inside there are many different rooms, stoves for cooking and heating... This is the so-called underground city object. And this is only the part of it that we discovered by accident. A scree occurred, an entrance formed, and we were able to crawl through there. After earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, more and more new objects are accidentally discovered. But we only find what was not really disguised.
You can take for example the island of Iwo Jima, which everyone has probably heard of. Its garrison consisted of 22 thousand people. The Americans stormed it for three months. About 200 thousand soldiers, hundreds of ships took part in the operation, it was only bombed for a whole month... So, Iwo Jima is three times smaller than Matua. And on Matua, when our people arrived there, not a single plane, not a single tank, not a single gun. And the huge interest of the United States in this island. All this suggests that the main objects were mothballed as a state resource. I mean Ketsu's plan or something similar. Everything was done by specialists, everything was purposefully disguised, put into storage to be taken away later, sealed, exploded. With the resources we have, it is very difficult to discover what was hidden with the resources of an entire state.
P.S. Read the end of the conversation and story about the island of Matua in the next issue.
A respected person in the city, who organizes trips to the Kuril Islands with sponsorship money (who is interesting?) and with the participation of the military and the Russian Orthodox Church (where would we be without them) and then displays in local establishments what he managed to sneak from the islands, but failed drive The result of his “expedition” to Matua was a film with his participation, shot by the miracle masters of our famous Ren-TV channel (well, maybe not the channel itself, but shown on Ren-TV). For those 100% of readers who do not want to get acquainted with the masterpiece of domestic television journalism, I will briefly outline the essence of the program...
This is what the island’s fortifications and airfield look like from space:
According to the authors and Mr. V., the island of Matua is an impregnable Japanese super-fortress, where the secret palace of Emperor Hirohito himself is located, warehouses of Japanese atomic bombs (here in the film we are shown a Japanese army device for purifying drinking water with a hieroglyph, which V. interprets as " secret"), biological superweapon of Japan (unit 731, where would we be without it!), super-powerful submarine fleet in an underwater bay carved into the rock of the island, etc. Also, Mr. V. assures that Hitler himself personally arrived on this island on a submarine for a secret meeting with the Emperor of Japan (this conclusion is made on the basis of a simple logical chain, clear from the photo below):
But Mr. V. attributes this bump on the right with air defense antennas to the Japanese engineering and construction genius. Seriously, in the film he says that this was poured in by the poor Japanese and their Korean and Chinese prisoners of war. It’s no different that there’s an emperor’s palace and nuclear bomb warehouses underneath it.
This nonsense in the film with smart faces is uttered by Mr. V. himself, a certain military man - ex-beginning. outposts on Matua, as he presents himself (when you watch it, you get the feeling that unfit, mentally ill military men were exiled to the islands), as well as certain “scientists” - members of Mr. V.’s expeditions.
Mr. V., who, as it turns out, in addition to his ascetic exploration of the Kuril Islands, is also the general director of Kuril Islands Tour and, in order to establish tourism, bought (or rented?) this island for himself from the military, which sheds light on such results of his " research":
"Commander of the North-Eastern Border Directorate of the Coast Guard of the FSB of Russia
Lieutenant General Valery Putov signed an agreement on the transfer of the island of Matua in the center
Kuril ridge to the travel company "Kuriles-Tour".
A border post on the island burned down several years ago, and those who visited here in the summer
with an inspection trip on the patrol ship "Vorovsky" the commander received
a decision on the inappropriateness of its restoration.
Meanwhile, the previous commander, Lieutenant General V. Prohoda, was attacked
both from the media and from counterintelligence for the removal from the territory of the Northern
He was smoking rare aircraft that had remained here since the war. The leitmotif of these
performances was that you need to show rarities, and not sell them “quietly”
to the side, taking advantage of the status of a closed border zone."
(by the way, there is an interesting portal about our hero Vereshchaga)
This is the connection between business and science, purely “Russian style”.
The results of the work of the comrade mentioned above: 
Well, now, having laughed sadly, as they say, let’s listen to the correct answer. Matua Island is an airfield. Yes, yes, a regular jump-off airfield for Japanese aviation, which supplied the main defensive forces of the Japanese on the island of Shumshu, which protected Japan from the invasion of the Americans, who could use the Kuril Islands as a springboard for an attack from the north, moving through the Aleutian Islands. The kilometer-long concrete airfield is the main and main value of the island.
Someone started a rumor that the airfield was heated by thermal waters and it was even included in Wikipedia. What gave rise to such assumptions is a mystery to me, because there are no known exits on the island thermal springs, and the usual drainage channels along the edges of the strip, even theoretically, could not thaw the strip even if boiling water was passed through them. If anyone thinks that pipes are laid under the strip, similar to modern stadium heating, then he will be wrong - there is nothing like that there.
However, this airfield obviously did not represent super-value for Japan - yes, it was conveniently located almost in the middle of the Kuril ridge and allowed aviation to control all the islands, but the practical value of this was lost when it became clear that the Americans would attack Japan from south. This is clearly visible from the entire infrastructure: open, completely unprotected parking lots for aircraft, a minimum of protected bunkers for storing supplies and shelters for personnel. Yes, the island has underground shelters and warehouses, networks of tunnels, but what island defended by the Japanese does not have this? Remember, for example, the films about the landing on Iwo Jima: “Iwo Jima” and “Letters from Iwo Jima”.
As on any large Kuril Island, bays convenient for landing troops are minimally covered by light coastal fortifications - machine gun and gun pillboxes. On Matua one can still observe some redundancy in defensive structures, which can easily be explained by the fact that the island’s defenses were created in the years when the principles of island defense changed. Initially, it was planned to destroy landing ships on the approach and for this purpose powerful anti-ship gun pillboxes were built. However, practice quickly showed the ineffectiveness of such defense, because such points were easily detected and suppressed by naval artillery and aviation. Then the doctrine of fighting directly against landing troops was adopted, for which purpose flanking machine-gun points (such as in the photo below) and light gun points were built first of all. Naturally, the anti-ship bunkers that had already been built remained; their guns were simply dismantled.
In addition, as in all armies of the world, when the interests of different branches of the armed forces (and here these are the ground and navy) converge in one area, leapfrog and confusion arise in the planning of fortifications. Here is the interrogation of the commander of the 91st PD Tsutsumi Fusaki:
"
Q. What is the significance of the island in the Kuril Islands system? Matua?
O. Matua Island is located in the center of the Kuril chain and is an intermediate
air base, as well as a base for parking ships. With the capture of this island maybe
be created good base for action against Hokkaido and is cut
communication with northern islands. The Americans were interested in this island,
Therefore, we kept a lot of forces on the island and built a good defense.
B. How was interaction carried out with the neighbor - the 41st separate infantry detachment
Matua Islands?
O.41st Infantry Detachment reported directly to the headquarters of the 5th Front, there was no connection with me
had, so there was no interaction." 
Another important point: the island does not have a bay convenient for anchorage.
Here is also one example of a machine gun point:
There is a network of cut-out tunnels on the island, some of which the Japanese blew up after the surrender of the garrison. By the way, during the Kuril landing operation on August 25, 1945, the island’s garrison (3811 soldiers and officers) surrendered to forty Soviet border guards without a fight. Long before this, the Japanese removed almost all the heavy weapons, tanks and most of the personnel from the island for the defense of the central Japanese islands, since the Americans decided to attack Japan from the south and the strategic importance of the Kuril Islands disappeared.
They say that it was Matua that Truman had in mind when he offered Stalin to cede one of the islands of the ridge for a US naval base. After a response request to allocate one of the Aleutian Islands for a Soviet base, the question was no longer raised.
Now all over the island traces of the presence of our valiant air defense soldiers are visible: broken-down air defense stations and MOUNTAINS, MOUNTAINS, MOUNTAINS of barrels with diesel fuel:
And this is a view of the Sarycheva volcano (1446 m), which actually forms the island. Volcanic eruptions occurred in 1760, 1878-1879, 1923, 1928 (strong), 1930 (strong), 1946 (strong), 1954, 1960, 1965, 1976 (strong) and 2009 (strong). The nature of the eruptions is both calm effusion and explosive processes. During the strong eruption of the Sarychev volcano in 1946, pyroclastic flows reached the sea.
This is the map of the tunnels compiled by the “miracle researchers”. Doesn't it bother anyone that they are depicted passing through such an active volcano?
Super-fortifications of the Japanese.
One of the fortified warehouses.
7 541
After the end of the war with Japan, President Truman turned to Stalin with an unusual request: to provide the United States with the island of Matua, located in the very center of the Kuril ridge, occupied by Soviet troops. At the end of the war with Japan, on the island of Matua (size 20 x 10 km) there was a Japanese military garrison of 3,811 people, who surrendered without resistance to our border guards of 40 people.
The island had: an airfield, a hangar inside a hill, bunkers, branched passages, tunnels, artificial caves, and utility lines. Under the concrete field of the airfield there were pipes through which hot water flowed from thermal springs. However, there was no military equipment on the island. Her thorough searches since 1945 have not yet yielded any results. While trying to restore destroyed communications, a “volcanic eruption” unexpectedly occurred in the center of the island. The mysterious death of our military researchers on the island is noteworthy. The dense network of dungeons of the fortress island is fraught with many mysteries.
The Japanese responded to requests from Soviet and Russian researchers with reference to the secrecy of this information.
Our study of the lands of the Kuril ridge over the past decades has shown that its islands are rich in rare and valuable minerals. In terms of their wealth, they are not inferior to Alaska, and in some respects they even surpass them. A number of the Kuril Islands have ascending water plutonium flows that carry constantly replenished minerals from the depths of the earth. Such islands also include the South Kuril Island of Shikotan (which is claimed by Japan) and the Island of Matua.
Through instrumental research on the island of Matua, it was possible to draw up a plan diagram of the main underground tunnels, communications and a number of other objects. One gets the impression that mineral extraction and smelting took place in the depths of the island. For this purpose, the island had energy sources and an electricity transmission network. The dungeons also had an air supply system, where the heights of 446 m and 829 m had a central shaft, one of which was used as supply ventilation, and the other as exhaust ventilation. There is reason to believe that these mine shafts, as well as the entrances and exits from the dungeons, were mined with powerful charges. Therefore, if the researchers were careless, the charge inside the mine shaft was triggered and released energy and earth (like from a gun barrel) like a volcanic eruption. It was revealed that some tunnels and underground workings were flooded with water, and military and production equipment from the island were taken far out to sea and flooded. Their coordinates can be determined if anyone else is interested in this metal. Penetration into the island is possible after eliminating mined entrances and a number of other dangers, after which the dungeons can be used to extract valuable materials. Flooded tunnels and adits are not destroyed, and therefore they can be freed from water. On the island there are several ancient cult rock remains above the burials, above which vertical energy flows of space communication channels are recorded and it is possible that “mystical” mysteries are associated with the places of ancient cult burials.
According to American experts (Charles Stone and others), during World War II, Japan was working on creating a top-secret bomb, and at dawn on August 12, 1945, it exploded in the Sea of Japan, forming a giant mushroom cloud. Its power corresponded to the power of the American bomb exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is possible that to create this bomb, the Japanese mined some very important substances on the island of Matua. American experts reported that the explosion of the Japanese bomb had an unknown nuclear device.
