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Project Hula was a program of World War II in which the United States transferred naval vessels to the Soviet Union in anticipation of the Soviets eventually joining the war against Japan in preparation for the Soviet invasions of southern Sakhalin and the Kuril islands. Conducted at Cold Bay in the Territory of Alaska, the project was active during the spring and summer of 1945. It was the largest and most ambitious transfer program of World War II. ==Origins of Project Hula== The Russian Empire fought a major war with Japan, the Russo-Japanese War, in 1904–1905, Japan sent troops into Siberia during the Russian Civil War in the Siberian Intervention of 1918–1920, and the two countries remained rivals in Northeast Asia after the establishment of the Soviet Union. Japans increasingly aggressive political and military behavior in East Asia during the 1930s led to border clashes between Soviet forces and Japanese forces in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in Manchuria in 1937 at Kanchatzu Island in the Amur River and in 1939 in the Khalkhin Gol/Nomonhan Incident. But after 1939 the two countries turned their attention elsewhere – Japan to focus on the Second Sino-Japanese War in China and the Soviet Union to become Nazi Germany ally and conquer neighbors. Eventually Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact was signed on 13 April 1941. The Soviet Union entered World War II when Germany invaded in June 1941, and in December 1941 Japan entered the war by attacking Allied forces and territories in the Pacific and East and Southeast Asia. Although these events placed the countries on opposite sides in the war, neither had an interest in engaging in military operations against the other, both being fully occupied with the wars in which they already were involved. Thus, the countries maintained a scrupulous neutrality toward one another until almost the very end of World War II; other than inspecting cargos to ensure they did not include war materials and protesting the reflagging of American ships as Soviet ones, Japan did not deliberately interfere militarily with Lend-Lease convoys carrying war supplies from the United States to the Soviet Union in the North Pacific, and the Soviet Union turned down American requests to base American aircraft on Soviet territory for operations against Japan and ignored Allied requests for any other actions which might provoke Japan, its leader Josef Stalin stating only that Soviet entry into the war against Japan would not be possible until after the defeat of Germany. During a meeting with United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman in October 1944, Stalin finally offered to enter the war against Japan, but not until three months after the surrender of Germany, whenever that might be. He also made such an entry contingent upon the Allies providing substantial assistance to the Soviet Union in building up its armed forces and military supplies in East Asia and the Pacific in advance of any Soviet operations against Japan. After the Soviet Union provided a list of equipment it required, which the United States codenamed MILEPOST, the United States began the work of meeting the Soviet requirements outside of and in addition to annual Lend-Lease allotments of aid to the Soviets. As part of MILEPOST, the Chief of the Soviet Main Naval Staff, Admiral V. A. Alafusov, and the deputy commander of the U.S. Military Mission in Moscow, Rear Admiral Clarence E. Olsen, agreed on 20 December 1944 to a list of a dozen types of ships and aircraft the United States would transfer to the Soviets. Among the ships were various types of escort vessels, landing craft, and minesweepers. Olsen also recommended that a "program for training of personnel and for delivery of some of each type of ship should be set up at once" so that Soviet crews could receive instruction from American personnel in the operation of the ships and craft transferred to them. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Project Hula」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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