Japan
Which country did Matua (island) belong to from 1944 to 1945?
Matua ( island ) Matua ( , Matsuwa ; Matsuwa-tō ) is an uninhabited volcanic island near the center of the Kuril Islands chain in the Sea of Okhotsk in the northwest Pacific Ocean , across Golovnin Strait from Raikoke . Its name is derived from the Ainu language , from “hellmouth” . History . Hunting and fishing parties of the Ainu have long visited Matua , but the island had no permanent habitation at the time of European contact . It appears on an official map showing the territories of the Matsumae Domain , a feudal domain of Edo period Japan dated 1644 , and the Tokugawa shogunate officially confirmed these holdings in 1715 . Some early European documents refer to the island as Raukoke . The Empire of Russia claimed sovereignty over the island , which initially passed to Russia under the terms of the Treaty of Shimoda ( 1855 ) , but reverted to the Empire of Japan per the Treaty of Saint Petersburg along with the rest of the Kuril islands . Japan formerly administered Matua as part of Shimushiru District of Nemuro Subprefecture of Hokkaidō . During World War II the Imperial Japanese Army had a roughly east–west-oriented airfield , which hosted the IJNASs 553rd Kōkūtai , equipped with Aichi D3A Val dive bombers , located on this island , with the active runway potentially of some 1.33 kilometer ( 4,360 ft ) length , located on its southernmost areas . The island was garrisoned by 7000-8000 men of the 41st Independent Mixed Regiment , 6th Independent Tank Company , and supporting units . During 1944 the US Army Air Forces intermittently bombed the Japanese facilities on the island and ships of the United States Navy shelled it . The Americans sank several Japanese cargo vessels near the island or while at harbor . On June 1 , 1944 , a Japanese shore-battery on Point Tagan sank the American submarine . During the Soviet Battle of the Kuril Islands in the last weeks of World War II , the Japanese garrison surrendered to the Red Army without resistance ( August 1945 ) . After World War II the island came under the control of the Soviet Union , and Soviet Border Troops manned the former Japanese military facilities . Its most important role was radar surveillance of the Kuril Islands . A VHF P-14 radar , Tall King , was put into service during the 1950s or 1960s , and a P-35 radar and possibly a PRV-10 “Rock Cake” radar were also in service at some point . With the withdrawal of Soviet military forces following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 , the island became uninhabited . The Russian Federation administers it as part of the Sakhalin Oblast . In 2016 some two hundred Russian officials and technical experts made an expedition to the island , part of a plan to rehabilitate the derelict 1.2 km Soviet airfield and establish a new naval and logistical forward military base . A new 1400 meter runway was built between 2016 and 2019 , along with new hard stands , both of which are visible on Google Earth and other satellite images . Geology . Matua is roughly oval , with a length of with a width of , and an area of . The island is a complex stratovolcano with two main peaks . Sarychev Peak ( , ; Fuyōzan , also known as Matsuwa-Fuji ) in the northwest of the island is one of the most active volcanoes of the Kuril Islands . The central cone has a wide , very steep-walled crater with a jagged rim , rising to a height of . Lava flows descending on all sides of the peak forms capes along the coast . Eruptions have been recorded since the 1760s , including 1878–1879 , 1923 , 1930 , 1946 , 1960 , 1976 , 1981 , 1987 , 1989 and 2009 , with the largest in 1946 which produced pyroclastic flows that reached the sea . The 2009 eruption was large enough to affect air traffic between Asia and North America . The much smaller peak to the south , ; Tengaizan has a height of . Climate . Although it is located at the same latitude as Paris or Seattle , the Oyashio current on the western flank of the Aleutian Low gives Matua a subarctic climate ( Köppen Dfc ) that is close to a polar climate ( ET ) . Unlike the quintessential subarctic climate of Siberia or Mongolia , however , Matua has very heavy precipitation as rain , snow and fog . It also has much milder winters than corresponding latitudes in Manchuria : the mean temperature of the coldest month in Matua is as against in Qiqihar in Heilongjiang . Seasonal lag , like in all the Kuril Islands , is a major feature of the climate , with August being the mildest month and February the coldest .