Hello /r/Askhistorians I have Japanese ancestry on my mother's side of the family and I grew up hearing stories about my Japanese grandparents experience during WWII. Both of my grandparents were drafted/joined the Japanese army as a doctor and a nurse respectively in 1945 and were stationed in Manchuria. From what I have been told their hospital was captured a few weeks after they got there by a group my mother insists were called the White Russians. Who were then driven off by Soviet Army who then took control of the hospital.
Now I know that White Russians can either refer to the Monarchist movement (the whites) who opposed the Bolsheviks (the reds) during the Russian Civil War or to Belarusians. I know that many Russian emigres settled in Harbin which was within Japanese occupied Manchuria but why would they attack a Japanese army hospital? Also were they even organizing armed resistance in the area at that time?
Unfortunately both of my grandparents passed away when I was much younger so I can't ask them. Overall learning about my grandparents experience during WWII has helped me as kid cope with some of the shame classmates lobbed at me whenever WWII was covered in history class. But this is the one detail that never really added up to me. Any insight would be most appreciated!
It's possible but I can't comment on the probability or, obviously, the specifics of your grandfather's case.
The Whites were indeed wiped within the USSR during the Civil War but hundreds of thousands of White emigres fled to China after their defeat in this conflict. This included plenty of Tsarist officers and a number of White warlords (of whom Ataman Semenov is probably the most famous). These often retained the arms, organisation and standards from their Civil War days - they migrated as soldiers.
Here the Whites added to the already complex environment of north-eastern China, which was something of a Wild West at the time - a weak Chinese government overseeing a mix of local warlords, organised bandits, Japanese intelligence agents and Soviet rail workers. Ignoring the broader issue of White settlement, White military detachments fit fairly well into this mix.
While we can no longer speak of an overarching 'White movement' (although even in Russia unity had not been a noted strength of the White Guards), scattered groups of White Russians continued to operate as soldiers. They served under warlords (either independently or under Chinese generals, eg Zhang Zongchang), as bandits or mercenaries and in the employment of the CER (Chinese Eastern Railway).
These groups operated with near-impunity under weak Chinese authority or, later, in collusion with the Japanese. Border raids into the USSR was a common complaint during the 1920s; the Chinese inability to prevent this being one of the factors behind the Soviet intervention of 1929. It wasn't until 1945 that the last of the White formations disintegrated; there are accounts of White units supporting the Japanese in the campaign of that autumn.
So were there Whites active in Manchuria in 1945? Yes. But these weren't part of any broader Tsarist movement and typically operated as mercenaries or bandits. As to why any of them would attack a hospital, I can only point to loosely organised units active in the chaos of war.
Sources: Jamie Bisher's White Terror and David Glantz's Soviet Operational and Tactical Combat in Manchuria
What was the exact phrase your grandfather used? "White Russians" using the English words, or "白ロシア" using Japanese words, or something else?