Japanese garrison on Biak 1944

[marek O.]

Gentlemen,

I have few questions and requests about IJA and IJN garrison on Biak. 1st I would like to ask You if anyone of You could give me names and ranks of any of the comanding officers from Biak garrison. Here is the list of units. As You can see, there are just three names that I know. Then there are just numbers and unit names.
222nd Infantry Regiment - col. Naoyuki Kuzume [without 5th and 9th Companies]
1st, 2nd, 3rd Battalion
222 nd IR Tank Company - lt. Iwasa
3rd Company, 49th Field AAA Battalion
17th Field Airfield Construction Unit - lt. col. Minami
107th, 108th, Detachment of 109th Field Airfield Construction Unit
1st Platoon, 248th Ind. Car Company
Detachment, 36th Inf.Div. Transport Unit
Detachment, 36th ID Sea Transport Unit
Detachment, 14th ID Sea Transport Unit
41st Special Land Duty Company
50th, 69th Construction Company
5th, 12th Mobile Lumber Squad
1st Field Hospital 36th ID
87th Casualty Collection Platoon
Detachment, 36th ID Water Purification Unit
Malaria Clearing Group
3rd Platoon, 1st Company, 24th Communication Regiment
5th Field Well Driling Company
2nd Land Reclamation Unit
Detachment, 10th Field Military Police Unit

19th Naval Guard Unit
33rd, 105th Naval AAA Unit
202nd Naval Pioneer Unit
Naval Fuel Depot
Naval Air Unit

Indonesian Working Group
15th, 16th Formosan Working Group

2nd. What about gen. Takazo Numata, chief of staff of 2nd Area Army? He was on Biak, when fighting begun. Left on June 10th. Reached Manokwari I believe, a week later. But took he command from col. Kuzume or not, when he was on the island?
3rd. I've discovered lately in Marc D. Bernstein's "Hurricane on Biak", part of a diary of sgt. Shigetoshi Ito, soldier from 57th Independent Engineer Battalion, Tanimura Unit. I had no idea that this Battalion was on Biak. Was whole Battalion there or just some part of it?

Regards,
Marek

[Matteus]

Hi Marek,


Senda Sadatoshi (rear adm) was also at Biak

http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/S/e/Senda_Sadatoshi.htm

regards,

Matteus

[Akira Takizawa]

222nd Infantry Regiment
1st Battalion - Captain Goemon Saito
2nd Battalion - Major Kenzo Makino
3rd Battalion - Captain Fukumi Sudo
3rd Company, 49th Field AAA Battalion - 1st Lt. Takehiko Hasegawa
17th Field Airfield Construction Unit - lt. col. Masanori Minami
107th Field Airfield Construction Unit - Major Masao Omori
108th Field Airfield Construction Unit - Major Shuzo Sato

28th Special Base Force - Rear Admiral Sadatoshi Senda
19th Naval Guard Unit - Cdr. Misaki Maeda
33rd Naval AAA Unit - Lt.(JG) Jiro Murakawa
105th Naval AAA Unit - Lt.(JG) Kazuichi Hirano
202nd Naval Construction Unit - Lt. Cdr. Kameo Nagata

15th Formosan Working Group - Mineyuki Kido (civlian)
16th Formosan Working Group - Takeo Kodaka (civlian)

Commanders of other small units are unknown.

2nd. What about gen. Takazo Numata, chief of staff of 2nd Area Army? He was on Biak, when fighting begun. Left on June 10th. Reached Manokwari I believe, a week later. But took he command from col. Kuzume or not, when he was on the island?

It was unexpected situation. 2nd Area Army was embarrassed and ordered Kuzume to command the units in east area and Numata to command the units in west area. But, it caused a confusion in commanding of garrisons.

3rd. I've discovered lately in Marc D. Bernstein's "Hurricane on Biak", part of a diary of sgt. Shigetoshi Ito, soldier from 57th Independent Engineer Battalion, Tanimura Unit. I had no idea that this Battalion was on Biak. Was whole Battalion there or just some part of it?

I cannot find such an unit.

Taki

[marek O.]

Dear friends,
Thank You for Your answers.
Matteus, I knew about rearadm. Senda. I didn't put him on my list because from what I know Biak wasn't a place where his HQ was. I believe that he was there on a inspection trip. But he then took command of Naval units and died on the island. By the way, here is another problem. His rank was higher than col. Kuzume. So question is if there wasn't lt. gen. Numata present on Biak, shouldn't have rearadm. Senda be commanding the Biak garrison?

Taki, thank You for the names. I fully understand that most of the smaller detachments had under 100 men in them. They probably weren't even commanded by officers. I'm fully satisfied with names you provided. By the way, It's interesting if any other regimental units were on Biak from 222nd IR?

Regards,
Marek

[Akira Takizawa]

> So question is if there wasn't lt. gen. Numata present on Biak, shouldn't have rearadm. Senda be commanding the Biak garrison?

Senda ordered that he commanded naval units on Biak on May 19th. But, he never said that he ordered Biak army garrisons. It was before Numata arrived at Biak.

> By the way, It's interesting if any other regimental units were on Biak from 222nd IR?

The OOB of 222nd IR on Biak

3 Battalions

3 Infantry Company
Infantry Mortar Company
Artillery Company

Machine Cannon Company
Tank Company
Engineer Company
Signal Company
Medical Company

Taki

[marek O.]

Dear Taki,

Thank You for Your clarification.

I have one more request. I have in my Biak IJA OOB 3 units of which I'm not completely sure:

part [33 men] of Field "2nd Army" Car Repair Depot
part [110 men] of Field "2nd Army" Ordnance Depot
part [27 men] of "2nd Army" Fortification Department

My question is: were these units from 2nd Army or 2nd Area Army?

Regards,
Marek

[Akira Takizawa]

My question is: were these units from 2nd Army or 2nd Area Army?

2nd Army

Taki

[marek O.]

Dear Taki,

Thank You very much.

Regards,
Marek.

[stulev]

What army group were these units attached?? 18th Army??