Japanese OOB for the home islands 1945?

[Wilhelm_Klave]

Hello, I was wondering if anyone has data, or can provide links to such information, about the OOB of the Japanese land and air forces stationed on the home islands in mid 1945. I already have much information about the units stationed on Kyushu, but I was unable to find any detailed information (names of units, their strenghts and the location they were stationed) for other islands except Kyushu.

[LWD]

You might search for info on opeations, Olympic and Downfall if you haven't already.

[Wilhelm_Klave]

You might search for info on opeations, Olympic and Downfall if you haven't already.

Yeah, I did the search on both "operation Downfall" and "Ketsu-go". Like I said I was able to find much information about the "Olympic" part of the planned operation, with both American and Japanese OOB.
The problem is with the Japanese OOB for Honshu, Shikoku and Hokkaido. As for now I have been unable to find even a list of the divisions stationed on these islands, not to mention independent brigades or air units.

[LWD]

For air units you might try asking at one of the forums over at:
http://www.j-aircraft.org/smf/index.php
a combined request on the general board or specific requests on the army avaiation and naval aviation boards may get you the aircraft part.
If you haven't found this page yet it might yield some info:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/giangrec.htm
or
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropol ... nfall.html
This one may be a rehash even if you haven't found it but just in case:
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/arens/index.html

[VJK]

Hi!

This Japanese language site gives a very detailed overview of the Japanese Army and Air Force OOB at the end of WWII. If you use the Altavista Babelfish translation tool, it will give you the info you ask for: http://homepage1.nifty.com/kitabatake/rikukaigun11.html

Regards,

VJK

[Wilhelm_Klave]

Hi!

This Japanese language site gives a very detailed overview of the Japanese Army and Air Force OOB at the end of WWII. If you use the Altavista Babelfish translation tool, it will give you the info you ask for: http://homepage1.nifty.com/kitabatake/rikukaigun11.html

Regards,

VJK

Thanks looks like a wonderfull page.
Unfortunately translation is a major ****. Some surnames are translated literally, so I get commanders like quote: "Tsune Kato it is thick the major" or "It is rough Captain island correct Satoshi" . Sure it may be ridiculous, but that's how it works.
Worse yet, some unit names are translated literally too, like "entire troop" which seems to me to be an army or an army group, or "direction general" which seems to me to be corps.

Anyways, thank you VERY much, this seems to be just the type of page I was looking for, it is a shame that modern automatic translation is still not high quality.

[LWD]

There are a number of Japanese speakers on the j-aircraft site I posted above. They've been willing to help others translate things. Might be worth a post. Also I think this board has a translation request section. The auto translator help sometimes but in other cases they are basically good for a laugh.

[Peter H]

From Kogun:the Japanese Army in the Pacific War,pp 163-67.Situation before the surrender.

Fifth Area Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Kiichiro Higuchi,
with headquarters at Sapporo)
88th Division (Toyohara, Sakhalin)
42d Division (Shinshiru Island)
91st Division (Paramushiro)
89th Division (Etorofu Island)
7th Division (Obihiro, Hokkaido)
The 1st Air Division was also included within the order of battle of the
Fifth Area Army.
First General Army (commanded by Marshal Gen Sugiyama, with General
Headquarters at Tokyo)

Eleventh Area Army (under General Keisuke Fujie, with headquarters at
Sendai)
Fiftieth Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Toshimoto
Hoshino, with headquarters in Aomori)
157th Division (Sanbongi)
308th Division (Shimokita); etc.
Under direct command of the Eleventh Area Army:
72d Division (Fukushima)
142d Division (Yoshioka)
222d Division (Kurosawajiri)
322d Division (Ogawara)

Twelfth Area Army (under command of General Shizuichi Tanaka, with
headquarters at Tokyo)
Thirty-sixth Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Toshimichi
Kamimura,
with headquarters at Urawa)
201st Division (near Kawagoe)
202d Division (Maebashi)
209th Division (moving from Kanazawa)
93d Division (near Chiba)
81st Division (south of Utsunomiya)
214th Division (Utsunomiya)
1st Tank Division (near Tochigi)
4th Tank Division (Chiba); etc.
Fifty-first Army (under Lieutenant General Kengo Noda, with
headquarters at Mito)
44th Division (southern coast of Kashimanada)
221st Division (east of Kasumigaura)
151st Division (Ota); etc.
Fifty-second Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Tokumatsu Shigeta,
with headquarters at Susui in Chiba Prefecture)
3d Imperial Guard Division (near Naruto)
152d Division (near Yokaichiba)
234th Division (near Oami)
147th Division (Ichinomiya); etc.
Fifty-third Army (under Lieutenant General Yaezo Akashiba, with
headquarters in the village of Tamagawa, north of Isehara in Kanagawa
Prefecture)
140th Division (Fujisawa)
316th Division (west of Iseharamachi)
84th Division (Matsuda); etc.
Tokyo Defense Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Jo Iimura, with
headquarters in Tokyo)
1st Imperial Guard Division (Tokyo); etc.
Tokyo Bay Army Corps (under Lieutenant General Shihei Oba, with
headquarters at Tateyama)
354th Division (Tateyama); etc.
Under direct command of the Twelfth Area Army:
321st Division (Oshima); etc,

Thirteenth Area Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Tasuku
Okada, with headquarters at Nagoya)
Fifty-fourth Army (under Lieutenant General Nobuo Kobayashi, with
headquarters at Shinshiromachi, north of Toyohashi)
73d Division (Kokubu)
143d Division (near Kanesashimachi, on the northeastern shore of
Lake Hamana)
224th and 355th Divisions (which had not yet arrived); etc.
Under direct command of the Thirteenth Area Army:
153d Division (Ujiyamada)
229th Division (Iida); etc.
Second General Army (commanded by Marshal Shunroku Hata, with General
Headquarters at Hiroshima)

Fifteenth Area Army (under Lieutenant General Eitaro Uchiyama,
with headquarters at Osaka)
Fifty-fifth Army (under command of Lieutenant General Kumakichi
Harada,
with headquarters in Shinkai, a northern suburb of the city of Kochi)
11th Division (near Kochi)
155th Division (near Kochi)
205th Division (near Kochi)
344th Division (Sukwno and Nakamura); etc.
Fifty-ninth Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Yoji Fujii, with
headquarters at Hiroshima)
230th Division (Japan Sea coast, Yamaguchi Prefecture)
231st Division (Yonago); etc.
Under direct command of the Fifteenth Area Army:
144th Division (Wakayama)
225th Division (Tatsuno); etc,

Sixteenth Area Army (under Lieutenant General Isamu Yokoyama, with
headquarters at Fukuoka)
Fifty-sixth Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Ichiro
Shichida, with headquarters at Iizuka)
145th Division (Ashiya)
351st Division (Fukuoka)
312th Division (Imari); etc.
Fifty-seventh Army (under Lieutenant General Kanji Nishihara with
headquarters in Takarabe)
86th Division (Ariake Bay)
154th, 156th, and 212th Divisions (on Miyazaki front); etc
Fortieth Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Mitsuo Nakazawa,
with headquarters at Ijuin; transferred from Formosa in May 1945)
77th Division (Kajiki)
146th Division (southern part of Satsuma Peninsula)
206th Division (Izaku sector, western shores of Satsuma
Peninsula)
303d Division (Sendai front)
Under direct command of the Sixteenth Area Army:
25th Division (Kobayashi)
57th Division (Fukuoka)
216th Division (Kumamoto)

Air General Army (commanded by General Masakazu Kawabe, with General
Headquarters at Tokyo)
First Air Army (under Lieutenant General Takeo Yasuda, with headquarters
in Tokyo)
10th Air Division
30th Fighter Group; etc.
Sixth Air Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Michio Sugawara, with
headquarters at Fukuoka)
12th Air Division; etc.
Fifth Air Army (under Lieutenant General Takuma Shimoyama, with
headquarters at Seoul)
53d Air Training Division (made up of training units); etc.
Under direct command of the Air General Army:
11th Air Division
51st and 52d Air Training Divisions; etc.

[VJK]

Hi Wilhelm!

Worse yet, some unit names are translated literally too, like "entire troop" which seems to me to be an army or an army group, or "direction general" which seems to me to be corps

Yes, it is a shame about the quality of the translation, but at least it gave me a starting point. "Entire troop" is General Army and "Direction general" is Area Army. For more precise translation of the commanders and units I use these 2 translation sites:

http://www.animelab.com/anime.manga/translate
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/c ... wwwjdic?9T

Regards,

VJK

[LWD]

I have heard that you can get better machine translations if you can actually use the Japanese character sets. Seams that there are several different systems for rendering the Japanese characters into English characters and this causes a lot of problems in translation. I'm not sure exaclty what you have to do to accomplish this however.

[HenryW]

Hi,

This site may help

http://sv06.wadax.ne.jp/~gunsight-jp/b/ ... aiti-e.htm

Henry Weyers

[Wilhelm_Klave]

Thanks a lot guys, you have been a major help for me!

[KASHANKA]

Good info, I see it includes the units on Sakhalin and the Kuriles, but not the units in the Bonin islands. Anyone has info on them?

[hisashi]

near the end of war IJA raised many large and small units in Japan from inferior human resources e.g. handycapped men, Japaneses born abroad and cannot understand Japanese language. Many of them was almost on paper but the status of each unit is not clear, but the list is very, very lengthy. I have almost complete IJA organization chart in August 1945, but it had 33 pages for Japan (107 pages for all IJA units) and IJA had about 3,000 units (including breakdown of divisions).

[stulev]

hisashi san

Will your list be available - I would like to compare to my list - I do not have locations on most of the units at the end of the war - also my list is by unit code numbers so location does not follow through.

My list has some 1000s of units and would be glad to send you a computer CD-ROM if you would like it - it is too big to send by email!

Stuart