1st main army

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1st main army

Map-1st General Army, German.jpg

Area of ​​operations of the 1st Main Army of the Imperial Japanese Army, 1945
active April 8, 1945 to November 30, 1945
Country JapanJapan Japanese Empire
Armed forces JapanJapan (war flag) Japanese armed forces
Armed forces JapanJapan (war flag) Japanese army
Branch of service infantry
Type Main army ( army group )
Strength approx. 1,000,000
Location Tokyo
Nickname Tōhō ( 東方 , "East")
Butcher Pacific War

The 1st Main Army ( Japanese 第 1 総 軍 , Dai-ichi Sōgun ) was a main army ( Army Group ) of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Pacific War . In 1945 it was one of two main armies that were set up because of the feared Allied landings on the Japanese mainland . Your Tsūshōgō code (military code name) was East ( 東方 , Tōhō ).

history

From 1941 to April 1945, the Central Defense Command was entrusted with the command of all units of the Army and Army Air Forces in the area of Japan and its colonies Chosen and Taiwan . In fear of an Allied invasion of Japan , the Central Defense Command was disbanded on April 8, 1945. Its tasks were taken over by the newly formed 1st and 2nd Main Army , whose area of ​​command only included the main Japanese islands. The first commander of the 1st Main Army was Gensui (Field Marshal) Sugiyama Hajime , who had three regional armies with five armies and a total of 35 divisions and countless smaller units, a total of around 1,000,000 men.

Many of the subordinate divisions had not been set up until 1945 and had fewer men (sometimes only 50%) than the divisions set up before the Pacific War. Most of these new divisions had 100 and 300 numbers. Since they had practically no means of transport, they were intended solely for static defense and were called coastal divisions . Furthermore, there were neither enough weapons nor ammunition available, so that weapons from the 19th century and even bamboo spears had to be used.

Because of the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki , the Japanese Empire was forced to surrender . The 1st Main Army was therefore not used in combat and was disbanded in November 1945.

Commander in chief

Commanders

Surname From To
1. Gensui (Field Marshal) Sugiyama Hajime April 7, 1945 September 12, 1945
2. General Doihara Kenji September 12, 1945 September 23, 1945
3. General Umezu Yoshijirō September 23, 1945 October 1, 1945
4th General Kawabe Masakazu October 1, 1945 November 30, 1945

Chiefs of Staff

Surname From To
1. Lieutenant General Sudō Einosuke April 6, 1945 October 30, 1945

Subordinate units

The following units were subordinate to the 1st Main Army:

literature

  • Philip Jowett: The Japanese Army 1931-45 (Part 1) . Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2002. ISBN 978-1-84176-353-8 . (English)
  • Gordon Rottman: Japanese Army in World War II: Conquest of the Pacific . Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2005. ISBN 978-1-84176-789-5 . (English)
  • Steven Zaloga: Defense of Japan 1945 . (= Fortress, Volume 99). Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2010. ISBN 978-1-8460-3687-3 . (English)
  • DM Giangreco: Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-47. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2009. ISBN 978-1-5911-4316-1 . (English)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Zaloga, p. 33
  2. ↑ 総 軍 ・ 方面軍. (No longer available online.) Organization of IJA, archived from the original on April 20, 2015 ; Retrieved January 2, 2015 (Japanese).
  3. ↑ a b Japanese Homeland Land Armies, April 8, 1945. (No longer available online.) Combined Arms Research Library, archived from the original on December 8, 2015 ; accessed on November 30, 2015 (English).
  4. ↑ Zaloga, p. 33