1st regional army

1st regional army
active	July 2, 1942 to August 15, 1945
Country	Japanese Empire
Armed forces	Japanese armed forces
Armed forces	Japanese army
Branch of service	infantry
Type	army
Strength	1943 approx. 180,000 ; 1945 approx. 100,000
Location	Mukden
Nickname	Egg ( Japanese 鋭 , "The Sharp")
Butcher	Second World War Operation August Storm;
Supreme command
list of	Commander in chief

The 1st Regional Army ( Japanese 第 1 方面軍 , Daiichi hōmen gun ; also 鋭 , egg , "Die Scharfe") was a regional army of the Imperial Japanese Army , which was active from July 2, 1942 to August 1945.

history

The 1st Regional Army was founded on July 2, 1942 as a sub-unit of the Kwantung Army , one of the main armies (corresponds to Army Group ) of the Japanese Army, and was given its headquarters in Mukden . Their job was to serve as a military reserve and to take on central garrison tasks such as maintaining public order in the north of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo . These tasks had previously been taken over by the Kwantung Army, but their manpower had been so thinned by the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War that it was decided to set up a new, subordinate unit, whose units could not be easily withdrawn. Since their area of operation had not been considered dangerous since the Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact , the 1st Regional Army was mostly assigned only poorly trained reservists and fresh recruits, and the equipment was also inadequate. When in the course of 1945 it seemed more and more likely that the Soviet Union could break the non-aggression pact, attempts were still made to arm the army, but the general supply situation in Japan was meanwhile so bad that this was not sufficiently successful. The soldiers were therefore hardly able to resist the Soviets invading Manchuria in Operation August Storm and either fled quickly or capitulated en masse. With the capitulation of Japan on August 15, 1945, the 1st Regional Army was dissolved, but it took until September until all units were disarmed. Many of the soldiers were deported to Siberia as prisoners of war , including the last commanding officer, Kita Seiichi.

Commander in chief

Commanders

#	rank	Surname	Taking command	adoption	image
1.	Rikugun Taishō	Yamashita Tomoyuki	July 1, 1942	September 26, 1944
2.	Rikugun Taishō	Seiichi day care center	September 26, 1944	September 1945

chief of staff

#	rank	Surname	Taking command	adoption
1.	Rikugun Shōshō	Ayabe Kitsuju	July 1, 1942	December 7, 1942
2.	Rikugun Shōshō	Shidei Tsunamasa	December 7, 1942	October 16, 1944
3.	Rikugun Shōshō	Teragaki Tadao	October 16, 1944	April 1, 1945
4th	Rikugun Shōshō	Sakurai Ryozo	April 1, 1945	September 1945

Subordinate units

1943

The following units were subordinate to the 1st Regional Army (as of 1943):

2nd Army
- 71st Division
3rd Army
- 9th division
- 12th division
- 1. Border Guard Unit
- 7th artillery unit
5th Army
- 11th division
- 24th division
- 12. Border Guard Unit
- 8. Artillery unit
20th Army
- 8th division
- 25th division
- 2. Border Guard Unit
- 3. Border Guard Unit
- 4. Border Guard Unit
- 10. Border Guard Unit
- 11. Border Guard Unit
- 5. Artillery unit
28th division
1st Panzer Division
2nd Panzer Division

1945

Towards the end of the Second World War, the following units were subordinate to the 1st Regional Army:

3rd Army
5th Army
- 124th Division
- 126th Division
- 135th Division
- 15. Border Guard Unit
- 1st Engineer Corps
122nd Division
134th Division
139th Division
10 army hospitals

literature

Richard B. Frank: Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire . Random House, New York 1999, ISBN 0-679-41424-X .
David Glantz: The Soviet Strategic Offensive in Manchuria, 1945 (Cass Series of Soviet (Russian) Military Experience, 7) . Routledge, 2003, ISBN 0-7146-5279-2 .
Bernard Jowett: The Japanese Army 1931-45 (Volume 2, 1942-45) . Osprey Publishing, 1999, ISBN 1-84176-354-3 .
Victor Madej: Japanese Armed Forces Order of Battle, 1937-1945 . Game Publishing Company, 1981
Daniel Marston: The Pacific War Companion: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima . Osprey Publishing, 2005, ISBN 1-84176-882-0 .
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa: Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan . Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, ISBN 0-674-01693-9 .