102nd Division (Japanese Empire)

102nd Division
active	June 15, 1944 to 1945
Country	Japanese Empire
Armed forces	Japanese armed forces
Armed forces	Japanese army
Branch of service	infantry
Type	division
Strength	approx. 11,000
Insinuation	35th Army
Location	Kumamoto
Nickname	? -heidan ( 抜 兵 団 , "pull division")
Butcher	Pacific War Battle for Leyte

The 102nd Division ( Japanese 第 102 師 団 , Dai-102 Shidan ) was a division of the Imperial Japanese Army , which was established in 1944 and disbanded in 1945. Your Tsūshōgō code (military code name) was Drag Division ( 抜 兵 団 , ? -Heidan ).

History of unity

The 102nd Division was set up on June 15, 1944 under the command of Lieutenant General Fukuei Shinpei as a Type-C “Brigade” / “Special” division, mainly from the 31st  Independent Mixed Brigade . It consisted of the 77th (170th, 171st, 172nd and 354th Independent Infantry Battalion ) and the 78th  Infantry - Brigade (169th, 173rd, 174th and 355th Independent Infantry Battalion) and the 102nd  artillery regiment and the 102nd  pioneer - and transport regiment. The depot of the approx. 11,000 strong division was in Kumamoto , Japan .

Course of the battle during the Battle of Leyte in December 1944

After the Allies had advanced through the Solomon Islands and New Guinea in 1943 and early 1944 , they threatened to land in the Philippines next and thus cut off the Japanese supply routes to Indonesia , southern China and Burma . In anticipation , the Daihon'ei reinforced the troops in the Philippines and converted the 14th Army into the 14th Regional Army . The army, which had originally had two divisions, grew to 15 divisions. The reinforcements also included the 102nd Division, which was subordinated to the 35th Army on Leyte in mid-1944 and had its headquarters on Cebu .

On October 20, 1944, troops of the 6th US Army landed in the southern Leyte Valley and initiated the battle for Leyte . The 55,000 Japanese were compared to over 200,000 Americans. Most of the 102nd Division was buried in the mountains in Central Leyte north of Ormoc , while its left flank was covered by the 1st Division and its right flank by the 16th Division . By the end of December 1944, the surviving Japanese defenders had been pushed to the west coast of Leyte, where they were desperately trying to reach the still Japanese-occupied Cebu. Only a few succeeded in doing this due to the lack of transport ships.

The remnants of the 102nd Division that had remained on Cebu before the Battle of Leyte were destroyed by US troops after the landing in February 1945.

structure

In July 1944, the formation of a Type C "Brigade" / "Special" division took place as follows:

• 102nd Infantry Division staff (approx. 80 men)
  • 77th Infantry Brigade Staff (approx. 60 men)
    • 170th Independent Infantry Battalion (990 men)
    • 171st Independent Infantry Battalion (990 men)
    • 172nd Independent Infantry Battalion (990 men)
    • 354th Independent Infantry Battalion (990 men)
    • 77th Infantry Brigade Signal Unit (140 men)
    • 77th Infantry Brigade Engineer Unit (90 men)
  • 78th Infantry Brigade Staff (approx. 60 men)
    • 169th Independent Infantry Battalion (990 men)
    • 173rd Independent Infantry Battalion (990 men)
    • 174th Independent Infantry Battalion (990 men)
    • 355th Independent Infantry Battalion (990 men)
    • 78th Infantry Brigade Signal Unit (140 men)
    • 78th Infantry Brigade Engineer Unit (90 men)
  • 102nd Artillery Regiment (approx. 800 men)
  • 102.Signal unit (approx. 100)
  • 102nd Engineer Regiment (approx. 400 men)
  • 102nd Transport Regiment (approx. 400 men)
  • 102nd Field Hospital (1 ×) (approx. 450 men)
  • 102. Water supply and treatment unit (approx. 60 men)
  • 102nd Veterinary Hospital (approx. 40 men)
  • 102nd Supply Company (approx. 120 men)

Total strength: approx. 10,950 men

See also

• Divisions of the Imperial Japanese Army

Web links

• HyperWar: Leyte Campaign on Ibiblio.org. Ibiblio.org, accessed June 22, 2015 . 
• Nafziger: Leyte Campaign on Ibiblio.org. United States Army Combined Arms Center, accessed June 26, 2015 . 

literature

• Victor Madej: Japanese Armed Forces Order of Battle, 1937-1945. , Game Publishing, 1981, OCLC 833591372 , OCLC 833591376 .
• John Underwood: The Japanese Order of Battle in World War II, Vol I , The Nafziger Collection, Inc., 1999, ISBN 978-1-58545-044-2
• Leland Ness: Rikugun: Guide to Japanese Ground Forces 1937-1945. , Helion & Company, 2014, ISBN 978-1-909982-00-0 .
• Samuel E. Morison: History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Vol. 12: Leyte, June 1944 – January 1945 , University of Illinois Press, 2002 ISBN 0-252-07063-1

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Madej, p. 101
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Underwood, p. 78
3. ^ Nafziger: Leyte Campaign on Ibiblio.org. (No longer available online.) United States Army Combined Arms Center, archived from the original on June 29, 2015 ; accessed on June 26, 2015 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.