4th Army (Japanese Empire)

4th Army
active	June 24, 1904 to August 15, 1945
Country	Japanese Empire
Armed forces	Japanese armed forces
Armed forces	Japanese army
Branch of service	infantry
Type	corps
Strength	40,000
Location	1938–45: Bei'an , Manchukuo
Nickname	Hikari ( 光 , "light")
Butcher	Russo-Japanese War Battle of Hsimucheng Battle of Liaoyang Battle of the Shaho Battle of Sandepu Battle of Mukden Second World War Soviet invasion of Manchuria
Supreme command
list of	Commander in chief

The 4th Army ( Japanese 第 4 軍 , Dai-yon-gun ) was a large unit of the Imperial Japanese Army . It was erected and demobilized twice between 1904 and 1945. Your Tsūshōgō code (military code name) was light ( 光 , Hikari ).

history

1904 to 1906

With the landing of the 10th Division on the Liaoyang Peninsula on June 24, 1904, the 4th Army was formed under the command of General Nozu Michitsura . She immediately went to Liaoyang to take over the 5th Division from the 2nd Army . On July 31, 1904, the battle of Hsimucheng took place , in which the Russian troops were forced to withdraw. Immediately afterwards, the 4th Army, together with the 2nd, took part victoriously in the Battle of Liaoyang . In the same year she also took part in the Battle of Shaho and in January 1905 in the Battle of Sandepu . In February 1905 the biggest land battle since the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig occurred when the 4th Army took part in the Battle of Mukden with the 1st , 2nd , 3rd and 5th Army .

After the fighting ended, the 4th Army was demobilized on January 17, 1906.

1938 to 1945

On July 15, 1938, the 4th Army was reorganized in the course of the Second Sino-Japanese War and served as part of the 1st Regional Army in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo for garrison duties. Their headquarters were in Bei'an in northern Manchuria , which they strongly fortified. The aim was to show strength against the Soviet Union on the Manchurian-Soviet border after several border incidents had already occurred. The 1st Regional Army and thus the 4th Army were part of the Kwantung Army . The fighting in China and, in the course of the Pacific War , in Southeast Asia resulted in the withdrawal of material and troops from Manchukuo, which left the army weak.

Towards the end of World War II , the battle-hardened attacked on August 8, 1945 Red Army in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria to the Manchukuo and the Japanese Empire. The 4th Army, which was poorly equipped in terms of quantity and quality, could not offer sustained resistance. Large parts of the army were overrun, some were able to withdraw as far as Harbin , where they also surrendered after the surrender of Japan .

Commander in chief

	Surname	From	To
1.	General Nozu Michitsura	June 30, 1904	January 12, 1906
	demobilized	January 12, 1906	July 15, 1938
2.	Lieutenant General Nakashima Kesago	July 15, 1938	August 1, 1939
3.	Lieutenant General Ushiroku Jun	August 1, 1939	September 28, 1940
4th	Lieutenant General Washizu Jōhei	September 28, 1940	October 15, 1941
5.	Lieutenant General Yokoyama Isamu	October 15, 1941	September 21, 1942
6th	Lieutenant General Kusaba Tatsumi	September 21, 1942	February 7, 1944
7th	Lieutenant General Nishihara Kanji	February 7, 1944	March 23, 1944
8th.	Lieutenant General Uemura Mikio	March 23, 1944	September 1945

Subordinate units

1904 to 1906

• 4th Army Staff
• 5th division
• 10th division

1938 to 1945

The following units were subordinate to the 4th Army in August 1945:

• 4th Army Staff
• 119th Division (Hailar)
• 123rd Division (Sunwu)
• 149th Division (Tsitsihar)
• 80th Independent Mixed Brigade (Hailar)
• 131st Independent Mixed Brigade (Harbin)
• 135th Independent Mixed Brigade (Aihun)
• 136th Independent Mixed Brigade (Nencheng)
• other smaller units

literature

• Gordon L. Rottman : The Japanese Army in World War II. Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2005, ISBN 1-84176-789-1 , p. 9 ff.
• Bernard Jowett: The Japanese Army 1931-45. Volume 2: 1942-45. Osprey Publishing, Oxford 1999, ISBN 1-84176-354-3 .
• Victor Madej: Japanese Armed Forces Order of Battle, 1937-1945. Game Publishing, 1981, OCLC 833591372 , OCLC 833591376 .
• Geoffrey Jukes: The Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905. Osprey Publishing, 2002, ISBN 1-84176-446-9 .
• Rotem Kowner : The A to Z of the Russo-Japanese War. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2009, ISBN 978-0-8108-6841-0 .
• David Glantz: Soviet Operational and Tactical Combat in Manchuria, 1945: "August Storm". Routledge, 2004.

Web links

• IJA 4th Army. niehorster.org, accessed October 22, 2015 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ The Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905. Osprey Publishing, p. 42 ff.
2. ↑ Glantz, p. 187

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Nozu is the family name, Michitsura the first name.