52nd Army (Japanese Empire)

52nd Army
Japanese students drafted into the 52nd Army during training, mid-1945
active	April 7, 1945 to August 1945
Country	Japanese Empire
Armed forces	Japanese armed forces
Armed forces	Japanese army
Branch of service	infantry
Type	corps
Strength	approx. 80,000
Insinuation	12th Regional Army
Location	Sakura
Nickname	Shō ( 捷 , "victory")
Butcher	Operation Downfall
Supreme command
list of	Commander in chief

The 52nd Army ( Japanese 第 52 軍 , Dai-gojūni-gun ) was a large unit of the Imperial Japanese Army , which was set up and disbanded in the last year of the war in 1945. Your Tsūshōgō code (military code name) was victory ( 捷 , Shō ).

history

After the Allies landed on the island of Iwojima, about 1000 km from mainland Japan, on February 19, 1945 , the Daihon'ei (Japanese Headquarters ) made hasty preparations for the imminent landing of the US Army , which they called Operation Downfall . To this end, several armies were alone with over 80 in 1945. Divisions newly dug . On April 7, 1945, the 52nd Army was set up under the command of Lieutenant General Shigeta Tokumatsu and placed under the 12th Regional Army. The 52nd Army's headquarters were in Sakura near Tokyo . It consisted of the 3rd Guard Division and the Infantry Divisions 147 , 152 and 234 . While the Guard Division was fully equipped and consisted of well-trained soldiers, most of the divisions formed in 1945 were hastily recruits, many of them students. For lack of rifles, many of the recruits were armed with bamboo spears . Without being involved in combat operations, the 52nd Army was disbanded at the end of the war in August 1945 .

Army command

	Surname	From	To
Commander in chief	Lieutenant General Shigeta Tokumatsu	April 7, 1945	August 15, 1945
chief of staff	Major General Tamaoki Harukazu	April 6, 1945	October 10, 1945

Subordinate units

Structure of the 52nd Army as follows (as of April 1945):

• 52nd Army Staff
• 3rd Guard Division
• 147th Division
• 152nd Division
• 234th Division
• 3rd Independent Panzer Brigade
• 8th Artillery Brigade
  • 2nd Artillery Regiment
  • 14th Independent Mountain Artillery Regiment
  • 14th Heavy Artillery Regiment
  • 27th Heavy Field Artillery Regiment
  • 7th Heavy Field Artillery Battalion
  • 18th Heavy Field Artillery Battalion
  • 11th Independent Heavy Artillery Battalion
  • 42nd Independent Heavy Artillery Battalion
  • 40th Mortar Battalion
• 24th anti-tank battalion
• 69th, 94th, 95th, 96th and 97th Independent Engineer Battalion
• 39th Telecommunications Regiment
• 150. Supply unit
• 19. Road construction unit

literature

• John Underwood: The Japanese Order of Battle in World War II. Vol I, The Nafziger Collection, 1999, ISBN 1-58545-044-8 .

Web links

• 第 52 軍. Organization of IJA, accessed December 30, 2014 .  , Japanese

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Underwood, p. 50

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Shigeta is the family name, Tokumatsu the first name.