54th Army (Japanese Empire)

54th Army
active	June 19, 1945 to August 15, 1945
Country	Japanese Empire
Armed forces	Japanese armed forces
Armed forces	Japanese army
Branch of service	infantry
Type	corps
Strength	approx. 50,000
Insinuation	13th Regional Army
Location	Shinshiro
Nickname	Satsu ( 颯 , "research")
Butcher	Second World War Operation Downfall
Supreme command
list of	Commander in chief

The 54th Army ( Japanese 第 54 軍 , Dai-gojū-yon-gun ) was a major unit of the Imperial Japanese Army in 1945 . Your Tsūshōgō code (military code name) was Forsch ( 颯 , Satsu). Along with the 59th Army, it was the last Japanese army formed during the Pacific War .

history

On June 19, 1945, Daihon'ei (Japanese Headquarters) set up the 54th Army under Lieutenant General Kobayashi Nobuo in anticipation of an Allied invasion of the main Japanese islands and the offshore islands . It was stationed with three divisions , three independent mixed brigades and some artillery in Shinshiro , 200 km from Tokyo , and was subordinate to the 13th Regional Army .

Like most units set up in the Japanese Empire in 1945 , it consisted of previously drafted recruits who had neither the necessary military training nor sufficient weapons. The 143rd Division was previously set up as part of the 1st wave of mobilization in February 1945, the other two divisions during the 2nd (April 1945) and 3rd wave of mobilization (May 1945). Sometimes weapons from the 19th century and bamboo spears had to be used. While divisions with two-digit numbering had a nominal strength of 20,000 men, the divisions with 100 and 200 numbers had almost 10,000 men. The latter divisions had practically no means of transport and were intended for coastal defense. Their immobility was offset by an above-average allocation of artillery and mortars .

The operational area of ​​the 54th Army comprised the coast of the prefectures Aichi and Shizuoka with a coastline of approx. 200 km. The divisions were stationed near the coast.

The 54th Army was disbanded on August 15, 1945, without being involved in any fighting.

Commander in chief

commander

	Surname	From	To
1.	Lieutenant General Kobayashi Nobuo	June 15, 1945	August 15, 1945

Chiefs of Staff

	Surname	From	To
1.	Major General Hanamoto Morihiko	June 1, 1945	September 20, 1945

Subordinate units

• 54th Army Staff
• 143rd Division
• 224th Division
• 355th Division
• 97th Independent Mixed Brigade
• 119th Independent Mixed Brigade
• 120th Independent Mixed Brigade
• 3rd Artillery Regiment
• other smaller units

literature

• Victor Madej: Japanese Armed Forces Order of Battle, 1937-1945. Game Publishing, 1981, OCLC 833591372 , OCLC 833591376 .
• Leland Ness: Rikugun: Guide to Japanese Ground Forces 1937-1945. Helion & Company, 2014, ISBN 978-1-909982-00-0 .
• Philip Jowett: The Japanese Army. Part 2: 1931-45. Osprey Publishing, 2002, ISBN 1-84176-354-3 .
• Steven J Zaloga: Defense of Japan Osprey Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-1-84603-687-3

Web links

• 第 54 軍 . Organization of IJA,accessed December 30, 2014(Japanese). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Zaloga, p. 30

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