56th Army (Japanese Empire)

56th Army
active	April 21, 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. 60,000
Insinuation	16th regional army
Location	Iizuka
Nickname	Shū ( 宗 )
Butcher	Second World War Operation Downfall;
Supreme command
list of	Commander in chief

The 56th Army ( Japanese 第 56 軍 , Dai-gojū-roku-gun ) was a major unit of the Imperial Japanese Army in 1945 . Your Tsūshōgō code (military code name) was Shū ( 宗 ).

history

On April 8, 1945, the Daihon'ei (Japanese Headquarters) set up the 56th Army under Lieutenant General Shichida Ichirō in anticipation of an Allied invasion of the main Japanese islands and the offshore islands . It was stationed with four divisions , a tank regiment and some artillery on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan and was under the 16th 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. 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 56th Army comprised the northern part of the island of Kyushu in Fukuoka Prefecture with headquarters in Iizuka . While the three divisions with the newly drafted recruits were stationed near the coast, the 57th division, consisting of long-serving soldiers, formed the reserve and was positioned in the hinterland.

Without being involved in any fighting, the 56th Army was disbanded on August 15, 1945.

Commander in chief

commander

	Surname	From	To
1.	Lieutenant General Shichida Ichirō	April 15, 1945	August 15, 1945

Chiefs of Staff

	Surname	From	To
1.	Major General Uchino Uichi	April 15, 1945	August 29, 1945

Subordinate units

56th Army Staff
57th Division
145th Division
312nd Division
351st Division
4th Panzer Regiment
6th 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 .

Web links

第 56 軍 . Organization of IJA,accessed December 30, 2014(Japanese).