7th Regional Army

7th Regional Army
General Itagaki, commander of the 7th Regional Army, hands over his sword in a formal ceremony as a sign of surrender, Kuala Lumpur, February 22, 1946
active	March 22, 1944 to August 15, 1945
Country	Japanese Empire
Armed forces	Japanese armed forces
Armed forces	Japanese army
Branch of service	infantry
Type	army
Strength	approx. 200,000
Insinuation	South army
Location	Singapore
Nickname	Oka ( 岡 , "hill")
Butcher	Pacific War
Supreme command
list of	Commander in chief

The 7th Regional Army ( Japanese 第 7 方面軍 , Dai-nana hōmengun ) was from 1944 to 1945 one of the regional armies of the Imperial Japanese Army . Your Tsūshōgō code (military code name) was hill ( 岡 , Oka ).

history

On March 22, 1944, the 7th Regional Army was set up under the command of General Doihara Kenji in Singapore as part of the Southern Army . It consisted of the 16th , 25th and 29th Army with two infantry divisions (including the 2nd Guard Division ), ten independent mixed brigades and other smaller units such as B. for air defense , logistics , medical services etc., approx. 200,000 men. The 16th Army was stationed in Batavia , the 25th Army on Sumatra and the 29th Army in Malaysia .

Because of the Allied strategy of island hopping , the 7th Regional Army was not involved in fighting until the end of the war in August 1945. In an official surrender ceremony in Kuala Lumpur on February 22, 1946 , their Commander in Chief General Itagaki presented his sword to Lieutenant General FW Messervy , Commander in Chief of the British Malaya Command .

The 7th Regional Army was officially disbanded by the Daihon'ei on August 15, 1945.

Commander in chief

Commanders

	Surname	From	To
1.	General Doihara Kenji	March 22, 1944	April 7, 1945
2.	General Itagaki Seishirō	April 7, 1945	August 15, 1945

Chiefs of Staff

	Surname	From	To
1.	Major General Shimizu Tsunenori	March 22, 1944	June 27, 1944
2.	Major General Ayabe Kitsuju	June 27, 1944	August 15, 1945

Subordinate units

When the 7th Regional Army was set up, it consisted of the following units:

• 16th Army (approx.10,000 men)
  • 27. Independent Mixed Brigade
  • 28. Independent Mixed Brigade
• 25th Army (approx. 60,000 men)
  • 2nd Guard Division
  • 4th division
  • 25. Independent Mixed Brigade
  • 26. Independent Mixed Brigade
• 29th Army (approx. 45,000 men)
  • 12. Independent Mixed Brigade
  • 18. Independent Mixed Brigade
  • 24. Independent Mixed Brigade
  • 29. Independent Mixed Brigade
  • 35th Independent Mixed Brigade
  • 36th Independent Mixed Brigade
  • 37th Independent Mixed Brigade
• Borneo Garrison Army
  • 2nd Independent Garrison Battalion
• Singapore Defense
  • 47th Independent Garrison Battalion
  • 48th Field Flak Battalion
  • 3. Kempeitai , South Army

Subordinated directly to the 7th Regional Army

• • Logistics troops
  • Engineer troops
  • Guards
  • military police
  • Field hospitals
  • Field Post Units
  • Transport 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 1931-1945 (2) Osprey Publishing, 2002, ISBN 978-1-84176-354-5
• Charles Pettibone: The organization and order or battle of militaries in World War II: Volume VII: Germany's and Imperial Japan's allies & puppet states Trafford, 2012

Web links

• 総 軍 ・ 方面軍 . Organization of IJA,accessed January 2, 2015(Japanese). 
• List of Higher Echeron Army Headquarters. Organizations of IJA & N, accessed January 1, 2015 . 
• War in the Pacific: Strategy and Command. Louis Morton, accessed April 21, 2015 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ness, p. 39
2. ↑ Madej, p. 2
3. ^ ^{A b} Japanese 7th Area Army, April-December 1944, Japanese Army Studies, Monograph No. 162, Southwest Area Operations Record, 7th Area Army, Prepared for Military History Section, HQ, Army Forces Far East. (No longer available online.) United States Army Combined Arms Center, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved June 2, 2015 . 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.  

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