Imperial Japanese Army

The Imperial Japanese Army^[a] (IJA) was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan. Forming one of the military branches of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces (IJAF), it was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Army Ministry, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor of Japan, the supreme commander of IJAF. During the 20th century, an Inspectorate General of Aviation became the third agency with oversight of the IJA. At its height, the IJA was one of the most influential factions in the politics of Japan and was one of the most powerful armies in the world.

Imperial Japanese Army

1868–1945

Empire of Japan

Army

Military ground force

6,095,000 in August 1945

Imperial Armed Forces

Red White

Army equipment

Ōyama Iwao (first)
Sadamu Shimomura (last)

Yamagata Aritomo (first)
Yoshijirō Umezu (last)

History[edit]

Origins (1868–1871)[edit]

In the mid-19th century, Japan had no unified national army and the country was made up of feudal domains (han) with the Tokugawa shogunate (bakufu) in overall control, which had ruled Japan since 1603. The bakufu army, although a large force, was only one among others, and bakufu efforts to control the nation depended upon the cooperation of its vassals' armies.^[1] The opening of the country after two centuries of seclusion subsequently led to the Meiji Restoration and the Boshin War in 1868. The domains of Satsuma and Chōshū came to dominate the coalition against the shogunate.

1870: consisted of 12,000 men.

1873: Seven divisions of c. 36,000 men (c. 46,250 including reserves)

1885: consisted of seven divisions including the Division.

Imperial Guard

1922: 21 divisions and 308,000 men

1924: Post- reductions to 16 divisions and 250,800 men

WW1

1925: Reduction to 12 divisions

1934: army increased to 17 divisions

1936: 250,000 active.

Manchuria

Imperial Japanese Army Air Service

Total military in August 1945 was 6,095,000 including 676,863 Army Air Service. ^[66]

: 543 (12 killed in battle and 531 by disease)

Taiwan Expedition of 1874

First Sino-Japanese War: The IJA suffered 1,132 dead and 3,758 wounded

Russo-Japanese War: The number of total Japanese dead in combat is put at around 47,000, with around 80,000 if disease is included

World War I: 1,455 Japanese were killed, mostly at the

Battle of Tsingtao

Burma Campaign

Over the course of the Imperial Japanese Army's existence, millions of its soldiers were either killed, wounded or listed as missing in action.

Type 38 rifle

Type 99 rifle

Type 44 carbine

Nambu pistol

Type 97 grenade

Type 97 heavy tank machine gun

Type 99 light machine gun

Type 11 light machine gun

Type 100 submachine gun

MP 28 SMG

MP 34

Type 30 rifle

Type I rifle

Type 91 grenade

Type 4 70 mm AT rocket launcher

Type 93 flamethrower

Type 100 flamethrower

Type 89 machine gun

Type 92 heavy machine gun

Type 1 heavy machine gun

Type 26 revolver

Murata rifle

Type 35 rifle

Type 3 heavy machine gun

Type 30 bayonet

Guntō

Hino–Komuro pistol

Sugiura pistol

Type 97 sniper rifle

Type 38 carbine

Type 99 sniper rifle

Karabiner 98k

Vz. 24

Type 10 grenade

Type 98 grenade

Type 99 grenade

Type 3 grenade

Type 4 grenade

Lunge mine

(2009). Japan's Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853–1945. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 9780803217089.

Drea, Edward J.

(2003). "The Imperial Japanese Army (1868–1945): Origins, Evolution, Legacy". War in the Modern World Since 1815. Routledge. ISBN 0415251400.

Drea, Edward J.

Gilmore, Allison B. (1998). You Can't Fight Tanks with Bayonets: Psychological Warfare against the Japanese Army in the South West Pacific. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. 0803221673.

ISBN

Harries, Meirion; Harries, Susie (1994). Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army. New York: . ISBN 0679753036.

Random House

Humphreys, Leonard A. (1996). The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920s. . ISBN 0804723753.

Stanford University Press

(2002). The Making of Modern Japan. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674003349.

Jansen, Marius B.

Jaundrill, Colin D. (2016). Benjamin A. Haynes (ed.). Samurai to Soldier: Remaking Military Service in Nineteenth-Century Japan. Melissa Haynes. Cornell University Press. 9781501706646.

ISBN

Jowett, Philip (2002). The Japanese Army 1931–45 (1). Botley, Oxford: Osprey Publishing. 1841763535.

ISBN

Olender, Piotr (2014). Sino-Japanese Naval War 1894–1895. MMPBooks. 9788363678302.

ISBN

Orbach, Danny (2017). Curse on This Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan. Cornell University Press. 978-1501708336.

ISBN

Ravina, Mark (2004). The Last Samurai : The Life and Battles of Saigō Takamori. John Wiley & Sons. 0471089702.

ISBN

Barker, A.J. (1979) Japanese Army Handbook, 1939–1945 (London: Ian Allan, 1979)

Best, Antony. (2002) British intelligence and the Japanese challenge in Asia, 1914–1941 (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2002).

Chen, Peter. . World War II Database.

"Horii, Tomitaro"

(2000). Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers.

Bix, Herbert

Denfeld, D. Colt. (1997) Hold the Marianas: The Japanese Defense of the Mariana Islands (White Mane Publishing Company, 1997).

Coox, A.D. (1985) Nomonhan: Japan against Russia, 1939 (Stanford UP, 1985)

Coox, A.D. (1988) "The Effectiveness of the Japanese Military Establishment in the Second World War", in A.R. Millett and W. Murray, eds, Military Effectiveness, Volume III: the Second World War (Allen & Unwin, 1988), pp. 1–44

Drea, Edward J. (1998). In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army. . ISBN 0803217080.

University of Nebraska Press

Ford, Douglas. (2008) "'The best equipped army in Asia'?: US military intelligence and the Imperial Japanese Army before the Pacific War, 1919–1941." International journal of intelligence and counterintelligence 21.1 (2008): 86–121.

Ford, Douglas. (2009) "Dismantling the ‘Lesser Men’and ‘Supermen’ myths: US intelligence on the imperial Japanese army after the fall of the Philippines, winter 1942 to spring 1943." Intelligence and National Security 24.4 (2009): 542–573.

online

Frühstück, Sabine. (2007) Uneasy warriors: Gender, memory, and popular culture in the Japanese army (Univ of California Press, 2007).

Gruhl, Werner. (2010) Imperial Japan's World War Two: 1931–1945 (Transaction Publishers).

Hayashi, Saburo; (1959). Kogun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War. Quantico, VA: The Marine Corps Association.

Alvin D. Coox

Kelman, Richard; Leo J. Daugherty (2002). Fighting Techniques of a Japanese Infantryman in World War II: Training, Techniques and Weapons. Zenith Imprint. 0760311455.

ISBN

Kublin, Hyman. "The 'Modern' Army of Early Meiji Japan". The Far Eastern Quarterly, 9#1 (1949), pp. 20–41.

Kuehn, John T. (2014) A Military History of Japan: From the Age of the Samurai to the 21st Century (ABC-CLIO, 2014).

Norman, E. Herbert. "Soldier and Peasant in Japan: The Origins of Conscription." Pacific Affairs 16#1 (1943), pp. 47–64.

Rottman, Gordon L. (2013) Japanese Army in World War II: Conquest of the Pacific 1941–42 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013).

Rottman, Gordon L. (2012) Japanese Infantryman 1937–45: Sword of the Empire (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012).

Sisemore, Major James D. (2015) The Russo-Japanese War, Lessons Not Learned (Pickle Partners Publishing, 2015).

. (1956) "Fascism in Japan: The Army Mutiny of February 1936" History Today (Nov 1956) 6#11 pp 717–726.

Storry, Richard

Wood, James B. (2007) Japanese Military Strategy in the Pacific War: Was Defeat Inevitable? (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007).

Yenne, Bill. (2014) The Imperial Japanese Army: The Invincible Years 1941–42 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014).

Overview of Imperial Japanese Army weapons and armaments in World War II

(in Russian) (part 1 of 4)

Army of the Land of the Rising Sun 100 years ago. Part 1. Leap from the Middle Ages into the XX century

Japanese war posters

Archived 2010-03-26 at the Wayback Machine

The PBS program Victory in the Pacific

Archived 2012-01-28 at the Wayback Machine

Imperial Japanese Army