56th Division (Imperial Japanese Army)

The 56th Division (第56師団, Dai-gojūroku Shidan) was an

History

In October 1941, the 146th Infantry Regiment and 2nd Battalion of the 56th Field Artillery Regiment were re-organized as the "56th Independent Mixed Regiment" (subordinated to Sakaguchi detachment). It departed from

From May 1942, the 56th Division mostly performed garrison duties on the Yunnan border. The 113th Infantry Regiment was mostly in Yunnan, except for the 3rd Battalion. which was stationed in Longling County. The 148th Infantry Regiment was stationed in Tengchong. The heavy fighting resumed in January 1944 with the Battle of Lashio, as part of Battle of Northern Burma and Western Yunnan campaign in 1944. During the campaign, the division's 114th Infantry Regiment, borrowed from the 18th Division, was credited with shattering Merrill's Marauders in the Siege of Myitkyina in May–August 1944 and in delaying the 15:1 superior Chinese forces and inflicting heavy Chinese casualties during the Battle of Mount Song. Faced with numerically and better equipped enemy in an attrition battle, the 56th Division suffered heavy losses. The remnants of the division were removed from the front line in October 1944, and on the day of the surrender of Japan, 15 August 1945, on the border between South Burma and Thailand.

The 56th division of the Japanese Burmese Front was the most destroyed by the Chinese. At least 70% of the division was wiped out by the Chinese army in the Burmese battlefield, more than a thousand men of the 56th Division died during the Japanese occupation of Western Yunnan in 1942-44, as well as hundreds of Imaoka Allied troops died in northern Burma and dozens in Myitkyina, and the 56th Division suffered devastating blows in western Yunnan, China. 1. During the counterattack of the Yunnan Expeditionary Force (April 29 to July 5, 1944)

The total number of men fighting under the command of the 56th Division was approximately 11,000. During the two months of fighting, 1,719 people were killed and 1,257 wounded. About 200 people died from war illnesses and about 4,500 suffered war illnesses. [3]

2. The first phase of the "Broken" operation (July 6 to October 5, 1944)

The 56th Division (with a total strength of about 11,000 men) suffered 4,868 battle deaths, 1,430 battle wounds, and 386 battle sickness deaths.

The 2nd Division (with a total strength of about 6,000 men) suffered about 800 killed and 800 wounded. [4]

3． During the second phase of the "Broken" operation (October 5, 1944 to January 26, 1945)

The 56th Division (with a total strength of approximately 8,000 men) suffered 1,803 battle deaths, 3,194 battle wounds, and 27 deaths from battle illnesses. [5]

About 9,000 people from the 56th Division (including those who died from war illnesses) died in the 1944-45 counterattack in Western Yunnan.

The 1st Battalion of the 146th Regiment (Pingga Garrison) started fighting with our two reinforced regiments in Pingga on April 29, 1944, and ended before the expeditionary force and the garrison in India joined forces on January 26, 1945. The team suffered 3,102 casualties on the battlefield in western Yunnan alone (including 2,734 dead and 368 wounded), and 236 others were missing. Because in the early stage of our counterattack, this regiment sent its main force to northern Myanmar to support the 18th Division in fighting our troops in India. There were another 453 casualties (including 413 dead and 40 injured), which has not yet been included in this table. middle. Taken together, the total casualties of the regiment were as high as 3,555 (excluding missing persons), which was already the total number of organic troops of the Japanese infantry regiment. The 146th Regiment is a standard organic wing (its infantry brigade has 4 infantry squadrons, while the 113th Regiment and the 148th Regiment each have 3 infantry squadrons) with a strength of 3,443 personnel. [7] During the war, the 56th Division received three batches of 2,400 additional troops. If one-third of the 146th Regiment's troops were 800, its peak strength would be approximately 4,200. Based on this estimate, the casualty ratio of the wing was 73.8%, and the mortality rate was 65%. Relatively speaking, the 146th Regiment, which has maintained its organizational structure and military flag, is in a better situation than the 113th Regiment and the 148th Regiment, which burned their military flags in Songshan and Tengchong.

The 148th Regiment lost 3,510 people in western Yunnan in 1944-45 (including those who died from war illness)

See also

• List of Japanese Infantry Divisions

Notes

• This article incorporates material from Japanese Wikipedia page 第56師団 (日本軍), accessed 9 June 2016

Reference and further reading

• Madej, W. Victor. Japanese Armed Forces Order of Battle, 1937-1945 [2 vols]

Allentown, PA: 1981

External links

Media related to 56th Division (Imperial Japanese Army) at Wikimedia Commons