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A short primer on the organization of the IJA and the IJN - for the organization of the Imperial Japanese military start here.
Imperial Japanese Army and Navy organizations comparison - for better understanding different organizations of the IJa and the IJN, which sometimes had similar names.
General map of East Asia and Pacific - for better orientation in the enormous Asia-Pacific area, where Japanese military operated
Links to particular topics on this page:
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When I’ve made this site, I’ve decided not to publish here books on the Imperial Japanese military, which are already available online. However, it was pointed out to me, there are books on the Imperial Japanese military online, which I have no idea about for all my years of “digging” online libraries. So other researchers of the Imperial Japanese military could be in the same situation.
That’s why I’ve now decided to publish on my web site some out of copyright books/documents, which have information on the Imperial Japanese military. I hope they will be useful to other researchers.
Note, that most of them are intelligence publications from the Pacific War period, so errors and incorrect information can be present.
War Department Technical Manual TM-E 30-480 “Handbook on Japanese Military Forces” (US).
This US Army intelligence handbook is the most condensed information on Imperial Japanese military, its armament and organization, available in English. No wonder that 1944 edition of the Handbook was reprinted several times after the WW 2. Unfortunately, all reprints were made without later additions and corrections.
1944 edition of the Handbook can be seen in HTML format on “Hyperwar” web site: https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/IJA/HB/index.html
Links to download:
TM 30-480 “Handbook on Japanese Military Forces”, 1941 edition. Surprisingly, but it has some information, that was not available in later handbooks.
TM 30-480 “Handbook on Japanese Military Forces”, 1942 edition.
TM-E 30-480 “Handbook on Japanese Military Forces”, 1944 edition.
Changes 6 to the TM-E 30-480 “Handbook on Japanese Military Forces”, 1944 edition (the only one I was able to find). It deals with the IJA armament. Note, that file is big – c.500 Megabytes.
“Exploitation of Japanese documents” (US, 1944).
Found by Randy Stone at the “Combined Arms Research Library Digital Library”.
With huge amount of Japanese military documents, that fell into the US and Allied hands in 1944 (27 tons(!) on Saipan Island alone), Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, South West Pacific Area published this book to familiarize its members with basic Japanese documents they could encounter.
Besides obvious information on Japanese language this book has a lot of information on Japanese military documents, maps, soldiers’ diaries, etc.
Link to download “Exploitation of Japanese documents” (US, 1944).
"Organization and rank in the Japanese Army And Navy Air Services", 1943 US Navy intelligence report.
Despite its errors, is interesting period document, showing current US knowledge on Japanese air services.
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Japanese official histories of the Pacific War - short introduction to the topic and links to the English translations of some volumes of Japanese official histories of the Pacific War. For all its small length, it's the most detailed research on this topic in English, published online.
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Links to the English language web sites with useful information on the Imperial Japanese military
Japanese language and other reference resources
Japanese calendar systems and Methods of designating weapons and equipment
List of Japanese military abbreviations
Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors of 1882 was the official code of ethics for the Japanese military personnel from its publication in 1882 until 1948, when it was officially denounced. Every Japanese soldier was expected to learn it by heart and it had to be memorized by every IJA member (by contrast IJN required learning, not memorization, of the Imperial Rescript).
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