The Japanese Army 1931-45 (2) 1942-45

By Philip Jowett
Color Plates by Stephen Andrew
Osprey Publishing Ltd., 2002
ISBN 1-84176-354-3
48 Pages, Softbound

Reviewed by John Prigent

The first volume of this paired set covered the Japanese Amy in its years of conquest, and now attention turns to the years of defence. The book begins with an overview of Japanese doctrine, followed by a chronology of the fighting. OK, most of us have some notion of the progress of the island-hopping campaigns but here is data on the fighting in China as well - invaluable for the non-specialist who won’t even have heard that there was any!

Next come notes on the organisation of armoured units and of the standard Infantry Division in 1944. They’re followed by similar notes on special units - the dreaded Kempei-Tai field police, the Special Naval Landing Forces, Army and Navy paratroops, airborne commandos, raiding companies, local auxiliaries, and the militia organised to face the expected invasion of Japan’s Home Islands.

The second half of the book is devoted to uniforms, from the standard Army tropical dress of enlisted men and officers to the uniforms of the Kempei-Tai and its local auxiliaries, the Naval Landing Forces and the other units listed above. Diagrams show the insignia of all Army and Navy ranks, and the plates are excellent too. In combination with the great selection of wartime photographs they show everything one could hope for about the uniforms of late-War Japanese troops. Highly recommended.