The 312th Infantry Battalion of the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

participated in the Battle of Iwo Jima as part of the 2nd Mixed Brigade. Its job was to defend Mount Suribachi and the approaches to Mount Suribachi. By D+4 of the battle most of the men in the unit were killed, wounded and/or captured. On the night of February 22, 1945 (D+3) some 100-120 men of the battalion attempted to escape from Mount Suribachi to join the rest of the troops in the north. The battalion also saw action in China earlier in the war (before the battle of Iwo Jima).

References

Military units and formations of the Imperial Japanese Army {{mil-unit-stub