The Guards Mixed Brigade was a military unit 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 ...

History

In September 1939 the 1st Guards Brigade of the

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese

Imperial Guards Division In Japan, the Imperial Guard is the name for two separate organizations dedicated to the protection of the Emperor of Japan and the Imperial Family, palaces and other imperial properties. The first was the , a quasi-independent elite branch of the ...

was split off and transferred to

South China South China () is a geographical and cultural region that covers the southernmost part of China. Its precise meaning varies with context. A notable feature of South China in comparison to the rest of China is that most of its citizens are not n ...

to become known as the Guards Mixed Brigade. The

Mixed Brigade Mixed brigade ( es, brigada mixta) was a basic tactical military unit of the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War. It was initially designed as “pocket division”, an innovative maneuverable combined-arms formation. Because of high sa ...

took with it the 1st and 2nd Guards Infantry Regiments, the Guards Cavalry Regiment, and about half of the other support and service units. There it defended against the Chinese 1939-40 winter offensive and participated in the later part of the

Battle of South Guangxi The Battle of South Guangxi () was one of the 22 major engagements between the National Revolutionary Army and Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. In November 1939, the Japanese landed on the coast of Guangxi and captured ...

. In October 1940, the Guards Mixed Brigade joined other Japanese units occupying

French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...

. In April 1941 it returned to Tokyo, but did not re-join the Imperial Guards Division. In June 1943 the 1st Guards Division (Imperial Japanese Army) was formed from the Guards Mixed Brigade in Tokyo.

Organization

Structure of the division in 1941: * Headquarters * Guards Regiment * 3rd Guards Regiment * 4th Guards Regiment * 5th Guards Regiment * Guards Field Artillery Regiment * Guards Reconnaissance Regiment * Guards Engineer Regiment * Guards Transport Regiment

References

Japanese World War II brigades Military units and formations established in 1939 Military units and formations disestablished in 1941 {{Japan-mil-hist-stub

History

Organization

See also

References