Japanese air raid alert6/14/2023 Hokubugun had relatively few, so AA regiments directly reported to Hokubugun. ![]() In 1941 IJA began to raise AA regiments for city defense. anti-aircraft divisions (kosha shidan) reported to those groups, but their developments were indeed confusing. Were these four groups the forerunners of the anti-aircraft divisions? On this field the information exchange between the army and navy seemed smooth, though often both army and navy maintained their RADAR in the neighborhood. Chubugun HQ, Seibugun HQ, Hiroshima division (5th home division, Yamaguchi, Hiroshima and Shimane) and Zentsuji division (11th home division, later 55th, all prefectures in Shikoku Island). But anti-air watchers were maintained and directed by police.Īccording to their wartime log, Kure keibitai sent 3-men lialison teams to four places. Perhaps the report was passed to home division HQ -> Tobugun etc. Army men supervised the training and prefectural army (regimental district) office received the alert. They were mainly students and more and more females were involved in the course of war. In each prefecture several anti-air watch site were installed and manned by shortly trained citizens. In 1941 more substancial watch organization took shape. Now keibodan guided citizens to shelters on air raid, cooperated extinguishing fire and watched hostile plane (as far as they could). They changed shobodan, parttime firefighter organization in each town/village/bloc, into keibodan (警防団, guard group?). Those days firefighters were a part of police. Home ministry, not ministry of the army, supervised those efforts. Prefectural governor (named by government), or in effect prefectural police leaders were in charge of organizing civilian collaboration to air defense. The navy called RADAR as dempa tanshingi (電波探信儀), often abbreviated as dentan.Īnti-aircraft defense act (1937) ruled civilian cooperation rule in case of air raid and related organizations. It seemed that bobitai had some AAMG but keibitai despatched their men to bobitai facilities for operating large-caribre AA guns.īoth bobitai and keibitai had RADAR sites and watch sites, the latter mainly in the neighborhood of Chinjufu. Their task increased and in Dec 1944 Kure keibitai had 6516 sailors and petty officers. Later they partly shared the burden of kaiheidan (basic training center of chinjufu) by accepting trainees for AAMG/AA gun. ![]() They took on centry duty of navy facilities and operated anti-aircraft guns and related equipments (searchlight etc.). Initially Kure keibitai's authorized strength was 21 officers, 2 warrant officers, 81 petty officers and 522 men. In Nov 1941, IJN attached new unit keibitai to each Chinjufu. In the wartime Kure naval district was responsible to watch three straits into Setonaikai (Seto Inland Sea), so they raised three bobitai (Saeki, Shimonoseki and Kii) with reserves/draftees plus core members from Kure bobitai. So the navy's involvement was limited to the defense of navy bases and facilities.īobitai (defense unit) was the oldest unit under each naval district HQ (Chinjufu). In principle air defense of Japan by armed force was the task for the army. In Japan, as mentioned in the following section, civilians organized by local police maintained air watch sites of similar name, boku-kanshisho (防空監視哨,air defense watch site). ![]() Joho-chutai (情報中隊) was a watcher company maintaining kanshisho (監視哨, watch sites). In them Keikai-Chutai (警戒中隊) was a Dempa-keikaiki(電波警戒機,RADAR) unit. Among them Koku-Joho Rentai (航空情報連隊, air information regiment) and smaller Koku-Johotai (航空情報隊) were RADAR/watcher units. Under aerial commands IJA attached AA-gun units and related searchlight units etc. In the last stage of war those commands were taken over by 1st&2nd So-gun commands and several Homen-gun commands. General defense command (防衛総司令部, Boei So-Shireibu), raised in 1941 was intended for supervising those commands, but its effective power was limited. ![]() By 1940 IJA raised four aerial command in Japan for security and air defense.
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