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The was an infantry division in the Imperial Japanese Army. Its tsūshōgō code name was the , and its military symbol was 15D. ==History== The 15th Division was one of four new infantry divisions raised by the Imperial Japanese Army in the closing stages of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). With Japan's limited resources towards the end of that conflict, the entire IJA was committed to combat in Manchuria, leaving not a single division to guard the Japanese home islands from attack. The 15th Division was initially raised from men in the area surrounding Nagoya under the command of Lieutenant General Okihara Kofu. However, the Treaty of Portsmouth was concluded before the division could be deployed to Manchuria, and it was sent instead to Korea as a garrison force. On 28 March 1907, it was withdrawn from Korea and reassigned to Narashino, Chiba, followed by the Toyama Army School in Ushigome, Tokyo before returning on 15 November 1908 to its original divisional headquarters located in Toyohashi, Aichi prefecture. However, in 1925, the 15th Division was one of the four divisions disbanded by War Minister Ugaki Kazushige as part of a cost-saving measure during the Kato Takaaki administration. In July 1937, open hostilities broke out against China and the Second Sino-Japanese War commenced. The 15th Division was re-established in Kyoto on 4 April 1938 as a triangular division, from the reserve forces of the IJA 16th Division. Under the command of Lieutenant General Yoshio Iwamatsu, it was assigned to the Chinese mainland as a garrison force and to maintain public safety over Japanese-occupied areas. However, on 17 June 1943 it was reassigned to the IJA 15th Army in Burma as part of an impending offensive against British India. The division was delayed with road-building in Thailand for several months. Arriving in Burma, the division took part in the attack on Imphal, (Operation U-Go) along with the IJA 31st and 33rd Divisions, followed by the Battle of Meiktila and Mandalay. During these operations, the division lost more than half of its men in combat or due to disease, and was forced out of Burma into Thailand in August 1945 days before the end of the war, where it was officially disbanded. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「15th Division (Imperial Japanese Army)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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