14th Division (Utsunomiya Division)

The 14th Division (第十四師団, Dai-jūyon Shidan) was raised in 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War, initially at Kokura (present-day Kitakyushu) from men drawn from several existing divisional districts; its permanent garrison was later established at Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture. Its call sign was the "Shining Division" (照兵団, Shō Heidan). It reached Manchuria in August 1905, too late for combat, and was used for security duties on the Liaodong Peninsula and along the South Manchuria Railway.

The division took part in the Siberian Intervention from 1919; a battalion of its 2nd Infantry Regiment was wiped out in the Nikolaevsk Incident of 1920. It was later involved in the Jinan Incident (1928) and the January 28 Incident at Shanghai (1932), and in the Second Sino-Japanese War it fought in north China, including the Beiping–Hankou Railway Operation and the Battle of Lanfeng (1938), before being stationed in Manchukuo as a garrison force.

In April 1944 the division was transferred from Manchuria to the Palau Islands under Lt. Gen. Sadae Inoue, with its units distributed among Peleliu, Angaur and Babeldaob. When U.S. forces invaded in September 1944, the garrisons built around its 2nd Infantry Regiment on Peleliu and a battalion of the 59th Infantry Regiment on Angaur fought from caves and prepared positions rather than making mass charges on the beaches. On Angaur 1,338 of about 1,400 defenders were killed; on Peleliu 10,695 of roughly 11,000 died in fighting that lasted into late November 1944 and cost the Americans heavily.

The main body of the division on Babeldaob was bypassed and remained there, short of food, until Japan's surrender. The division is sometimes confused with the 14th Army, the separate higher formation under Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma that conquered the Philippines in 1942 and whose troops were responsible for the Bataan Death March; the 14th Division was in Manchuria at that time and had no part in it.