1st Tank Division

The 1st Tank Division (戦車第一師団, Sensha Dai-ichi Shidan) was established on June 24, 1942 in Manchukuo from four tank regiments already based there, and was one of four armored divisions formed by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. The IJA had traditionally viewed tanks as infantry support weapons rather than independent maneuver forces, and the tank divisions represented a belated attempt to develop armored warfare capability.

The division was equipped primarily with Type 97 Chi-Ha medium tanks, supplemented later by Type 1 Chi-He and Type 3 Chi-Nu tanks. All were significantly inferior to contemporary American M4 Sherman tanks in armor, firepower, and reliability. Stationed at Ning'an in Manchukuo under the First Area Army, the division was tasked mainly with guarding the border against the Soviet Union from 1942 to 1944.

The division never fought as a whole, and its strength was drawn off piecemeal. In March 1944 its 9th Tank Regiment was sent to the Marianas, where it was annihilated in the battles of Saipan and Guam. Its 3rd Tank Regiment was attached to the 11th Army in China and took part in Operation Ichi-Go.

In March 1945 the 1st Tank Division was brought back to the Japanese home islands to prepare for the expected Allied invasion, with its units stationed in Tochigi and Saitama prefectures as a mobile reserve for the defense of the Kantō region. It saw no combat on Japanese soil before the surrender. (The armored division destroyed on Luzon in the Philippines in 1945 was the 2nd Tank Division, not the 1st.)