3rd Division (Nagoya Division)

The 3rd Division (第三師団, Dai-san Shidan) originated as the Nagoya Garrison, established in 1871, and became a division on May 14, 1888 in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture. Its call sign was the "Happiness Division" (幸兵団, Sachi Heidan). The division recruited from the Tokai region. It took part in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Siberian Intervention and the Shandong expeditions.

When fighting broke out at Shanghai in August 1937, the 3rd Division was among the first Japanese Army formations sent there, going into action in the Wusong–Shanghai area from August 22, 1937. After the Battle of Shanghai, elements of the division took part in the advance on Nanjing in December 1937, and the division is counted among the Japanese units implicated in the Nanjing Massacre (南京事件/南京大虐殺).

The division subsequently served on the central China front for the rest of the war. It fought at Xuzhou and Wuhan in 1938, was placed under the 11th Army, and took part in the successive battles of Changsha (1939, 1941, 1942 and 1944), the Zhejiang–Jiangxi Campaign of 1942, and the Guilin–Liuzhou fighting of Operation Ichi-Go in 1944.

The 3rd Division did not serve outside China during the Pacific War. It ended the war in mainland China, where it was disarmed and disbanded after Japan's surrender, having fought in China continuously for eight years.