1st Raiding Regiment (Teishin Shudan / Airborne)

The 1st Raiding Regiment (挺進第一聯隊, Teishin Dai-ichi Rentai) was part of the Imperial Japanese Army's airborne forces, which were later grouped as the Teishin Shudan (挺進集団, Raiding Group). Raised in 1941 after the Army had studied the successes of German paratroops, the raiding regiments represented the IJA's paratroop capability, distinct from the Navy's Special Naval Landing Force paratroopers.

The 1st Raiding Regiment was intended for the Army's first airborne operation, but on January 3, 1942 its transport, the Meikō Maru, caught fire and sank in the South China Sea near Hainan, and the regiment lost most of its weapons and equipment. The assault on Palembang, Sumatra, on February 14, 1942 was therefore carried out by a force of about 330 men built around the 2nd Raiding Regiment, under the overall command of Colonel Seiichi Kume. The paratroopers dropped near Pangkalan Benteng airfield north of the city and by the oil refineries at Pladjoe; a second wave dropped the following day.

This was the first combat parachute operation by Japanese Army forces. Despite fierce resistance from Dutch and British defenders, the paratroopers secured the airfield and prevented the complete destruction of the oil facilities, capturing the refinery largely intact along with large stocks of oil.

Later in the war the raiding units fought in the Philippines: on December 6, 1944 about 750 men, mainly of the 2nd Raiding Brigade, were flown against American airfields on Leyte, and some 300 landed in the Burauen area. The Giretsu Airborne Unit, a special attack (suicide) derivative, carried out a one-way mission to crash-land on American-held airfields on Okinawa in May 1945.