Imperial Japanese Navy and Related Topics

Empire of Japan

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Historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent formation of modern Japan.

The Empire of Japan at its peak in 1942:
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The Naval Battle of Hakodate, May 1869; in the foreground, and of the Imperial Japanese Navy

Prominent members of the Iwakura mission. Left to right: Kido Takayoshi, Yamaguchi Masuka, Iwakura Tomomi, Itō Hirobumi, Ōkubo Toshimichi

Emperor Meiji, the 122nd emperor of Japan

Interior of the Japanese Parliament, showing the Prime Minister speaking addressing the House of Peers, 1915

Prince Aritomo Yamagata, who was twice Prime Minister of Japan. He was one of the main architects of the military and political foundations of early modern Japan.

Baron Masuda Tarokaja, a member of the House of Peers (Kazoku). His father, Baron Masuda Takashi, was responsible for transforming Mitsui into a zaibatsu.

The Tokyo Industrial Exhibition, 1907 (Mitsubishi pavilion and Exhibition halls)

Marunouchi District in 1920, looking towards the Imperial Palace

Thomas Blake Glover was a Scottish merchant in Bakumatsu and received Japan's second highest order from Emperor Meiji in recognition of his contributions to Japan's industrialization.

Prince Katsura Tarō, thrice Prime Minister and the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan. Katsura commanded the IJA 3rd Division under his mentor, Field Marshal Yamagata Aritomo, during the First Sino-Japanese War.

Map of the Japanese Empire in 1895. This map was issued shortly after the Japanese invasion of Taiwan and is consequently one of the first Japanese maps to include Taiwan as a possession of Imperial Japan.

Marquess Komura Jutaro, 1911. Komura became Minister for Foreign Affairs under the first Katsura administration, and signed the Boxer Protocol on behalf of Japan.

French illustration of a Japanese assault on entrenched Russian troops during the Russo-Japanese War

Japanese riflemen during the Russo-Japanese War

Count Tadasu Hayashi was the resident minister to the United Kingdom. While serving in London from 1900, he worked to successfully conclude the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and signed on behalf of the government of Japan on January 30, 1902.

Port Arthur viewed from the Top of Gold Hill, after its capitulation in 1905. From left are the wrecks of Russian pre-dreadnought battleships Peresvet, Poltava, Retvizan, Pobeda and the protected cruisers Pallada

Emperor Taishō, the 123rd emperor of Japan

Topographic map of the Empire of Japan in November, 1918

Native Micronesian constables of Truk Island, circa 1930. Truk became a possession of the Empire of Japan under a mandate from the League of Nations following Germany's defeat in World War I.

Commanding Officers and Chiefs of Staff of the Allied Military Mission to Siberia, Vladivostok during the Allied Intervention

Groundbreaking ceremony of Ginza Line, the oldest subway line in Asia, 1925. Front row, right to left: Rudolf Briske, Noritsugu Hayakawa, Furuichi Kōi, Ryutaro Nomura.

Count Itagaki Taisuke is credited as being the first Japanese party leader and an important force for liberalism in Meiji Japan.

Count Katō Komei, the 14th Prime Minister of Japan from June 11, 1924, until his death on January 28, 1926

Emperor Shōwa during an Army inspection on January 8, 1938

Tokyo Kaikan was requisitioned as the meeting place for members of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (Taisei Yokusankai) in the early days.

Rebel troops assembling at police headquarters during the February 26 Incident

A bank run during the Shōwa financial crisis, March 1927

Political map of the Asia-Pacific region, 1939

Japanese troops entering Shenyang, Northeast China during the Mukden Incident, 1931

The Japanese occupation of Peiping (Beijing) in China, on August 13, 1937. Japanese troops are shown passing from Peiping into the Tartar City through Zhengyangmen, the main gate leading onward to the palaces in the Forbidden City.

IJN Special Naval Landing Forces armed with the Type 11 Light Machine Gun during the Battle of Shanghai, 1937

Signing ceremony for the Axis Powers Tripartite Pact

Founding ceremony of the Hakkō ichiu (All the world under one roof) monument in 1940

A map of the Japanese advance from 1937 to 1942

Victorious Japanese troops march through the city center of Singapore following the city's capture in February 1942 (Photo from the Imperial War Museum)

Imperial Japanese Army paratroopers are landing during the Battle of Palembang, February 13, 1942.

A model representing the attack by dive bombers from USS Yorktown (CV-5) and USS Enterprise (CV-6) on the Japanese aircraft carriers, and in the morning of June 4, 1942, during the Battle of Midway

Group of Type 2 Ka-Mi tanks on board of 2nd class transporter of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1944–1945

The rebuilt battlecruiser sank at her moorings in the naval base of Kure on July 24 during a series of bombings.

The Japanese archipelago and the Korean Peninsula in 1945 (National Geographic)

A drawing depicting a speech in the Imperial Japanese Diet on November 1, 1945, the end of the Second World War. In the foreground there are several Allied soldiers watching the proceedings from the back of the balcony.

From left to right: Marshal Admiral Heihachirō Tōgō (1848–1934), Field Marshal Oku Yasukata (1847–1930), Marshal Admiral Yoshika Inoue (1845–1929), Field Marshal Kageaki Kawamura (1850–1926), at the unveiling ceremony of bronze statue of Field Marshal Iwao Ōyama

Population density map of the Empire of Japan (1920).

Population density map of the Empire of Japan (1940).

Of the total, 20,300 were Imperial Japanese Army troops of the 5th Infantry Division under Lt. General Yamaguchi Motoomi; the remainder were 540 naval rikusentai (marines) from the Imperial Japanese Navy.

The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1930

World War II

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Global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945.

Adolf Hitler at a German Nazi political rally in Nuremberg, August 1933

Benito Mussolini inspecting troops during the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935

The bombing of Guernica in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, sparked fears abroad in Europe that the next war would be based on bombing of cities with very high civilian casualties.

Japanese Imperial Army soldiers during the Battle of Shanghai, 1937

Red Army artillery unit during the Battle of Lake Khasan, 1938

Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured just before signing the Munich Agreement, 29 September 1938

German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (right) and the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, 23 August 1939

Soldiers of the German Wehrmacht tearing down the border crossing into Poland, 1 September 1939

Soldiers of the Polish Army during the defence of Poland, September 1939

Finnish machine gun nest aimed at Soviet Red Army positions during the Winter War, February 1940

German advance into Belgium and Northern France, 10 May-4 June 1940, swept past the Maginot Line (shown in dark red)

London seen from St. Paul's Cathedral after the German Blitz, 29 December 1940

Soldiers of the British Commonwealth forces from the Australian Army's 9th Division during the Siege of Tobruk; North African Campaign, September 1941

German Panzer III of the Afrika Korps advancing across the North African desert, April-May 1941

European theatre of World War II animation map, 1939–1945 – Red: Western Allies and the Soviet Union after 1941; Green: Soviet Union before 1941; Blue: Axis powers

German soldiers during the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Axis powers, 1941

Soviet civilians leaving destroyed houses after a German bombardment during the Battle of Leningrad, 10 December 1942

Japanese soldiers entering Hong Kong, 8 December 1941

The USS Arizona (BB-39) was a total loss in the Japanese surprise air attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Sunday 7 December 1941.

US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British PM Winston Churchill seated at the Casablanca Conference, January 1943

Map of Japanese military advances through mid-1942

US Marines during the Guadalcanal Campaign, in the Pacific theatre, 1942

Red Army soldiers on the counterattack during the Battle of Stalingrad, February 1943

American 8th Air Force Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombing raid on the Focke-Wulf factory in Germany, 9 October 1943

U.S. Navy SBD-5 scout plane flying patrol over USS Washington (BB-56) and USS Lexington (CV-16) during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, 1943

Red Army troops in a counter-offensive on German positions at the Battle of Kursk, July 1943

Ruins of the Benedictine monastery, during the Battle of Monte Cassino, Italian Campaign, May 1944

American troops approaching Omaha Beach during the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944

German SS soldiers from the Dirlewanger Brigade, tasked with suppressing the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation, August 1944

General Douglas MacArthur returns to the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte, 20 October 1944

Yalta Conference held in February 1945, with Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin

Ruins of the Reichstag in Berlin, 3 June 1945.

Atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.

Ruins of Warsaw in 1945, after the deliberate destruction of the city by the occupying German forces

Defendants at the Nuremberg trials, where the Allied forces prosecuted prominent members of the political, military, judicial and economic leadership of Nazi Germany for crimes against humanity

Post-war border changes in Central Europe and creation of the Communist Eastern Bloc

David Ben-Gurion proclaiming the Israeli Declaration of Independence at the Independence Hall, 14 May 1948

Bodies of Chinese civilians killed by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Nanking Massacre in December 1937

Schutzstaffel (SS) female camp guards removing prisoners' bodies from lorries and carrying them to a mass grave, inside the German Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, 1945

Prisoner identity photograph taken by the German SS of a Polish Catholic girl who died in Auschwitz. Approximately 230,000 children were held prisoner and used in forced labour and Nazi medical experiments.

Polish civilians wearing blindfolds photographed just before their execution by German soldiers in Palmiry forest, 1940

Soviet partisans hanged by the German army. The Russian Academy of Sciences reported in 1995 civilian victims in the Soviet Union at German hands totalled 13.7 million dead, twenty percent of the 68 million persons in the occupied Soviet Union.

B-29 Superfortress strategic bombers on the Boeing assembly line in Wichita, Kansas, 1944

A V-2 rocket launched from a fixed site in Peenemünde, 21 June 1943

Nuclear Gadget being raised to the top of the detonation "shot tower", at Alamogordo Bombing Range; Trinity nuclear test, New Mexico, July 1945

During 1944 and 1945, Japan suffered reversals in mainland Asia, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key western Pacific islands.

Battleship

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Large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns.

(1850), the world's first steam-powered battleship

The French (1859), the first ocean-going ironclad warship

, the Royal Navy's first ocean-going iron-hulled warship.

The French, the first battleship to use steel as the main building material

Pre-Dreadnought USS Texas (1892), built in 1892, was the first battleship of the U.S. Navy. Photochrom print c. 1898.

Diagram of (1908), a typical late pre-dreadnought battleship

A preliminary design for the Imperial Japanese Navy's was an "all-big-gun" design.

German High Seas Fleet during World War I

The sinking of, after being torpedoed by Italian motor boats

Scrapping of battleships in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, in December 1923

Bombing tests which sank (1909), September 1921

USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) leading battleship USS Colorado (BB-45) and cruisers USS Louisville (CA-28), USS Portland (CA-33), and USS Columbia (CL-56) into Lingayen Gulf, Philippines, January 1945

The Imperial Japanese Navy's Yamato (1940), seen here under air attack in 1945, and her sister ship (1940) were the heaviest battleships in history.

United States Battleship naval fleet during the Cold War.

USS Missouri (BB-63) launches a Tomahawk missile during Operation Desert Storm.

The American USS Texas (BB-35) (1912) is the only preserved example of a Dreadnought-type battleship that dates to the time of the original HMS Dreadnought.

USS Iowa (BB-61) fires a full broadside of her nine 16″/50 and six 5″/38 guns during a target exercise

The Royal Navy, United States Navy, and Imperial Japanese Navy extensively upgraded and modernized their World War I–era battleships during the 1930s.

Pacific War

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The theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theater from 1942 to 1945

A mass grave of Chinese prisoners killed by the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre

Chinese casualties of a mass panic during a June 1941 Japanese aerial bombing of Chongqing

USS Arizona (BB-39) burned for two days after being hit by a Japanese bomb in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Japanese aerial photo of battleship HMS Prince of Wales (top) and battlecruiser HMS Repulse under attack.

British forces surrender Singapore to the Japanese, February 1942

The Bombing of Darwin, Australia, 19 February 1942

Surrender of US forces at Corregidor, Philippines, May 1942

Dutch and Australian PoWs at Tarsau, in Thailand in 1943. 22,000 Australians were captured by the Japanese; 8,000 died as prisoners of war.

US General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of Allied forces in the South-West Pacific Area, with Australian Prime Minister John Curtin

A B-25 bomber takes off from USS Hornet (CV-8) as part of the Doolittle Raid.

The aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2) explodes on 8 May 1942, several hours after being damaged by a Japanese carrier air attack.

under attack by B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers

US Marines rest in the field during the Guadalcanal campaign in November 1942.

Chinese troops during the Battle of Changde in November 1943

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and General Joseph Stilwell, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theatre from 1942 to 1945

Allied attack routes against the Empire of Japan

American forces landing at Rendova Island, June, 1943

The Allied leaders of the Asian and Pacific Theaters: Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill meeting at the Cairo Conference in 1943

The torpedoed, as seen through the periscope of an American submarine, USS Nautilus (SS-168), in June 1942

The, the largest non-nuclear submarines ever constructed

Chinese forces on M3A3 Stuart tanks on the Ledo Road

British Indian troops during the Battle of Imphal

Marines fire captured mountain gun during the attack on Garapan, Saipan, 21 June 1944.

US Marines during mopping up operations on Peleliu, September 1944

The Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku and two destroyers under attack in the Battle of the Philippine Sea

The four engagements in the Battle of Leyte Gulf

General Douglas MacArthur wading ashore at Leyte

US troops approaching Japanese positions near Baguio, Luzon, 23 March 1945

British soldiers patrolling the ruins of a Burmese town during the advance on Mandalay, January 1945

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, an iconic photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945, depicts six United States Marines raising a US flag atop Mount Suribachi.

USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) burns after being hit by two kamikazes. At Okinawa, the kamikazes caused 4,900 American deaths.

US Marines pass a dead Japanese soldier in a destroyed village on Okinawa, April 1945

US LVTs land Australian soldiers at Balikpapan on 7 July 1945.

American B-29 Superfortresses drop incendiary bombs over the port city of Kobe, June 1945

The mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 60,000 feet (18 km) into the air on the morning of 9 August 1945

Pacific Fleet marines of the Soviet Navy hoist the Soviet naval ensign in Port Arthur, on 1 October 1945.

Douglas MacArthur signs the formal Japanese Instrument of Surrender on USS Missouri (BB-63), 2 September 1945.

American corpses sprawled on the beach of Tarawa, November 1943

Indian prisoners of war shot and bayoneted by Japanese soldiers

IJA soldiers after a suicide charge on US Marine positions in Guadalcanal

Charred remains of civilians killed in the 10 March firebombing of Tokyo, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, which killed an estimated 100,000 people, March 1945

Australian POW Sergeant Leonard G. Siffleet of M Special Unit being beheaded by a Japanese officer, Yasuno Chikao, on 24 October 1943. AWM photo.

A Filipino woman and child killed by Japanese forces in the Manila massacre

A young Chinese girl from a Japanese 'comfort battalion' being interviewed by a British officer. Rangoon, Burma, 1945

American stretcher party carrying a wounded soldier through a devastated Manila street, 23 February 1945

The damaged by American carrier aircraft in the Sibuyan Sea.

The attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by carrier-based aircraft of the Combined Fleet was intended to give the Japanese time to complete a perimeter.

Clockwise from top: under fire at Port Arthur, Russian cavalry at Mukden, and gunboat at Chemulpo Bay, Japanese dead at Port Arthur, Japanese infantry crossing the Yalu River

Russo-Japanese War

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Fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1905 over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire.

An anti-Russian satirical map produced by a Japanese student at Keio University during the Russo-Japanese War. It follows the design used for a similar map first published in 1877.

Chinese generals in Pyongyang surrender to the Japanese, October 1894.

Troops of the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900. Left to right: Britain, United States, Australia, India, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Japan.

Japanese infantry during the occupation of Seoul, Korea, in 1904

Bombardment during the Siege of Port Arthur

Japanese assault on the entrenched Russian forces, 1904

Retreat of Russian soldiers after the Battle of Mukden

An illustration of a Japanese assault during the Battle of Mukden

, the flagship of Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō at the Battle of Tsushima

Negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905). From left to right: the Russians at far side of table are Korostovetz, Nabokov, Witte, Rosen, Plancon; and the Japanese at near side of table are Adachi, Ochiai, Komura, Takahira, Satō. The large conference table is today preserved at the Museum Meiji-mura in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.

Japan-Russia Treaty of Peace, 5 September 1905

Japanese propaganda woodcut print showing Tsar Nicholas II waking from a nightmare of the battered and wounded Russian forces returning from battle. Artist Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1904 or 1905.

Punch cartoon, 1905; A cartoon in the British press of the times illustrating the Russian Empire's loss of prestige after the nation's defeat. The hour-glass represents Russia's prestige running out.

After the Battle of Liaoyang: Transport of wounded Russians by the Red Cross (Angelo Agostini)

Postcard of political satire during the Russo-Japanese War

Japanese general, Kuroki, and his staff, including foreign officers and war correspondents after the Battle of Shaho (1904)

Getsuzō's woodblock print of "The Battle of Liaoyang", 1904

Painting of Admiral Heihachirō Tōgō on the bridge of the, before the Battle of Tsushima in 1905

After negotiations broke down in 1904, the Imperial Japanese Navy opened hostilities in a surprise attack on the Russian Eastern Fleet at Port Arthur, China on 9 February 1904.

First Sino-Japanese War

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Conflict between the Qing dynasty of China and the Empire of Japan primarily over influence in Joseon Korea.

Caricature about the dispute between China, Japan and Russia over Korea, published in the first edition of Tôbaé, 1887

Woodblock print depicting the flight of the Japanese legation in 1882

Kim Ok-gyun photographed in Nagasaki in 1882. His assassination in China would contribute to tensions leading to the First Sino-Japanese War.

Itō Sukeyuki, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet

The French-built Matsushima, flagship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Sino-Japanese conflict

Japanese troops during the Sino-Japanese War

Empress Dowager Cixi built the Chinese navy in 1888.

Depiction of the sinking of the Kow-shing and the rescue of some of its crew by the French gunboat Le Lion, from the French periodical Le Petit Journal (1894)

Japanese soldiers of the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan, 1895

An illustration by Utagawa Kokunimasa of Japanese soldiers beheading 38 Chinese POWs as a warning to others

Revisionist depiction of Chinese delegation, led by Admiral Ding Ruchang and their foreign advisors, boarding the Japanese vessel to negotiate the surrender with Admiral Itō Sukeyuki after the Battle of Weihaiwei. In reality, Ding had committed suicide after his defeat, and never surrendered.

Satirical drawing in the magazine Punch (29 September 1894), showing the victory of "small" Japan over "large" China

Convention of retrocession of the Liaodong Peninsula, 8 November 1895

Western Powers tried to divide their interests and influence in China in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War.

Japanese reforms under the Meiji government gave significant priority to the creation of an effective modern national army and navy, especially naval construction.

Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service

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Yokosuka Ro-go Ko-gata, the first domestic designed and built seaplane.

Captain Sempill showing a Sparrowhawk to Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō, 1921.

A stern view of Akagi off Osaka on 15 October 1934. On deck are Mitsubishi B1M and B2M bombers.

Kaga conducts air operations in 1937. On deck are Nakajima A2N, Aichi D1A, and Mitsubishi B2M aircraft.

1st Air Fleet Aichi D3A dive bombers preparing to bomb American naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter aircraft and other aircraft preparing for takeoff on the aircraft carrier Shōkaku on 7 December 1941, for the attack on Pearl Harbor

Early production G4M1s of Kanoya Kōkūtai with the original shape tail cones.

A formation of Japanese bombers taking anti-aircraft fire, seen from the Australian cruiser,.

The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (大日本帝國海軍航空隊) was the air arm of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN).

Imperial Japanese Army

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The official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945.

Ukiyo-E, depicting the retreat of shogunate forces in front of the Imperial Army (Kangun). Yodo Castle is shown in the background.

The Koishikawa Arsenal in Tokyo, inaugurated in 1871, soon after the Meiji restoration.

Prince Aritomo Yamagata, a field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army and twice Prime Minister of Japan. He was one of the main architects of the military foundations of early modern Japan. Yamagata Aritomo can be seen as the father of Japanese militarism.

Barrack of the Imperial Guard, circa 1940

Marquis Nozu Michitsura, a field marshal in the early Imperial Japanese Army. He was appointed as chief of staff of the Imperial Guard (Japan) in 1874.

Marquis Jutoku Saigo, a general in the early Imperial Japanese Army. He is the nephew of Saigō Takamori, the leader of Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. Many of the rebels were incorporated into the Imperial Army after the failure of the armed uprising.

Commander-in-chief Saigō Tsugumichi (sitting at the center) pictured with leaders of the Seqalu tribe.

Count Nogi Maresuke, a general in the Imperial Japanese Army and the third governor of Taiwan

Type 13(Top) & Type 22(bottom) Murata rifle. Murata rifle was the first indigenously produced Japanese service rifle adopted in 1880.

Count Akiyama Yoshifuru, served as a cavalry regimental commander in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, he led his troops against the Cossack cavalry divisions of the Imperial Russian Army.

Prince Katsura Tarō, three times Prime Minister of Japan. Katsura was the Vice-Minister of War during the period. He commanded the IJA 3rd Division under his mentor, Field Marshal Yamagata Aritomo, during the First Sino-Japanese War.

Type 30 rifle was the standard infantry rifle of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1897 to 1905.

Ōshima Ken'ichi, Minister of War during the period

The Type 38 rifle was adopted by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1905

IJA amphibious assault ship Shinshū Maru, the world's first landing craft carrier ship to be designed as such.

Army uniforms between 1941 and 1945 (US Army poster)

Type 97 Chi-Ha, the most widely produced Japanese medium tank of World War II

Indonesian child recruits being trained by Japanese officers as human shield, 1945

Many thousands of Indonesian were taken away as forced labourers (romusha) for Japanese military projects, including the Burma-Siam and Saketi-Bayah railways, and suffered or died as a result of ill-treatment and starvation. Pictured is an internment camp in Jakarta, c. 1945

Disposition of the Imperial Japanese Army in Japan at the time of its capitulation, 18 August 1945

IJA Taiwanese soldier in Philippines during World War II

It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor of Japan as supreme commander of the army and the Imperial Japanese Navy.