The 13th Division (第13師団, Dai Jūsan Shidan) was an infantry division in the Imperial Japanese Army. Its tsūshōgōcode name was the Mirror Division (鏡兵団, Kyō-heidan), and its military symbol was 13D. The 13th Division was one of four new infantry divisions raised by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) in the closing stages of the Russo-Japanese War 1 April 1905, after it turned out what the entire IJA was committed to combat in Manchuria, leaving not a single division to guard the Japanese home islands from attack.
Action
Russo-Japanese War
The 13th Division was initially raised in Takada city in now Jōetsu, Niigata from men in Niigata Prefecture under the command of Lieutenant General Haraguchi Kensai. It was given the independent assignment of occupying Sakhalin before the conclusion of the Portsmouth Treaty,[1] landing on Sakhalin on 7 July 1905, only three months after being formed, and securing the island by 1 August 1905. As a result of its successful operation, Japan was awarded southern Karafuto during the Portsmouth Treaty, one of Japan's few territorial gains during the war.
Interwar period
The division returned on 6 November 1908 to its original divisional headquarters located in Takada, Niigata prefecture. Future Chinese premier Chiang Kai-shek served in the field artillery battalion of the 13th Division while it was based at Takada. Also while at Takada, under the command of Lieutenant General Gaishi Nagaoka, a military advisor from the Empire of Austria-Hungary, Theodor Edler von Lerch, was invited to teach mountain warfare and skiing to the troops of the IJA 58th Infantry Regiment in Takada[2] under the 13th Division in early 1911.
On 12 April 1913, the division was ordered to Liaoyang in Manchuria, where it remained until 3 June 1915 on garrison duty under the command of Lieutenant General Akiyama Yoshifuru before returning to Takada. After a brief period on garrison duty in Korea, the 13th Division was one of the divisions selected to participate in the Japanese intervention in Siberia in 1920. The 13th division of that period specialized in winter warfare, with all infantry on skis.
However, on 1 May 1925, it was dissolved by Minister of War Ugaki Kazushige as part of a cost-saving measure during the Kato Takaaki administration, together with the 15th, 17th and 18th divisions.
Although there were plans to send the 13th Division to Guam in September 1943 to counter the threat posed by the United States in the Pacific War, only a 300-man detachment was sent.[5]