Imperial Japanese Army Academy

The nihongo|Imperial Japanese Army Academy |陸軍士官学校|Rikugun Shikan Gakkō was the principal officer's training school for the Imperial Japanese Army. The program consisted of a junior course for graduates of local army cadet schools and for those who had completed four years of middle school, and a senior course for officer candidates.

History and background

Established as the "Heigakkō" in 1868 in Kyoto, the officer training school was renamed the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1874 and relocated to Ichigaya, Tokyo. After 1898, Academy came under the supervision of the Army Education Administration.

In 1937, the Academy was divided, with the Senior Course Academy was relocated to Sagamihara in Kanagawa prefecture, and the Junior Course School moved to Asaka, Saitama. The 50th graduation ceremony was held in the new Academy buildings in Sagamihara on 20 December 1937, and was attended by Emperor Hirohito. In 1938, a separate school was established for military aviation officers.

In June 1945, as a precautionary measure due to Allied bombings the academy sent its entire staff and 3,000 students on a long-term bivouac in Nagano Prefecture, leaving the installation under a light guard as caretakers.

In September 1945, after the surrender of Japan at the end World War II, a battalion of the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division took control of the Academy from the Japanese soldiers guarding it. The Academy was abolished along with the Imperial Japanese Army at the end of 1945, and its Sagamihara grounds are now part of United States Army base of Camp Zama

Currently the corresponding institution for the modern Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force is the Japan National Defense Academy.

Curriculum

From 1937 to 1945, and estimated 18,476 cadets were trained at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy.

Candidates for the Imperial Japanese Army Academy were rigidly selected from graduates of 3-year courses at one of the military preparatory school ("Rikugun Yonen Gakkō") at Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Sendai, and Kumamoto, and from other applicants with the proper physical and educational qualifications. The "Rikugun Yonen Gakkō" were schools mainly for officers' children and children of army soldiers who fell in action. Some candidates were enlisted men in active service under 25 years old; others were general applicants between ages 16 to 18 who passed an examination.

The training curriculum included college-level general education courses, traditional martial arts and horsemanship. After completing the two year junior portion of training at Asaka in Saitama, cadets were assigned for eight months to infantry regiments to become familiar with Army weaponry and platoon leadership skills before resuming studies in the 1-year, 8-month senior program at Sagamihara in Kanagawa. Upon graduation, cadets became apprentice officers with the grade of sergeant-major (but who were treated as officers), and after the successful completion of four months probation in their assigned regiments, were formally commissioned as second lieutenants.

ee also

*List of Graduates in Japanese Imperial Military Academies(1891-1934)

References

*

External links

* [http://maisov.oops.jp/e/lindd.htm recruitment & Training of the IJA]
* [http://www.torii.army.mil/archives/archives/2001/mar/30/CGCorner/story01.htm History of Camp Zama]
* [http://ftp.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/IJA/HB/HB-1.html Handbook on Japanese Military Forces, TM-E 30-480 (1945)]