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Foreign Vehicles in Japanese Service
Prior to the Second World War, the Japanese acquired (mostly
legitimately) a rather motley assortment of foreign vehicles in their
quest to perfect domestic armored designs. The use of these vehicles
is primarily highlighted in the other, relevant, sections of this document.
In addition, the Japanese captured a fairly large number of vehicles
from the Allies. Obviously, some of these were taken from the Chinese,
but a number of British, Commonwealth, and U.S. vehicles were also
captured, most of them during the opening months of Japan's
campaign against the Western Allies. Unfortunately, the Japanese do
not seem to have kept precise records of the numbers captured, or at
least those records do not currently exist, and so the discussion here
will be, necessarily, perhaps more limited than I would like.
Nevertheless, here then are some of the more intriguing foreign
vehicles used by the Japanese during the Second World War, briefly
summarized.
The Americans lost a very large number of vehicles to the Japanese,
particularly in the opening months of the Japanese campaign. These
included nearly every tank stationed in Guam, Wake, and the
Philippines, including what amounted to the entire armored inventory of
a combined Colorado/New Mexico Armored Division, more than 100
M3 Stuart light tanks. A small number of M3 Grants and M3 Halftracks
were also captured - this included at least one group of M3 75MM
HowitzerCarriages. Later in the war, the Japanese did succeed in
capturing examples of the M4 Sherman and other vehicles, but these
were almost always captured during American invasions of Japanese
held islands, and never really left the islands they were captured on as
a result. The Japanese may have captured a few of these vehicles for
slightly longer term service when engaging the Chinese, but the
Chinese were very proud of the lend lease armor provided by the
Americans and went to great lengths to prevent it falling into Japanese
hands.
The British lost several vehicles to Japanese advances in Burma and
Malaya. A number of vehicles were lost by the Australians in New
Guinea and Indonesia. Examples included Marmon-Herrington
Armored Cars, Universal Carriers (various models), and an
assortment of lighter tanks, including examples of lend lease
equipment provided by the Americans. In at least one bizarre example,
it is fairly certain that Japanese armor battled Italian armor which had
previously been captured by the British in North Africa. Some of this
was captured by the Japanese. There is no record of what happened to
the Italian equipment once the Japanese had taken it!
The French FT-17 light tank was undoubtedly the most common
foreign vehicle in Japanese service. A fair number of these vehicles
were purchased from the French outright, and the Japanese built an
unspecified number of illegal copies. Other FT-17s were captured from
the Chinese. Many of the FT-17s in Japan's inventory were modified for
the peculiar needs of the China/Manchuria operations then being
executed by the Imperial Japanese Army. These included flamethrower
tanks, smoke laying vehicles, and chemical projection devices. Of
course, the traditional FT-17 (male and female variants) were also
widely used. At least one company, Hasegawa, briefly produced a
series of Japanese FT-17 variants in 1/72 scale. I am not aware if they
are still in production.
The Germans provided Pzkpfw I and Pzkpfw II tanks to the Chinese
prior to the outbreak of the Second World War (Chinese tankers had
actually been training in Germany at the outbreak of war with Poland).
The Japanese captured a few of these from the Chinese. In addition,
the Germans provided small numbers of Pzkpfw V (Panther) and
Pzkpfw VI (Tiger) tanks to the Japanese for the purposes of
evaluation. The Japanese reciprocated by sending the Germans
examples of their Type 97 Chi-Ha. The German equipment ended up
protecting the Imperial Palace and being used for evaluation purposes.
One (probably apocryphal) tale says that the Germans used their Type
97s in the final battle for Berlin. It seems fairly likely that Japanese
marines stationed at the Japanese consulate in Berlin actually did take
part in the defense of the city, but the Chi-Ha story strains for credulity...
The Italians provided a number of CV33 tankettes to the Chinese
during the 1930s. The Japanese captured a small number of these.
What they did with them is anyone's guess.
At least one Soviet vehicle, the BT-7 Armored Car'/Light Tank, was
captured during the Nomohan/Khalkin-Ghol fiasco of 1938-39 in
unspecified numbers. It is extremely doubtful that the Japanese had
time to capture any Soviet tanks during the Soviet invasion of
Manchuria in 1945.
SENSHAN - Japanese Armored Vehicles of the Second World War
