How the Jap Army Fights

By Lt. Col. Paul W. Thompson and Others

“IT IS an army which looks like hell — but which performs acceptably.” Here is a blunt and substantially accurate characterization of the armed forces of our Pacific enemy by Lieutenant Colonel Paul W. Thompson, who collaborates with Lieutenant Colonel Harold Doud, Lieutenant John Scofield, and the editorial staff of the Infantry Journal in preparing this useful little pamphlet on the fighting qualities and characteristics of the Japanese Army. Colonel Doud some years ago was attached to a Japanese regiment as a military observer, and his report on this interesting experience coincides closely with that of the British Captain M. J. Kennedy and other foreigners who have seen Japanese troops at close range. Officers and men alike live on a far more Spartan basis than the soldiers of the richer Western countries, and the Japanese Army is not the highly mechanized machine that Germany put into the field and that only Russia, so far, has met on land on something like equal terms. But the fighting spirit of the Japanese is second to none; weapons are well eared for; and the capacity of the Japanese soldier, who, on the average, is 5 feet 3½ inches tall and weighs 117 pounds, to stand the strain of long forced marches is amazing. Smartness is despised; officers and men rarely shave and there is little marching in step. But the Japanese on the battlefield is a tough, resourceful, tenacious adversary, as recent events have shown. W. H. C.