ORIGINAL: treespider
There is no confusion about the Sakaguchi Detachment being a part of the 56th Division....it is sometimes refered to as the 56th Brigade, it is sometimes listed as the 56th Infantry group and other times it is referred to as the Sakaguchi Detachment.
Simply to make this clear once and for all: Major-General Sakaguchi was the Infantry Commander of the 56th Division. The position of "Infantry Commander" in Japanese divisions was a carryover from the old (pre-war) brigade structure of Japanese divisions. The Infantry Commanders and their staffs (in divisions were this position still existed) were eventually used in the formation of new unist (mostly "Expeditionary Units" and "Independent Mixed Brigades"). There was no 56th Brigade and their is no connection to the 56th Independent Mixed Brigade formed in 1944.
ORIGINAL: treespider
What is in question is the location of this unit on December 7/8. I had been under the impression that this unit was in Palau on Dec7/8 and was surprised to se it moved to Japan. However there are some sources that give its location on Dec 7/8 - Niehorster places it in Japan and Hayashi and Rottman (who used Hayashi as a source) places it on Palau. All of the other sources offer anecdotal evience but nothing clear-cut as to the location of the unit on Dec 7/8.
Yup, this is the question.
ORIGINAL: treespider
It is possible the unit was in Japan on dec 7/8 and loaded very shoirtly thereafter to arrive at Palau prior to dec 17 from where it is known to have departed. - This is the niehorster scenario.
It is possible the unit is in Palau on Dec7/8 - this is the Hayashi scenario.
It is also possible the unit was loaded on transports enroute to Palau on Dec 7/8. -A meld of the two...
What we are looking for is a definitve record of where the unit was on Dec 7/8.
IMO it should be Palau.
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As we still don't have a definitive record some points against the Palau version:
Because the Sakaguchi Detachment belonged to the 56th Division (which was part of 25th Army and went to Malaya/Burma) it seems that it was diverted to other tasks because the forces of 16th Army were not strong enough for the tasks given to it. 2nd Division (then the only division of 16th Army) was still on Honshu on Dec 7th. The question is: Why? Answers could be (a) lack of shipping or (b) if major combat units (regiments and above) would have been moved before the outbreak of the war from Japan, the Allies could have been alerted. Ostensibly it is difficult to cover the movement of large formations in peacetime. The Malaya and Luzon operations originally included formations that were located in Indochina. Many (big) formations that took part in the occupation of the SRA/PI/Malaya were still in China and/or Japan on Dec 7th.
