Hussars
Abstract: During World War II, people used to call the Japanese Little Japan, that is, to describe the Japanese as short, so how short are the Japanese soldiers? Is it really only 1.55 meters?
During World War II, people used to call the Japanese Little Japan, that is, to describe the Japanese as short, so how short were the Japanese soldiers? Is it really only 1.55 meters?
The statement of 1.55 meters is really there, which is the height threshold condition for japanese conscription at that time, not that the Japanese soldiers at that time were 1.55 meters tall.
The height of Japanese people in history, is affected by several factors, the first is the common influence of the ancient world, that is, malnutrition, including developed countries in Europe and the United States, the average height should also be after World War II, after the establishment of the welfare system, the height gap and other countries gradually opened up. The tall and strong peoples of ancient times were all ethnic groups with small populations that had been forced out by natural selection in harsh environments. Second, japan's chronic malnutrition in ancient times was even far better than in China. During the Tang and Song dynasties, the content of japan's learning from us included religion and vegetarian habits, and in the Song Dynasty, vegetarian food was also popular in China, but in Japan, this customary way of life was maintained until the end of the Meiji Restoration. There is also the ancient Japanese system of the country, and the film and television said that the road ban between the countries of Japan is very strict, the vast majority of ordinary people are unable to communicate and move, long-term intermarriage in a small area, in biology to form a similar result of intermarriage between close relatives, one of the evil consequences is the degradation of height.
The combined effect of these factors is that the average height before the Meiji Restoration in Japan is indeed not high, but by the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, Japan first of all is the education reform, proposing "a cup of milk to strengthen a nation", providing a cup of milk for school-age children every day, although the Japanese are also yellow people, but we are really not a group, they rarely have the gene of lactate intolerance, so the effect of drinking milk is quite good. Another was the meiji emperor who began to encourage meat eating from top to bottom and changed the vegetarian custom. Therefore, by the eve of World War II, the average height of Japanese people had improved considerably.
In the conscription requirements promulgated by Japan in 1934, the first class is a person who is more than 1.55 meters tall and has a strong body.
There are two types of B grades: those who are also taller than 1.55 meters, but their bodies are not as strong as those of Class A, and those who are also more than 1.55 meters tall but have less vision than the above two. Class C is between 1.5 meters and 1.55 meters tall, and those who are in good health are not allowed to enter the active duty force and can only serve as reserves. Ding et al. are those who are less than 1.5 meters tall, or who are physically or mentally unsuitable for military service. There is also a grade of E, which is a grade to be observed, which is to have a first-class and B-class foundation, but is currently ill and needs to be re-determined to observe the recovery situation.
First, don't think that in that era, the height threshold of 1.55 meters was very low, and the height threshold for conscription in China was only 1.6 meters. Second, in Japan's militarist fanaticism at that time, the social status of military personnel was extremely high, the living security was stable, the military had a large upward space, and various opportunities were far better than ordinary people, so when the soldiers were very popular, but Japan did not have much pressure on the demand for troops before the outbreak of the Pacific War, so when recruiting in the early days, the military had the traditional Japanese belly language: the threshold for conscription was raised invisibly, which was a more clear point. It is that the height requirement has actually been raised to 1.59 meters, and there is also a requirement to be tall, upright, and energetic, in Japanese terms, to be called a very rooted young man!
This is the group of British military evaluation as infantry technical per capita A+, the most difficult response of China's anti-war veterans is the group of old devils before 1940, their average height, and our country has no essential gap, the reason why they left the impression of "little devils, little devils" is actually not this batch of old devils, but the daily contact of the vast number of people in the occupied areas, those devils are mixed into brigades and regiments of security forces, this kind of security mixed into brigades, that is, the rear security forces drawn from the regular army and then supplemented by reservists, as mentioned earlier, The Japanese reservists were filled by a class C personnel who were less than 1.55 meters tall, which was actually a group of security militiamen, dressed in military uniforms.
Before World War II, the Japanese army had 17 permanent divisions, and at that time, the height and physique of the troops were more stringent, and the height of the army infantry was basically more than 1.60 meters, and more than 1.7 meters was rare, and the average height was not high.
With the gradual deepening of the war of aggression against China, especially the outbreak of the Pacific War, the brutal campaign to seize the island began, and most of the elite divisions and regiments of the Japanese Army were damaged in the Pacific Battlefield, and the losses of the Japanese Army in the Chinese battlefield were also relatively serious.
Even before the war, including after the war, the Japanese army's soldiers with better height and physical education were sent to the navy and naval aviation, including the army aviation, and the quality of the army infantry was actually the worst.
Especially in the later stages of the war, due to the depletion of the Japanese army, the crooked melons and crack dates with a height of less than 1.5 meters joined the ranks of the army infantry, and it can be seen from some historical photos that the quality of the Japanese infantry at that time was inferior.
Therefore, the military and people of the Northern War of Resistance called the invading Japanese army "Little Japan" and "Little Devils", which not only had the elements of national hatred that the two warring sides did not share the same heaven, but also a true portrayal of the small stature of the infantry of the Japanese army invading China, which was an objective fact rather than a slander.
According to the information revealed after the war, the average height of soldiers in the armor division of the Japanese army invading China at that time was about 1.6 meters, and in the late period of World War II, due to the lack of domestic troops, the average height of soldiers was less than 1.5 meters. The height of 1.5 meters, which is also the height of the current 10-year-old child, can imagine the size of the Japanese army at that time, which is really very short.
Wartime Japanese Type 38 or Type 99 rifle, gun length of 1.275 meters, equipped with a long Type 30 bayonet, the length of the full gun is close to 1.7 meters, from the historical photos of World War II, the Japanese army will be the Type 38 rifle on the ground, basically beyond the head of the Japanese army, it can be seen that the Size of the Japanese Army is indeed short, basically not more than 1.7 meters.
Type 38 includes type 99 rifle, plus military stabs, especially suitable for the use of small Japanese army infantry, especially suitable for fighting bayonets, it is not likely to suffer losses, nearly 1.70 meters of rifle plus military stabs, as if it is a powerful spear, and people will be in a favorable position when fighting stabs.
At present, if the man is 1.70 meters tall, the situation in the whole country is not clear, at least in Hangzhou will be ridiculed as "third-class cripple", it is conceivable that the average height of the Japanese infantry in the late war is only 1.5 meters, how short, the average is less than 1.55 meters.
The 1.55-meter Japanese army is actually from the Japanese army's 1934 recruitment standard for the first and second classes, which requires a height of more than 1.55 meters, a weight of more than 55 kilograms (about no obesity problem at that time), and an age of 20-40 years old. But in fact, the time and battlefield situation are different, and their implementation standards are also different.
We must first clarify a concept, the average height of the national population is not equal to the average height of soldiers, which is easy to understand, most of the soldiers are young adults, and the average height is generally taken from the age group of 15-65 years old. If a country's nutrition is on the rise, then the average height is actually of little significance, but japan happened to be in this period before World War II, so their average height in the 1930 census was not informative enough.
Therefore, in order to make this problem clear, the spit machine decided to draw three time periods to study the height of the ghost soldiers, the first time period was the 918 incident to the Lugou Bridge incident, the second time period was the Lugou Bridge incident to the Pearl Harbor incident, and the third time period was the Pearl Harbor incident until the Surrender of Japan in August 1945.
The first phase: 1931 to 1937
During this period, the Japanese army was the most elite, the mobilization rate was less than one percent, and the total number of active military personnel in Japan at the time of the September 18 Incident was about 310,000. I can responsibly say that the average height of the Japanese army at this stage was more than 1.6 meters, although it does not look high now, but it was above the level in East Asia at that time.
After the September 18 Incident, the Japanese army prepared for a full-scale invasion of China, and the scope of conscription began to expand, especially the large conscription in 1934, which almost doubled the number of active soldiers. As mentioned earlier, the 1.55-meter terrier of the devil's soldiers came from here, but in fact, this conscription did not make them lose too much in height.
At the end of 1937, the Japanese Army made a report to the Military Department in the Yearbook of Soldiers, and the data displayed in the report definitely surprised many people. In this year, their average height of infantry was more than 1.62 meters, cavalry was more than 1.64 meters, chariot soldiers were more than 1.63 meters, and even heavy soldiers reached more than 1.64 meters, so the ghost soldiers at this stage were not short, and they were medium height at that time.
The second phase: 1937 to 1941
During this period of time, the Japanese army progressed rapidly to the mud foot, the front attack slowed down, and the rear occupied area was unstable, and they began to continuously expand the number of troops. By 1941, when it was preparing to turn the other cheek with the United States, the Japanese army had carried out another large-scale conscription.
They can no longer maintain the elite military policy this time, the age of military service has been expanded from 20-40 years old to 19-45 years old, and the height standard has dropped by 5 centimeters, that is to say, 1.5 meters is enough to meet the standards of the A and B divisions. If it was the C-class division that stayed in the rear, it would be 1.45 meters, so the Chinese people began to think that the devils were quite short.
At this stage, the Japanese army was not in the mood to do any yearbook report, so the average height did not have a particularly accurate figure, but according to the general reduction of 5 centimeters of the conscription standard, their average height was really almost 1.55 meters. However, we also used to be complacent, at that time, the average height of the country was not much higher than them, and even the average height of the soldiers may be shorter, because there were a large number of baby soldiers in the local military sequence, and the spit machine could only be grateful for the sacrifices of the predecessors of that era.
The third stage: 1941 to 1945
During this time period, the Japanese army was a doomsday madman, the brazen attack of the bald eagle let them know the power of steel, and the ghost soldiers basket by basket of dead warp, they could only keep expanding their moves. Mobilization rates soared from less than one percent in 1931 to thirteen percent in 1945.
At this time, regardless of whether he was tall or not, he even began to let the doll go to the battlefield, and he also began to understand the sadness of the white march, and even the mentally retarded were caught in the army. There is a meme that says that the ghost soldiers are particularly cheap, and each soldier is worth one dollar and five cents, and there will never be more.
In fact, it means that the devil's conscription order does not need to be stamped to go through the postal system to issue, and the conscription order is particularly simple, that is, a red piece of paper, which simply writes where you go to report, and then stamp it. The five cents of that coin was red paper money, and the seal of the headquarters was not worth much.
And in fact, the devils are not all militaristic mad dogs, ordinary people are stupid, who does not know that the battlefield is gone to play with eggplant? They also tried to desert the military, the most classic terrier was that at that time, drinking soy sauce was not long, short and ugly and frustrated not to join the army, but in 1944, these grandsons were all pulled out to drive a kamikaze...
Another way to evade military service is to study science, the Japanese military technicians are scarce, science students have to produce bullets, shells, plywood aircraft and so on in the back, this part of the people are exempt from military service. So another of their teasing things was that a group of liberal arts students went to drive kamikaze planes to crash warships everywhere, so that they were widely publicized after the war, because liberal arts students also had this advantage...
So, this stem of 1.55 meters is neither right nor completely right.
(The picture of this article is from the network)