The was an army

Corps

A corps is either a large formation, or an administrative grouping of troops within an armed force with a common function such as Artillery or Signals representing an arm of service...

 of the Imperial Japanese Army

Imperial Japanese Army

-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...

. It was raised and demobilized on four separate occasions.

History

The Japanese 2nd Army was initially raised during the First Sino-Japanese War

First Sino-Japanese War

The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea...

 from September 27, 1894 to May 14, 1895 under the command of General Ōyama Iwao

Oyama Iwao

|-...

.

It was revived for the Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...

 from March 6, 1904 to January 2, 1906 under the command of General Oku Yasukata

Oku Yasukata

- Notes :...

. It fought in most of the major campaigns of the war, including the Battle of Nanshan

Battle of Nanshan

The was one of many vicious land battles of the Russo-Japanese War. It took place on 25 May 1904 across a two-mile wide defense line across the narrowest part of the Liáodōng Peninsula, covering the approaches to Port Arthur and on the 116-meter high Nanshan Hill, the present-day Jinzhou District,...

, Battle of Te-li-Ssu

Battle of Te-li-Ssu

The Battle of Te-li-ssu , also called Battle of Wafangou after the nearby railway station, was a land battle of the Russo-Japanese War. It was fought at a hamlet some north of Port Arthur, Manchuria. The hamlet is known today as Delisi, and is located just north of Wafangdian, Liaoning Province,...

, Battle of Tashihchiao

Battle of Tashihchiao

The Battle of Tashihchiao was a small-scale land engagement fought on 24 July - 25 July 1904, during the Japanese advance toward Liaoyang in first stage of the Russo-Japanese War. Tashihchiao is located about 25 kilometers [16 miles] southwest of the city of Haicheng, in present-day Liaoning...

, Battle of Shaho

Battle of Shaho

The Battle of Shaho was a land battle of the Russo-Japanese War fought along a front centered at the Sha River on the Mukden–Port Arthur spur of the China Far East Railway just north of Liaoyang, Manchuria.-Background:...

, Battle of Liaoyang

Battle of Liaoyang

The Battle of Liaoyang was one of the major land battles of the Russo-Japanese War....

, Battle of Sandepu

Battle of Sandepu

The Battle of Sandepu, was a major land battle of the Russo-Japanese War. It was fought within a group of villages about 36 miles southwest of Mukden, Manchuria.-Background:...

, and Battle of Mukden

Battle of Mukden

One of the largest land battles to be fought before World War I, the , the last major land battle of the Russo-Japanese War, was fought from 20 February to 10 March 1905 between Japan and Russia near Mukden in Manchuria...

.

The Japanese 2nd Army was raised again on August 23, 1937 and placed under the command of the Japanese Northern China Area Army

Japanese Northern China Area Army

The was a field army of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War.-History:The Japanese North China Area Army was formed on August 21, 1937 under the control of the Imperial General Headquarters. It was transferred to the newly formed China Expeditionary Army on September 23,...

 as reinforcement to Japanese forces in China following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident

Marco Polo Bridge Incident

The Marco Polo Bridge Incident was a battle between the Republic of China's National Revolutionary Army and the Imperial Japanese Army, often used as the marker for the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War .The eleven-arch granite bridge, Lugouqiao, is an architecturally significant structure,...

. The 2nd Army participated in the North China Incident

Battle of Beiping-Tianjin

The Battle of Beiping-Tianjin , also known as the “Peiking-Tientsin Operation” or by the Japanese as the was a series of battles of the Second Sino-Japanese War fought in the proximity of Beiping and Tianjin...

, Tianjin–Pukou Railway Operation

Tianjin–Pukou Railway Operation

The Japanese 津浦線作戦 or Tientsin–Pukow Railway Operation was a follow up operation to the Peiking Tientsin Operation of the Japanese army in North China at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese advanced following the line of the Tianjin-Pukou Railway to the Yellow River....

, Battle of Xuzhou

Battle of Xuzhou

The Battle of Xuzhou was fought between Japanese and Chinese forces in May 1938 during Second Sino-Japanese War. In contemporary accounts in English, the event was usually referred to as the "Battle of Hsuchow", using the Chinese Postal Map Romanization....

 and Battle of Taierzhuang

Battle of Taierzhuang

The Battle of Tai'erzhuang was a battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1938, between armies of Chinese Kuomintang and Japan, and is sometimes considered as a part of Battle of Xuzhou....

 before being demobilized on December 15, 1938.

The fourth and final incarnation of the Japanese 2nd Army was on July 4, 1942, when it was revived under the command of the Japanese First Area Army

Japanese First Area Army

The was a field army of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, based in northern Manchukuo and active in combat against the Soviet Union in the closing stages of the war...

 in Manchukuo

Manchukuo

Manchukuo or Manshū-koku was a puppet state in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The region was the historical homeland of the Manchus, who founded the Qing Empire in China...

. It was transferred to the Japanese Second Area Army

Japanese Second Area Army

The was a field army of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.-History:The Japanese 2nd Area Army was formed on July 4, 1942 under the control of the Kwangtung Army as a reserve and garrison force to maintain security and public order in Manchukuo...

 on October 30, 1943. Towards the closing stages of the war, on June 30, 1945, it was transferred to the Southern Expeditionary Army Group

Southern Expeditionary Army Group

The was a army group of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. It was responsible for all military operations in South East Asian and South West Pacific campaigns of World War II....

 and was based in the Celebes

Sulawesi

Sulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...

 at the end of World War II

Commanding officer

	Name	From	To
1	Marshal Ōyama Iwao Oyama Iwao |-...	25 September 1894	26 May 1895
X	demobilized	26 May 1895	6 March 1904
2	General Oku Yasukata Oku Yasukata - Notes :...	6 March 1904	12 January 1906
X	demobilized	12 January 1906	23 August 1937
3	General Toshizō Nishio Toshizo Nishio -External links:...	23 August 1937	30 April 1938
4	General Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko	30 April 1938	9 December 1939
x	demobilized	9 December 1938	4 July 1942
5	Lieutenant General Yoshio Kozuki	4 July 1942	28 May 1943
6	Lieutenant General Ichiro Shichida	28 May 1943	29 October 1943
7	Lieutenant General Fusataro Teshima	29 October 1943	15 August 1945

Chief of Staff

	Name	From	To
2	Colonel Inoue Hikaru	1 October 1894	14 May 1895
X	demobilized	26 May 1895	6 March 1904
2	Major General Ochiai Toyosaburo	6 March 1904	12 September 1904
3	Major General Osako Naomichi	12 September 1904	18 January 1906
X	demobilized	18 January 1906	31 August 1937
4	Major General Yorimichi Suzuki	31 August 1937	11 June 1938
5	Lieutenant General Kazumoto Machijiri Kazumoto Machijiri -External links:**...	11 June 1938	21 November 1938
6	Major General Shigenari Aoki	21 November 1938	9 December 1938
X	demobilized	9 December 1938	1 July 1942
7	Major General Goro Isoya	1 July 1942	8 April 1943
8	Major General Ichimaro Horike	8 April 1943	23 October 1943
9	Major General Shikao Fujitsuka	23 October 1943	26 December 1944
10	Major General Yuki Fukabori	1 February 1945	7 April 1945
11	Major General Shintaro Imada	7 April 1945	24 May 1945
12	Major General Minetaro Yoshida	5 June 1945	15 August 1945