18th Division ( Imperial Japanese Army ) The was an infantry division in the Imperial Japanese Army . Its call sign was the . History . The 18th Division was formed in Kurume , Kyūshū on 13 November 1907 , together with the 17th Division , as part of the post Russo - Japanese War expansion of the standing Japanese military . In World War I it was strengthened by an additional infantry regiment ( the 29th ) and given an independent command in the siege of the German colony of Tsingtao in the Shandong peninsula , China . Abolished at the end of World War I , it was revived for participation in the Siberian Intervention . However , in 1925 , it was again dissolved as one of the four divisions cancelled by Minister of War Ugaki Kazushige as part of a cost - saving measure during the Kato Takaaki administration . The 18th Division was resurrected in September 1937 , and assigned to the 10th Army with the start of the Second Sino - Japanese War . It took part in the Battle of Shanghai . As part of the China Expeditionary Army , it participated in the Battle of Nanjing ( and subsequent Nanjing Massacre ) , and various campaigns throughout China , cumulating in the Canton Operation of 1938 . In 1941 the division was under the command of Lieutenant - General Renya Mutaguchi . It was reassigned to the 25th Army ( which was under the command of General Yamashita Tomoyuki ) . It participated in the invasion of Malaya and Singapore . Afterwards , it was transferred to the Japanese Fifteenth Army and the Burma front , where it suffered over 3000 casualties from food poisoning and malaria . In 1942 , the division ' s Kawaguchi Detachment , comprising the 35th Infantry Brigade and 124th Infantry Regiment , was detached and sent to Guadalcanal . There , it took heavy losses in the battles of Edson ' s Ridge and Henderson Field . Late in 1943 , Mutaguchi was promoted , and replaced in command of the division by Lieutenant - General Shinichi Tanaka . Transferred to the Japanese Thirty - Third Army , and operations in northern Burma , 18th Division fought against the American - led Chinese divisions advancing on Mogaung and Myitkyina , and against the British Chindits operating behind their lines . Although sufferering heavy losses , the division nevertheless inflicted many casualties and imposed severe delays on the Allies . In the aftermath of the disastrous invasion of India in 1944 , Lieutenant - General Tanaka exchanged appointments with Lieutenant - General Eitaro Naka , formerly Chief of Staff at Burma Area Army . In the 1945 campaigning season , the division once again lost many thousands of men in the Battle of Central Burma , particularly at the Battle of Meiktila south of Mandalay . It ended the war in southern Burma . Of the 31 , 444 men sent to Burma , more than 20 , 000 did not make it home to Japan . Organization . The original Order of Battle of the 18th Division included : Reorganized as a square division in World War I , at the time of the Siege of Tsingtao , in 1914 it had a strength of 23 , 000 men . It was commanded by Lieutenant - General Mitsuomi Kamio , its 23rd Infantry Brigade by Major General Yamada and its 24th Infantry Brigade by Major General Horinehi . 18th Division It was reformed in 1937 as a square division for the Second Sino - Japanese War . 18th Division