PBA Galleries

Approximately 125 snapshot photographs, most 5½x3½" or smaller. Tipped in corner mounts to the pages of a period album, division insignia on album cover. Many captioned on mounts, in Japanese.

Numerous images of troops in training, various posed unit photographs, individual portraits, etc. The 26th Division was an infantry division in the Imperial Japanese Army. Its call sign was the Spring Division. The 26th Division was raised 30 September 1937 out of the three independent infantry regiments from the original 11th Independent Mixed Brigade and reserve components from various divisions based in Manchukuo. It has the distinction of being the first Japanese triangular division. The 26th Division was largely annihilated during the Battle of Leyte in December 1944 and all contact with the central command was lost until early March, 1945. A few soldiers survived until the surrender of Japan in August 1945 in the mountains of Merida and Isabel.