Giretsu
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The Imperial Japanese Army "Giretsu" special forces unit was an elite military unit active from 1944 until 1945.
These special forces were trained for one-way travel (shore landing or parachute drop) to USAAF bases in Saipan, Tinian and Guam, and the Ryukyu islands. These units were formed by Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army paratroopers with special training. The operations were a last-ditch attempt to delay USAAF B-29 strike operations against the Japanese home islands.
[edit] Uniforms
The Giretsu units wore a yellow-bordered red badge with a yellow star in the center. Navy members wore a white-bordered dark-blue emblem with a white anchor in the center.
[edit] Encounters with Allied forces
Their operations were undertaken at night, beginning with air strikes by Army Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate "Frank" fighter bombers, Mitsubishi Ki-67 Hiryū "Peggy" heavy bombers, Navy Nakajima B6N Tenzan "Jill" torpedo-bombers, and Kawanishi N1K-J Shiden "George" fighter bombers. After the bombing raid, air transports arrived and launched paratroopers onto the hostile airfield to destroy airplanes on the ground. Another variant was to send an early landing party near the enemy location to provide covering fire with light artillery during a later attack upon the enemy base.
The Allies encountered the bases of these units after the war in northern Honshū, where they discovered a concentration of 200 aircraft of assorted bomber types, which would have carried paratroop commandos of Giretsu special forces to the Superfortress B-29 bases in Marianas as well as to bases in Okinawa and Ryūkyū.
