3rd Tank Division (Imperial Japanese Army)

3rd Tank Division
A Type 97 Shinhoto Chi-Ha tank of the 3rd Tank Division during Operation Ichi-Go in northern China, December 1944
Active	1942 - 1945
Country	Empire of Japan
Branch	Imperial Japanese Army
Type	Armored division
Garrison/HQ	Tokyo, Japan
Nickname(s)	滝 = Taki (Torrent)
Engagements	Second Sino-Japanese War World War II

The 3rd Tank Division (戦車第3師団, Sensha Dai-san Shidan^?), was one of four armored divisions of the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II.

The 3rd Tank Division was raised in Inner Mongolia in 1942 as part of the Japanese Northern China Area Army under the overall aegis of the Mongolia Garrison Army.

Initially tasked primarily with border patrol of Manchukuo's western frontier with the Soviet Union, from April 1944, it participated in Operation Ichi-Go in northern China against the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China. The two primary goals of Ichi-go were to open a land route to French Indochina, and capture air bases in southeast China from which American bombers were attacking the Japanese homeland and shipping.

The 3rd Tank Division’s IJA 8th Armored Regiment (formerly based in Mukden) was detached in June 1944, and transferred to the control of the Japanese Eighth Area Army in Rabaul.

The IJA 12th Armored Regiment, formerly based in Taiyuan, was withdrawn to bolster the defenses of Seoul in Korea towards the closing stages of the war and as part of the Japanese Seventeenth Area Army was in combat against the Soviet Red Army’s invasion of Manchuria.