Japanese Korean Army
Japanese forces occupied large portions of the Empire of Korea during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, and a substantial Korean Garrison Army (韓国駐剳軍, Kankoku Chusatsugun) was established in Seoul to protect the Japanese embassy and civilians on March 11, 1904.The primary task of the Korean Army was to guard the Korean peninsula against possible incursions from the Soviet Union; however, its units were also used for suppression of nationalist uprisings and political dissent within Korea itself.While Seishirō Itagaki (板垣 征四郎) was commander of the Chosen Army from 7 July 1939 to 7 April 1945, Japan began assembling its nuclear weapons program with the industrial site near the Chosen reservoir as its equivalent to the Oak Ridge laboratory for the United States' Manhattan Project.[1] Both Itagaki and Masanobu Tsuji (辻 政信) refused to support neither peace between Japan and the United States nor have Japan attack the Soviet Union during Nazi Germany's Operation Barbarosa.After the surrender of Japan, the Army south of the 38 parallel remained armed under operational command of the United States Army to maintain public order until the arrival of substantial Allied forces to take control.