Teishin & Rikusentai.

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The Japanese military during the Second World War [WW2] having two distinct paratrooper formations.

One subordinate to the Japanese Army Air Force [JAAF] and the second subordinate to the Japanese Navy [IJN]

1. Teishin Shundan. RAIDERS.

"Teishin Shudan (Raiding Group?) was a Japanese special forces/airborne unit during World War II. The unit was a division-level force, and was part of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF)."

Subordinate to the army air force in a manner as German paratroopers from the same era were suborndinate to the Luftwaffe.

2. Rikusentai. Naval paratroopers and RAIDERS.

"The Imperial Japanese Navy fielded naval paratroopers during World War II. The troops were officially part of the Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF or Rikusentai)."

"Rikusentai units were grouped in battalion-level formations . . . The lightly armed parachute units were intended to assault coastal areas, supporting amphibious landings or disembarkations, or enemy airfields and other strategic objectives. They were not meant to become entangled in heavy, pitched land battles"

Japanese paratroopers quite active during the early stages [1942] of the war in the Pacific. Used primarily and specifically during the campaign to capture INTACT to the greatest degree possible targets of interest in the Dutch East Indies. Those oil fields and refineries of Borneo and Sumatra. The coup de main effort. But not always so successful. The Dutch defender either able to inflict heavy casualties on the Japanese airborne attacker or destroy the oil facilities, those POL resources wired in advance for demolition.

That  Japanese paratrooper experience during WW2 almost identical [?] to that of the Allied and German powers. Paratroopers even when mission accomplished elite units of airborne troops the casualties of which were unsustainable.

"However, as with similar airborne units created by the Allies and other Axis powers, the Japanese paratroops suffered from a disproportionately high casualty rate, and the loss of men who required such extensive and expensive training limited their operations to only the most critical ones."

Casualties quite often FROM THE JUMP ITSELF AND NOT FROM ENEMY ACTION! Troops put out of action from broken bones, leg, knee and ankle injuries that rendered them not physically able to continue. Such is the tradition of paratrooper operations.

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