title: Germany–Japan relations

text: In contrast to his actual plans, Hitler's concept of stalling – in combination with his frustration with a Japan embroiled in seemingly endless negotiations with the United States, and tending against a war with the USSR – led to a temporary cooperation with the Soviets in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which was signed in August 1939. Neither Japan nor Italy had been informed beforehand of Germany's pact with the Soviets, demonstrating the constant subliminal mistrust between Nazi Germany and its partners. After all, the pact not only stipulated the division of Poland and Baltic states between both signatories in a secret protocol, but also rendered the Anti-Comintern Pact more or less irrelevant. In order to remove the strain that Hitler's move had put on German–Japanese relations, the "Agreement for Cultural Cooperation between Japan and Germany" was signed in November 1939, only a few weeks after Germany and the Soviet Union had concluded their invasion of Poland and Great Britain and France declared war on Germany.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Over the following year, Japan also proceeded with its expansion plans. The Invasion of northern French Indochina on 22 September 1940 (which by then was controlled by the collaborating government of Vichy France), and Japan's ongoing bloody conflict with China, put a severe strain on Japan–United States relations. On 26 July 1940, the United States had passed the Export Control Act, cutting oil, iron and steel exports to Japan. This containment policy was Washington's warning to Japan that any further military expansion would result in further sanctions. However, such US moves were interpreted by Japan's militaristic leaders as signals that they needed to take radical measures to improve the Empire's situation, thereby driving Japan closer to Germany.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: With Nazi Germany not only having conquered most of continental Europe including France, but also maintaining the impression of a Britain facing imminent defeat, Tokyo interpreted the situation in Europe as proof of a fundamental and fatal weakness in western democracies. Japan's leadership concluded that the current state of affairs had to be exploited and subsequently started to seek even closer cooperation with Berlin. Hitler, for his part, not only feared a lasting stalemate with Britain, but also had started planning an invasion of the Soviet Union. These circumstances, together with a shortage in raw materials and food, increased Berlin's interest in a stronger alliance with Japan. German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was sent to negotiate a new treaty with Japan, whose relationships with Germany and Italy, the three soon to be called "Axis powers", were cemented with the Tripartite Pact of 27 September 1940.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: The purpose of the Pact, directed against an unnamed power presumed to be the United States, was to deter that power from supporting Britain, thereby not only strengthening Germany's and Italy's cause in the North African Campaign and the Mediterranean theatre, but also weakening British colonies in South-East Asia in advance of a Japanese invasion. The treaty stated that the three countries would respect each other's "leadership" in their respective spheres of influence, and would assist each other if attacked by an outside party. However, already-ongoing conflicts, as of the signing of the Pact, were explicitly excluded. With this defensive terminology, aggression on the part of a member state toward a non-member state would result in no obligations under the Pact. These limitations can be interpreted as a symptom of the German-Japanese relations of that time being driven by mutual self-interest, underpinned by the shared militarist, expansionist and nationalistic ideologies of their respective governments.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Another decisive limitation in the German-Japanese alliance were the fundamental differences between the two nation's policies towards Jews. With Nazi Germany's well-known attitude being extreme Antisemitism, Japan refrained from adopting any similar posture. On 31 December 1940, Japanese foreign minister Yōsuke Matsuoka, a strong proponent of the Tripartite Pact, told a group of Jewish businessmen:


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: On a similar note, both countries would continue to conceal any war crimes committed by the other side for the remainder of the war. The Holocaust was systematically concealed by the leadership in Tokyo, just as Japanese war crimes, e.g. the situation in China, were kept secret from the German public. An example would be the atrocities committed by the Japanese Army in Nanking in 1937, which were denounced by German industrialist John Rabe. Subsequently, the German leadership ordered Rabe back to Berlin, confiscating all his reports and prohibiting any further discussion of the topic.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Nevertheless, after the signing of the Tripartite Pact, mutual visits of political and military nature increased. After German ace and parachute expert Ernst Udet visited Japan in 1939 to inspect the Japanese aerial forces, reporting to Hermann Göring that "Japanese flyers, though brave and willing, are no sky-beaters", General Tomoyuki Yamashita was given the job of reorganizing the Japanese Air Arm in late 1940. For this purpose, Yamashita arrived in Berlin in January 1941, staying almost six months. He inspected the broken Maginot Line and German fortifications on the French coast, watched German flyers in training, and even flew in a raid over Britain after decorating Hermann Göring, head of the German Luftwaffe, with the Japanese "Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun". General Yamashita also met and talked with Hitler, on whom he commented,


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: According to Yamashita, Hitler promised to remember Japan in his will, by instructing the Germans "to bind themselves eternally to the Japanese spirit."


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: On 11 November 1940, German–Japanese relations, as well as Japan's plans to expand southwards into South-East Asia, were decisively bolstered when the crew of the German auxiliary cruiser "Atlantis" boarded the British cargo ship . Fifteen bags of Top Secret mail for the British Far East Command were found, including naval intelligence reports containing the latest assessment of the Japanese Empire's military strength in the Far East, along with details of Royal Air Force units, naval strength, and notes on Singapore's defences. It painted a gloomy picture of British land and naval capabilities in the Far East, and declared that Britain was too weak to risk war with Japan. The mail reached the German embassy in Tokyo on 5 December, and was then hand-carried to Berlin via the Trans-Siberian railway. On the initiative of the German naval attaché Paul Wenneker, a copy was given to the Japanese; it provided valuable intelligence prior to their commencing hostilities against the Western Powers. The captain of the "Atlantis", Bernhard Rogge, was rewarded for this with an ornate katana Samurai sword; the only other Germans honored in this manner were Hermann Göring and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: After reading the captured documents, on 7 January 1941 Japanese Admiral Yamamoto wrote to the Naval Minister asking whether, if Japan knocked out America, the remaining British and Dutch forces would be suitably weakened for the Japanese to deliver a deathblow. Thereby, "Nanshin-ron", the concept of the Japanese Navy conducting a southern campaign quickly matured and gained further proponents.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Hitler, on the other hand, was concluding the preparations for "Operation Barbarossa", the invasion of the Soviet Union. In order to directly or indirectly support his imminent eastward strike, the Führer had repeatedly suggested to Japan that it reconsider plans for an attack on the Soviet Far East throughout 1940 and 1941. In February 1941, as a result of Hitler's insistence, General Oshima returned to Berlin as ambassador. On 5 March 1941, Wilhelm Keitel, chief of OKW issued "Basic Order Number 24 regarding Collaboration with Japan":


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: On 18 March 1941, at a conference attended by Hitler, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Keitel and Erich Raeder, Admiral Raeder stated:


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: In talks involving Hitler, his foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, his Japanese counterpart at that time, Yōsuke Matsuoka, as well as Berlin's and Tokyo's respective ambassadors, Eugen Ott and Hiroshi Ōshima, the German side then broadly hinted at, but never openly asked for, either invading the Soviet Union from the east or attacking Britain's colonies in South-East Asia, thereby preoccupying and diverting the British Empire away from Europe and thus somewhat covering Germany's back. Although Germany would have clearly favored Japan's attacking the USSR, exchanges between the two allies were always kept overly formal and indirect, as shown in the following statement by Hitler to ambassador Ōshima (2 June 1941):


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Matsuoka, Ōshima and parts of the Japanese Imperial Army were proponents of "Hokushin-ron", Japan's go-north strategy aiming for a coordinated attack with Germany against the USSR and seizing East Siberia. But the Japanese army-dominated military leadership, namely persons like minister of war Hideki Tōjō, were constantly pressured by the Japanese Imperial Navy and, thus, a strong tendency towards "Nanshin-ron" existed already in 1940, meaning to go south and exploit the weakened European powers by occupying their resource-rich colonies in South-East Asia. In order to secure Japan's back while expanding southwards and as a Soviet effort to demonstrate peaceful intentions toward Germany, the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact was signed in Moscow on 13 April 1941 by Matsuoka on his return trip from a visit to Berlin. Joseph Stalin had little faith in Japan's commitment to neutrality, but he felt that the pact was important for its political symbolism, to reinforce a public affection for Germany. Hitler, who was not informed in advance by the Japanese and considering the pact a ruse to stall, misinterpreted the diplomatic situation and thought that his attack on the USSR would bring a tremendous relief for Japan in East Asia and thereby a much stronger threat to American activities through Japanese interventions. As a consequence, Nazi Germany pressed forward with Operation Barbarossa, its attack on the Soviet Union, which started two months later on 22 June without any specific warning to its Axis partners.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: From Japan's point of view the attack on Russia very nearly ruptured the Tripartite Pact, since the Empire had been depending on Germany to help in maintaining good relations with Moscow so as to preclude any threat from Siberia. Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe felt betrayed because the Germans clearly trusted their Axis allies too little to warn them about Barbarossa, even though he had feared the worst since receiving an April report from Ōshima in Berlin that "Germany is confident she can defeat Russia and she is preparing to fight at any moment." Foreign minister Matsuoka on the other hand vividly tried to convince the Emperor, the cabinet as well as the army staff of an immediate attack on the Soviet Union. However, his colleagues rejected any such proposal, even regarding him as "Hitler's office boy" by now and pointed out to the fact that the Japanese army, with its light and medium tanks, had no intention of taking on Soviet tanks and aircraft until they could be certain that the Wehrmacht had smashed the Red Army to the brink of defeat.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Subsequently, Konoe removed Matsuoka from his cabinet and stepped up Japan's negotiations with the US again, which still failed over the China and Indochina issues, however, and the American demand to Japan to withdraw from the Tripartite Pact in anticipation of any settlement. Without any perspective with respect to Washington, Matsuoka felt that his government had to reassure Germany of its loyalty to the pact. In Berlin, Ōshima was ordered to convey to the German foreign minister Ribbentrop that the "Japanese government have decided to secure 'points d'appui' in French Indochina [i.e., also occupy its southern half] to enable further to strengthen her pressure on Great Britain and the United States of America", and to present this as a "valuable contribution to the common front" by promising that "We Japanese are not going to sit on the fence while you Germans fight the Russians."


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Over the first months, Germany's advances in Soviet Russia were spectacular and Stalin's need to transfer troops currently protecting South-East Siberia from a potential Japanese attack to the future defense of Moscow grew. Japan's Kwantung Army in Manchukuo was constantly kept in manoeuvres and, in talks with German foreign minister Ribbentrop, ambassador Oshima in Berlin repeatedly hinted at an "imminent Japanese attack" against the USSR. In fact, however, the leadership in Tokyo at this time had in no way changed its mind and these actions were merely concerted to create the illusion of an eastern threat to the Soviet Union in an effort to bind its Siberian divisions. Unknown to Japan and Germany, however, Richard Sorge, a Soviet spy disguised as a German journalist working for Eugen Ott, the German ambassador in Tokyo, advised the Red Army on 14 September 1941, that the Japanese were not going to attack the Soviet Union until:


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Toward the end of September 1941, Sorge transmitted information that Japan would not initiate hostilities against the USSR in the East, thereby freeing Red Army divisions stationed in Siberia for the defence of Moscow. In October 1941 Sorge was unmasked and arrested by the Japanese. Apparently, he was entirely trusted by the German ambassador Eugen Ott, and was allowed access to top secret cables from Berlin in the embassy in Tokyo. Eventually, this involvement would lead to Heinrich Georg Stahmer replacing Ott in January 1943. Sorge on the other hand would be executed in November 1944 and elevated to a national hero in the Soviet Union.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: In September 1941, Japan began its southward expansion by expanding its military presence to southern Indochina ("securing 'points d'appui'") and decisively increased the number of stationed personnel and planes. This provoked the United States, the United Kingdom, and other Western governments to freeze Japanese assets, while the US (which supplied 80 percent of Japan's oil) responded by placing a complete oil embargo on the Japanese Empire. As a result, Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in South-East Asia and its prosecution of the war against China, or seizing the natural resources it needed by force. The Japanese military did not consider the former an option as attacking Soviet Russia instead of expanding into South Asia had become a more and more unpopular choice since Japan's humiliating defeat in 1939 at the Battle of Khalkin Gol against General Georgy Zhukov amongst others and the final rejection of any near-term action in Siberia shortly after Germany began its invasion of the USSR. Moreover, many officers considered America's oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war. With the harsh oil sanctions imposed by the United States, the Japanese leadership was now even more determined to remain in China. Germany had refused to sell Japan the blueprints to make synthetic fuel, so Japan's only hope for oil was to invade the Dutch East Indies, which would result in war with the United States and Britain. To succeed the Japanese had to neutralize the powerful United States Pacific Fleet, so they could prevent it from interfering with future Japanese movements in South-East Asia and negotiate peace terms from a strong hand. Hitler and Ribbentrop agreed that Germany would almost certainly declare war when the Japanese first informed them of their intention to go to war with the United States on 17 November 1941.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: On 25 November 1941, Germany tried to further solidify the alliance against Soviet Russia by officially reviving the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936, now joined by additional signatories, Hungary and Romania. However, for several reasons including logistics and Soviet defenses being reinforced by East Siberian divisions, Germany's offensive on Moscow ground to a halt with the onset of the Russian winter in November and December 1941. In the face of his failing Blitzkrieg tactics, Hitler's confidence in a successful and swift conclusion of the war diminished, especially with a US-supported Britain being a constant threat in the Reich's western front. Furthermore, it was evident that the "neutrality" which the US had superficially maintained to that point would soon change to an open and unlimited support of Britain against Germany. Hitler thus welcomed Japan's sudden entry into the war with its air raid on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and its subsequent declaration of war on the United States and Britain, just two days after the Soviet Union started to push the Germans away from Moscow with a successful counter-offensive led by General Zhukov, who had already defeated the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol in 1939. Upon learning of Japan's successful attack, Hitler even became euphoric, stating: "With such a capable ally we cannot lose this war." Preceding Japan's attack were numerous communiqués between Berlin and Tokyo. The respective ambassadors Ott and Ōshima tried to draft an amendment to the Tripartite Pact, in which Germany, Japan and Italy should pledge each other's allegiance in the case one signatory is attacked by – or attacks – the United States. Although the protocol was finished in time, it would not be formally signed by Germany until four days after the raid on Pearl Harbor. Also among the communiqués was another definitive Japanese rejection of any war plans against Russia:


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Nevertheless, publicly the German leadership applauded their new ally and ambassador Ōshima became one of only eight recipients of the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle in Gold, which was awarded by Hitler himself, who reportedly said:


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Although the amendment to the Tripartite Pact was not yet in force, Hitler chose to declare war on the United States and ordered the "Reichstag", along with Italy, to do so on 11 December 1941, three days after the United States' declaration of war on the Empire of Japan. Roosevelt's "shoot on sight" order had effectively declared naval war on Germany and Italy in September 1941, and Germany had learned of Rainbow Five in early December. Hitler could no longer ignore the amount of economic and military aid the US was giving Britain and the USSR. Hitler's hopes that, despite the previous rejections, Japan would reciprocally attack the Soviet Union, were not realized, as Japan stuck to its Nanshin strategy of going south, not north, and would continue to maintain an uneasy peace with the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Germany's declaration of war further solidified German–Japanese relations and showed Germany's solidarity with Japan, which was now encouraged to cooperate against the British. To some degree, Japan's actions in South-East Asia and the Pacific in the months after Pearl Harbor, including the sinking of HMS "Prince of Wales" and HMS "Repulse", the occupation of the Crown Colonies of Singapore, Hong Kong, and British Burma, and the raids in the Indian Ocean as well as on Australia, were a tremendous blow to the United Kingdom's war effort and preoccupied the Allies, shifting British (including Australian) and American assets away from the Battle of the Atlantic and the North African Campaign against Germany to Asia and the Pacific against Japan. In this context, sizeable forces of the British Empire were withdrawn from North Africa to the Pacific theatre with their replacements being only relatively inexperienced and thinly spread divisions. Taking advantage of this situation, Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps successfully attacked only six weeks after Pearl Harbor, eventually pushing the allied lines as far east as El Alamein.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Until the attack on the Soviet Union, Germany and Japan were able to exchange materials and personnel using the Trans-Siberian Railway. Afterwards, IJN submarines had to be sent on so-called "Yanagi" (Willow) – missions, since the American and British navies rendered the high seas too dangerous for Axis surface cargo ships. However, given the limited capacities of submarines, eyes were soon focused directly on the Mediterranean, the Middle East and British India, all vital to the British war effort. In the long run, Germany and Japan envisioned a partnered linkage running across the British-held Indian subcontinent that would allow for the transfer of weaponry and resources as well as potential joint military operations. After all, the choice of potential trading partners was very limited during the war and Germany was anxious for rubber and precious metals, while the Japanese sought industrial products, technical equipment, and chemical goods. By August 1942 the German advances in North Africa rendered an offensive against Alexandria and the Suez Canal feasible, which, in turn, had the potential of enabling maritime trade between Europe and Japan through the Indian Ocean. On the other hand, in the face of its defeat at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 with the loss of four aircraft carriers, the Japanese Navy decided to pursue all possibilities of gaining additional resources to quickly rebuild its forces. As a consequence, Ambassador Ōshima in Berlin was ordered to submit an extensive "wish list" requesting the purchase of vast amounts of steel and aluminium to be shipped from Germany to Japan. German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop quickly dismissed Tokyo's proposal, since those resources were vital for Germany's own industry. However, in order to gain Japanese backing for a new German-Japanese trade treaty, which should also secure the rights of German companies in South-East Asia, he asked Hitler to at least partially agree upon the Japanese demands. It took another five months of arguing over the Reichsmark-Yen-exchange rate and additional talks with the third signatory, the Italian government, until the "Treaty on Economic Cooperation" was signed on 20 January 1943.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Despite this treaty, the envisioned German-Japanese economic relations were never able to grow beyond mostly propagandistic status. The British kept control of the Suez Canal and submarines with very small cargo capability remained the main method of contact.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: With the loss of North Africa and the heavy defeat at Stalingrad, Germany was in a defensive posture by early 1943, and never regained the initiative.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Japan was being outproduced in carriers and was unable to launch any offensives after its defeat at Midway in June 1942. It was overextended and could not even feed its garrisons on islands across the Pacific. Tokyo's plan of conquering the Solomons at Australia's doorstep turned into a continuous retreat for the Japanese of which the defeat on Guadalcanal in early 1943 marked the beginning. Japan's invasion of India had been halted at Imphal and Kohima, rendering impossible any joint operations against India.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: With submarines remaining practically the only link between Nazi-controlled Europe and Japan, trade was soon focused on strategic goods such as technical plans and weapon templates. Only 20–40% of goods managed to reach either destination and merely 96 persons travelled by submarine from Europe to Japan and 89 vice versa during the war as only six submarines succeeded in their attempts of the trans-oceanic voyage: (August 1942), delivering drawings and examples of the torpedo bomber-deployed, aerial Type 91 torpedo used in the Attack on Pearl Harbor, (June 1943), (October 1943), (December 1943), (March 1944), and the (August 1943). Before "I-29" embarked on her voyage to German-occupied France in December 1943, she had rendezvoused with the during an earlier mission to the Indian Ocean. During this meeting on 28 April 1943, Indian nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose transferred to "I-29", thereby becoming the only civilian exchange between two submarines of two different navies in World War II. on the other hand is one of the most popular examples of an aborted Yanagi mission in May 1945. Amongst others, her cargo included examples of the newest electric torpedoes, one crated Me 262 jet aircraft, a Henschel Hs 293 glide bomb, and 560 kg of uranium oxide. Whether the uranium was weapons-grade material has not yet been clarified, however.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: On rare occasions, German surface ships were able to reach Japan as well. These included auxiliary cruisers "Michel" and "Thor", which were brought to Yokohama after the Kriegsmarine chiefs realized in late 1942 that it would not be practical for them to return to Germany-controlled European ports.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: German supply ships ("Uckermark") and foreign ships captured by German merchant raiders would come to Japanese ports as well.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: In the face of their failing war plans, Japanese and German representatives more and more began to deceive each other at tactical briefings by exaggerating minor victories and deemphasizing losses. In several talks in spring and summer 1943 between Generaloberst Alfred Jodl and the Japanese naval attaché in Berlin, Vice Admiral Naokuni Nomura, Jodl downplayed the afore described defeats of the German Army, e.g. by claiming the Soviet offensive would soon run out of steam and that "anywhere the Wehrmacht can be sent on land, it is sure of its untertaking, but where it has to be taken over sea, it becomes somewhat more difficult." Japan, on the other hand, not only evaded any disclosure of its true strategic position in the Pacific, but also declined any interference in American shipments being unloaded at Vladivostok and large numbers of men and amounts of material being transported from East Siberia to the German front in the west. Being forced to watch the continued reinforcement of Soviet troops from the east without any Japanese intervention was a thorn in Hitler's flesh, especially considering Japan's apparent ignorance with respect to the recent Casablanca Conference at which the Allies declared only to accept the unconditional surrenders of the Axis nations. During a private briefing on 5 March 1943, Hitler remarked:


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: As the war progressed and Germany began to retreat further, Japanese ambassador Ōshima never wavered in his confidence that Germany would emerge victorious. However, in March 1945 he reported to Tokyo on the "danger of Berlin becoming a battlefield" and revealing a fear "that the abandonment of Berlin may take place another month". On 13 April, he met with Ribbentrop – for the last time, it turned out – and vowed to stand with the leaders of the Third Reich in their hour of crisis but had to leave Berlin at once by Hitler's direct order. On 7 and 8 May 1945, as the German government surrendered to the Allied powers, Ōshima and his staff were taken into custody and brought to the United States. Now fighting an even more hopeless war, the Japanese government immediately denounced the German surrender as an act of treason and interned the few German individuals as well as confiscated all German property (such as submarines) in Japanese territory at the time. Four months later, on 2 September, Japan had to sign its own surrender documents.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: After the Second World War was officially concluded with the capitulation of the Empire of Japan, plans for trying the major German and Japanese war criminals were quickly implemented in 1946. While Japanese officials had to face the Tokyo Trials, major German war crimes were dealt with at the Nuremberg Trials. Here it was the goal of the Allied prosecutors to portray the limited cooperation between the Third Reich and Imperial Japan as a long-planned conspiracy to divide the world among the two Axis-partners and thereby delivering just another demonstration of the common viciousness expressed by alleged joint long-term war plans. Although there was a limited and cautious military cooperation between Japan and Germany during the Second World War, no documents corroborating any long-term planning or real coordination of military operations of both powers exist.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: After their defeat in World War II, both Japan and Germany were occupied. Japan regained its sovereignty with the Treaty of San Francisco in 1952 and joined the United Nations in 1956. Germany was split into two states. It was agreed in 1951 to take up diplomatic relations between Japan and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). The bilateral diplomatic ties between West Germany and Japan were fully restored in 1955; between East Germany and Japan in 1973, the year both German states became UN-members.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Beginning in the 1950s, Japanese companies sought to acquire needed raw materials like steel and chemical products in the West German Ruhr region, with a small Japanese business community in Düsseldorf. In 1974, West Germany and Japan signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in science and technology, re-intensifying joint scientific endeavours and technological exchange. The accord resulted in numerous projects, generally focused on marine research and geosciences, life sciences and environmental research. Additionally, youth exchange programs were launched, including a "Youth Summit" held annually since 1974.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: West German-Japanese political dealings were enlarged with both countries taking part in the creation of the so-called Group of Six, or simply "G6", together with the US, the UK, France and Italy in 1975 as a response to the 1973 oil crisis. The G6 was soon expanded by Canada and later Russia, with G6-, G7-, and later G8-, summits being held annually since then.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Over the following years, institutions, such as in 1985 the "Japanese–German Center" (JDZB) in Berlin and in 1988 the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo, were founded to further contribute to the academic and scientific exchange between Japan and West Germany.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Around the mid-1980s, West German and Japanese representatives decided to rebuild the old Japanese embassy in Berlin from 1938. Its remains had remained unused after the building was largely destroyed during World War II. In addition to the original complex, several changes and additions were made until 2000, like moving the main entrance to the Hiroshima Street, which was named in honour of the Japanese city, and the creation of a traditional Japanese Garden.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Post-war relations between Japan and both Germanies, as well as with unified Germany since 1990, have generally focused on economic and business questions. Germany, dedicated to free trade, continues to be Japan's largest trading partner within Europe. This general posture is also reflected in the so-called "7 pillars of cooperation" agreed on by Foreign Minister of Japan Yōhei Kōno and Foreign Minister of Germany Joschka Fischer on 30 October 2000:


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: In 2000, bilateral cultural exchange culminated in the "Japan in Germany" year, which was then followed by the "Germany in Japan" year in 2005/2006. Also in 2005, the annual German Film Festival in Tokyo was brought into being.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: In 2004, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed upon cooperations in the assistance for reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, the promotion of economic exchange activities, youth and sports exchanges as well as exchanges and cooperation in science, technology and academic fields.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Germany and Japan, being the United Nations' second and third largest funders respectively, demanded a reform of the United Nations Security Council and an increase of the number of its permanent members. For this purpose both nations organized themselves together with Brazil and India to form the so-called "G4 nations". On 21 September 2004, the G4 issued a joint statement mutually backing each other's claim to permanent seats, together with two African countries. This proposal has found opposition in a group of countries called Uniting for Consensus. In January 2006, Japan announced that it would not support putting the G4 resolution back on the table and was working on a resolution of its own.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Certain inefficiencies with respect to the bilateral cooperation between Germany and Japan were also reflected in 2005, when former Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa wrote in a commemoration to the 20th anniversary of the Japanese-German Center in Berlin that


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Nevertheless, as of 2008, Japan still was Germany's second largest trading partner in Asia after China. In 2017, German imports from Japan totaled $18 billion and German exports to Japan $23 billion. In 2008, however, Japanese exports and imports to and from the European Union fell by 7.8 and 4.8% after growing by 5.8% in 2007 due to the global financial crisis. Bilateral trade between Germany and Japan also shrank in 2008, with imports from Japan having dropped by 6.6% and German exports to Japan having declined by 5.5%. Despite Japan having remained Germany's principal trading partner in Asia after China in 2008, measured in terms of total German foreign trade, Japan's share of both exports and imports is relatively low and falls well short of the potential between the world's third- and fifth-largest economies.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: Unaffected by any stagnating German-Japanese trade relations, the Japanese community in Düsseldorf, home to Europe's largest Japantown, is growing again after a decline in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2008, over 8000 Japanese lived in the Düsseldorf area, which features a Japanese school, two kindergartens, three libraries and numerous Japanese clubs. Moreover, over 200 Japanese companies are active in that region, creating over 20,000 jobs. The Japanese community is widely considered a great asset for Düsseldorf.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: On 14 and 15 January 2010, German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle conducted his personal inaugural visit to Japan, focusing the talks with his Japanese counterpart, Katsuya Okada, on both nation's bilateral relations and global issues. Westerwelle emphasized, that and both ministers instructed their Ministries to draw up disarmament initiatives and strategies which Berlin and Tokyo can present to the international community together. Especially with regard to Iran's nuclear program, it was also stressed that Japan and Germany, both technically capable of and yet refraining from possessing any ABC weapons, should assume a leading role in realizing a world free of nuclear weapons and that international sanctions are considered to be an appropriate instrument of pressure. Furthermore, Westerwelle and Okada agreed to enhance cooperation in Afghanistan and to step up the stagnating bilateral trade between both countries. The visit was concluded in talks with Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, before which the German foreign minister visited the famous Meiji Shrine in the heart of Tokyo.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: On Friday 11 March 2011, the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the most powerful known earthquake to hit Japan at the time, and one of the five most powerful recorded earthquakes of which Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said, "In the 65 years after the end of World War II, this is the toughest and the most difficult crisis for Japan." hit Honshu. The earthquake and the resulting tsunami not only devastated wide coastal areas in Miyagi Prefecture but also caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster triggering a widespread permanent evacuation surrounding the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. German chancellor Angela Merkel immediately expressed her deepest sympathy to all those affected and promised Japan any assistance it would call for. As a consequence rescue specialists from the Technisches Hilfswerk as well as a scout team of I.S.A.R. Germany (International Search and Rescue) were sent to Japan, however parts of the German personnel had to be recalled due to radiation danger near the damaged power plant. Furthermore, the German Aerospace Center provided TerraSAR-X- and RapidEye-satellite imagery of the affected area. In the days after the disaster, numerous flowers, candles and paper cranes were placed in front of the Japanese embassy in Berlin by compassionates, including leading German politicians. Though never materialised, additional proposals for aid included sending special units of the German Bundeswehr to Japan, as the German Armed Forces' decontamination equipment is among the most sophisticated in the world.


title: Germany–Japan relations

text: On 2 April 2011, German Foreign Minister Westerwelle visited Tokyo on an Asia voyage, again offering Japan "all help, where it is needed" to recover from the tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster of the previous month. Westerwelle also emphasised the importance of making progress with a free trade agreement between Japan and the European Union in order to accelerate the recovery of the Japanese economy. Together with his German counterpart, Japanese foreign minister Takeaki Matsumoto also addressed potential new fields of cooperation between Tokyo and Berlin with respect to a reform of the United Nations Security Council.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The U.S. airborne landings in Normandy were the first U.S. combat operations during Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy by the Western Allies on June 6, 1944, during World War II. Around 13,100 American paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions made night parachute drops early on D-Day, June 6, followed by 3,937 glider troops flown in by day. As the opening maneuver of Operation Neptune (the assault operation for Overlord) the two American airborne divisions were delivered to the continent in two parachute and six glider missions.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The divisions were part of the U.S. VII Corps and provided it with support in its mission of capturing Cherbourg as soon as possible to provide the Allies with a port of supply. The specific missions of the two airborne divisions were to block approaches into the vicinity of the amphibious landing at Utah Beach, to capture causeway exits off the beaches, and to establish crossings over the Douve River at Carentan to assist the U.S. V Corps in merging the two U.S. beachheads.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The assault did not succeed in blocking the approaches to Utah for three days. Numerous factors played a part, most of which dealt with excessive scattering of the drops. Despite this, German forces were unable to exploit the chaos. Many German units made a tenacious defense of their strong-points, but all were systematically defeated within the week.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Plans for the invasion of Normandy went through several preliminary phases throughout 1943, during which the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) allocated 13½ U.S. troop carrier groups to an undefined airborne assault. The actual size, objectives, and details of the plan were not drawn up until after General Dwight D. Eisenhower became Supreme Allied Commander in January 1944. In mid-February Eisenhower received word from Headquarters U.S. Army Air Forces that the TO&E of the C-47 Skytrain groups would be increased from 52 to 64 aircraft (plus nine spares) by April 1 to meet his requirements. At the same time the commander of the U.S. First Army, Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, won approval of a plan to land two airborne divisions on the Cotentin Peninsula, one to seize the beach causeways and block the eastern half at Carentan from German reinforcements, the other to block the western corridor at La Haye-du-Puits in a second lift. The exposed and perilous nature of the La Haye de Puits mission was assigned to the veteran 82nd Airborne Division ("The All-Americans"), commanded by Major General Matthew Ridgway, while the causeway mission was given to the untested 101st Airborne Division ("The Screaming Eagles"), which received a new commander in March, Brigadier General Maxwell D. Taylor, formerly the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division Artillery who had also been temporary assistant division commander (ADC) of the 82nd Airborne Division, replacing Major General William C. Lee, who suffered a heart attack and returned to the United States.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Bradley insisted that 75 percent of the airborne assault be delivered by gliders for concentration of forces. Because it would be unsupported by naval and corps artillery, Ridgway, commanding the 82nd Airborne Division, also wanted a glider assault to deliver his organic artillery. The use of gliders was planned until April 18, when tests under realistic conditions resulted in excessive accidents and destruction of many gliders. On April 28 the plan was changed; the entire assault force would be inserted by parachute drop at night in one lift, with gliders providing reinforcement during the day.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The Germans, who had neglected to fortify Normandy, began constructing defenses and obstacles against airborne assault in the Cotentin, including specifically the planned drop zones of the 82nd Airborne Division. At first no change in plans were made, but when significant German forces were moved into the Cotentin in mid-May, the drop zones of the 82nd Airborne Division were relocated, even though detailed plans had already been formulated and training had proceeded based on them.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Just ten days before D-Day, a compromise was reached. Because of the heavier German presence, Bradley, the First Army commander, wanted the 82nd Airborne Division landed close to the 101st Airborne Division for mutual support if needed. Major General J. Lawton Collins, commanding the VII Corps, however, wanted the drops made west of the Merderet to seize a bridgehead. On May 27 the drop zones were relocated east of Le Haye-du-Puits along both sides of the Merderet. The 101st Airborne Division's 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), which had originally been given the task of capturing Sainte-Mère-Église, was shifted to protect the Carentan flank, and the capture of Sainte-Mère-Église was assigned to the veteran 505th PIR of the 82nd Airborne Division.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: For the troop carriers, experiences in the Allied invasion of Sicily the previous year had dictated a route that avoided Allied naval forces and German anti-aircraft defenses along the eastern shore of the Cotentin. On April 12 a route was approved that would depart England at Portland Bill, fly at low altitude southwest over water, then turn 90 degrees to the southeast and come in "by the back door" over the western coast. At the initial point the 82nd Airborne Division would continue straight to La Haye-du-Puits, and the 101st Airborne Division would make a small left turn and fly to Utah Beach. The plan called for a right turn after drops and a return on the reciprocal route.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: However the change in drop zones on May 27 and the increased size of German defenses made the risk to the planes from ground fire much greater, and the routes were modified so that the 101st Airborne Division would fly a more southerly ingress route along the Douve River (which would also provide a better visual landmark at night for the inexperienced troop carrier pilots). Over the reluctance of the naval commanders, exit routes from the drop zones were changed to fly over Utah Beach, then northward in a wide "safety corridor", then northwest above Cherbourg. As late as May 31 routes for the glider missions were changed to avoid overflying the peninsula in daylight.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: IX Troop Carrier Command (TCC) was formed in October 1943 to carry out the airborne assault mission in the invasion. Brigadier General Paul L. Williams, who had commanded the troop carrier operations in Sicily and Italy, took command in February 1944. The TCC command and staff officers were an excellent mix of combat veterans from those earlier assaults, and a few key officers were held over for continuity.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The 14 groups assigned to IX TCC were a mixture of experience. Four had seen significant combat in the Twelfth Air Force. Four had no combat experience but had trained together for more than a year in the United States. Four others had been in existence less than nine months and arrived in the United Kingdom one month after training began. One had experience only as a transport (cargo carrying) group and the last had been recently formed.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Joint training with airborne troops and an emphasis on night formation flying began at the start of March. The veteran 52nd Troop Carrier Wing (TCW), wedded to the 82nd Airborne, progressed rapidly and by the end of April had completed several successful night drops. The 53rd TCW, working with the 101st, also progressed well (although one practice mission on April 4 in poor visibility resulted in a badly scattered drop) but two of its groups concentrated on glider missions. By the end of April joint training with both airborne divisions ceased when Taylor and Ridgway deemed that their units had jumped enough. The 50th TCW did not begin training until April 3 and progressed more slowly, then was hampered when the troops ceased jumping.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: A divisional night jump exercise for the 101st Airborne scheduled for May 7, Exercise Eagle, was postponed to May 11-May 12 and became a dress rehearsal for both divisions. The 52nd TCW, carrying only two token paratroopers on each C-47, performed satisfactorily although the two lead planes of the 316th Troop Carrier Group (TCG) collided in mid-air, killing 14 including the group commander, Col. Burton R. Fleet. The 53rd TCW was judged "uniformly successful" in its drops. The lesser-trained 50th TCW, however, got lost in haze when its pathfinders failed to turn on their navigation beacons. It continued training till the end of the month with simulated drops in which pathfinders guided them to drop zones. The 315th and 442d Groups, which had never dropped troops until May and were judged the command's "weak sisters", continued to train almost nightly, dropping paratroopers who had not completed their quota of jumps. Three proficiency tests at the end of the month, making simulated drops, were rated as fully qualified. The inspectors, however, made their judgments without factoring that most of the successful missions had been flown in clear weather.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: By the end of May 1944, the IX Troop Carrier Command had available 1,207 Douglas C-47 Skytrain troop carrier airplanes and was one-third overstrength, creating a strong reserve. Three quarters of the planes were less than one year old on D-Day, and all were in excellent condition. Engine problems during training had resulted in a high number of aborted sorties, but all had been replaced to eliminate the problem. All matériel requested by commanders in IX TCC, including armor plating, had been received with the exception of self-sealing fuel tanks, which Chief of the Army Air Forces General Henry H. Arnold had personally rejected because of limited supplies.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Crew availability exceeded numbers of aircraft, but 40 per cent were recent-arriving crews or individual replacements who had not been present for much of the night formation training. As a result, 20 per cent of the 924 crews committed to the parachute mission on D-Day had minimum night training and fully three-fourths of all crews had never been under fire. Over 2,100 CG-4 Waco gliders had been sent to the United Kingdom, and after attrition during training operations, 1,118 were available for operations, along with 301 Airspeed Horsa gliders received from the British. Trained crews sufficient to pilot 951 gliders were available, and at least five of the troop carrier groups intensively trained for glider missions.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Because of the requirement for absolute radio silence and a study that warned that the thousands of Allied aircraft flying on D-Day would break down the existing system, plans were formulated to mark aircraft including gliders with black-and-white stripes to facilitate aircraft recognition. Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, commander of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, approved the use of the recognition markings on May 17.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: For the troop carrier aircraft this was in the form of three white and two black stripes, each two feet (60 cm) wide, around the fuselage behind the exit doors and from front to back on the outer wings. A test exercise was flown by selected aircraft over the invasion fleet on June 1, but to maintain security, orders to paint stripes were not issued until June 3.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The 300 men of the pathfinder companies were organized into teams of 14-18 paratroops each, whose main responsibility would be to deploy the ground beacon of the Rebecca/Eureka transponding radar system, and set out holophane marking lights. The Rebecca, an airborne sender-receiver, indicated on its scope the direction and approximate range of the Eureka, a responsor beacon. The paratroops trained at the school for two months with the troop carrier crews, but although every C-47 in IX TCC had a Rebecca interrogator installed, to keep from jamming the system with hundreds of signals, only flight leads were authorized to use it in the vicinity of the drop zones.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Despite many early failures in its employment, the Eureka-Rebecca system had been used with high accuracy in Italy in a night drop of the 82nd Airborne Division to reinforce the U.S. Fifth Army during the Salerno landings, codenamed Operation Avalanche, in September 1943. However, a shortcoming of the system was that within of the ground emitter, the signals merged into a single blip in which both range and bearing were lost. The system was designed to steer large formations of aircraft to within a few miles of a drop zone, at which point the holophane marking lights or other visual markers would guide completion of the drop.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Each drop zone (DZ) had a serial of three C-47 aircraft assigned to locate the DZ and drop pathfinder teams, who would mark it. The serials in each wave were to arrive at six-minute intervals. The pathfinder serials were organized in two waves, with those of the 101st Airborne Division arriving a half-hour before the first scheduled assault drop. These would be the first American and possibly the first Allied troops to land in the invasion. The three pathfinder serials of the 82nd Airborne Division were to begin their drops as the final wave of 101st Airborne Division paratroopers landed, thirty minutes ahead of the first 82nd Airborne Division drops.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Efforts of the early wave of pathfinder teams to mark the drop zones were partially ineffective. The first serial, assigned to DZ A, missed its zone and set up a mile away near St. Germain-de-Varreville. The team was unable to get either its amber halophane lights or its Eureka beacon working until the drop was well in progress. Although the second pathfinder serial had a plane ditch in the sea en route, the remainder dropped two teams near DZ C, but most of their marker lights were lost in the ditched airplane. They managed to set up a Eureka beacon just before the assault force arrived but were forced to use a hand held signal light which was not seen by some pilots. The planes assigned to DZ D along the Douve River failed to see their final turning point and flew well past the zone. Returning from an unfamiliar direction, they dropped 10 minutes late and off target. The drop zone was chosen after the 501st PIR's change of mission on May 27 and was in an area identified by the Germans as a likely landing area. Consequently so many Germans were nearby that the pathfinders could not set out their lights and were forced to rely solely on Eureka, which was a poor guide at short range.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The pathfinders of the 82nd Airborne Division had similar results. The first serial, bound for DZ O near Sainte-Mère-Église, flew too far north but corrected its error and dropped near its DZ. It made the most effective use of the Eureka beacons and holophane marking lights of any pathfinder team. The planes bound for DZ N south of Sainte-Mère-Église flew their mission accurately and visually identified the zone but still dropped the teams a mile southeast. They landed among troop areas of the German 91st Division and were unable to reach the DZ. The teams assigned to mark DZ T northwest of Sainte-Mère-Église were the only ones dropped with accuracy, and while they deployed both Eureka and BUPS, they were unable to show lights because of the close proximity of German troops. Altogether, four of the six drops zones could not display marking lights.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The pathfinder teams assigned to Drop Zones C (101st) and N (82nd) each carried two BUPS beacons. The units for DZ N were intended to guide in the parachute resupply drop scheduled for late on D-Day, but the pair of DZ C were to provide a central orientation point for all the SCR-717 radars to get bearings. However the units were damaged in the drop and provided no assistance.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The assault "lift" (one air transport operation) was divided into two missions, "Albany" and "Boston", each with three regiment-sized landings on a drop zone. The drop zones of the 101st were northeast of Carentan and lettered A, C, and D from north to south (Drop Zone B had been that of the 501st PIR before the changes of May 27). Those of the 82nd were west (T and O, from west to east) and southwest (Drop Zone N) of Sainte-Mère-Eglise.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Each parachute infantry regiment (PIR), a unit of approximately 1800 men organized into three battalions, was transported by three or four "serials", formations containing 36, 45, or 54 C-47s, and separated from each other by specific time intervals. The planes, sequentially designated within a serial by "chalk numbers" (literally numbers chalked on the airplanes to aid paratroopers in boarding the correct airplane), were organized into "flights" of nine aircraft, in a formation pattern called "vee of vee's" (vee-shaped elements of three planes arranged in a larger vee of three elements), with the flights flying one behind the other. The serials were scheduled over the drop zones at six-minute intervals. The paratroopers were divided into "sticks", a plane load of troops numbering 15-18 men.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: To achieve surprise, the parachute drops were routed to approach Normandy at low altitude from the west. The serials took off beginning at 22:30 on June 5, assembled into formations at wing and command assembly points, and flew south to the departure point, code-named "Flatbush". There they descended and flew southwest over the English Channel at MSL to remain below German radar coverage. Each flight within a serial was behind the flight ahead. The flights encountered winds that pushed them five minutes ahead of schedule, but the effect was uniform over the entire invasion force and had negligible effect on the timetables. Once over water, all lights except formation lights were turned off, and these were reduced to their lowest practical intensity.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Twenty-four minutes out over the channel, the troop carrier stream reached a stationary marker boat code-named "Hoboken" and carrying a Eureka beacon, where they made a sharp left turn to the southeast and flew between the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Alderney. Weather over the channel was clear; all serials flew their routes precisely and in tight formation as they approached their initial points on the Cotentin coast, where they turned for their respective drop zones. The initial point for the 101st at Portbail, code-named "Muleshoe", was approximately south of that of the 82d, "Peoria", near Flamanville.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Despite precise execution over the channel, numerous factors encountered over the Cotentin Peninsula disrupted the accuracy of the drops, many encountered in rapid succession or simultaneously. These included:


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Flak from German anti-aircraft guns resulted in planes either going under or over their prescribed altitudes. Some of the men who jumped from planes at lower altitudes were injured when they hit the ground because of their chutes not having enough time to slow their descent, while others who jumped from higher altitudes reported a terrifying descent of several minutes watching tracer fire streaking up towards them.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Of the 20 serials making up the two missions, nine plunged into the cloud bank and were badly dispersed. Of the six serials which achieved concentrated drops, none flew through the clouds. However the primary factor limiting success of the paratroop units was the decision to make a massive parachute drop at night, because it magnified all the errors resulting from the above factors. A night parachute drop was not again used in three subsequent large-scale airborne operations. The negative impact of dropping at night was further illustrated when the same troop carrier groups flew a second lift later that day with precision and success under heavy fire.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division "Screaming Eagles" jumped first on June 6, between 00:48 and 01:40 British Double Summer Time. 6,928 troops were carried aboard 432 C-47s of mission "Albany" organized into 10 serials. The first flights, inbound to DZ A, were not surprised by the bad weather, but navigating errors and a lack of Eureka signal caused the 2nd Battalion 502nd PIR to come down on the wrong drop zone. Most of the remainder of the 502nd jumped in a disorganized pattern around the impromptu drop zone set up by the pathfinders near the beach. Two battalion commanders took charge of small groups and accomplished all of their D-Day missions. The division's parachute artillery experienced one of the worst drops of the operation, losing all but one howitzer and most of its troops as casualties.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The three serials carrying the 506th PIR were badly dispersed by the clouds, then subjected to intense antiaircraft fire. Even so, 2/3 of the 1st Battalion was dropped accurately on DZ C. The 2nd Battalion, much of which had dropped too far west, fought its way to the Haudienville causeway by mid-afternoon but found that the 4th Division had already seized the exit. The 3rd Battalion of the 501st PIR, also assigned to DZ C, was more scattered, but took over the mission of securing the exits. A small unit reached the Pouppeville exit at 0600 and fought a six-hour battle to secure it, shortly before 4th Division troops arrived to link up.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The 501st PIR's serial also encountered severe flak but still made an accurate jump on Drop Zone D. Part of the DZ was covered by pre-registered German fire that inflicted heavy casualties before many troops could get out of their chutes. Among the killed were two of the three battalion commanders and one of their executive officers. A group of 150 troops captured the main objective, the la Barquette lock, by 04:00. A staff officer put together a platoon and achieved another objective by seizing two foot bridges near la Porte at 04:30. The 2nd Battalion landed almost intact on DZ D but in a day-long battle failed to take Saint-Côme-du-Mont and destroy the highway bridges over the Douve.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The glider battalions of the 101st's 327th Glider Infantry Regiment were delivered by sea and landed across Utah Beach with the 4th Infantry Division. On D-Day its third battalion, the 1st Battalion 401st GIR, landed just after noon and bivouacked near the beach. By the evening of June 7 the other two battalions were assembled near Sainte Marie du Mont.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The 82nd Airborne's drop, mission "Boston", began at 01:51. It was also a lift of 10 serials organized in three waves, totaling 6,420 paratroopers carried by 369 C-47s. The C-47s carrying the 505th did not experience the difficulties that had plagued the 101st's drops. Pathfinders on DZ O turned on their Eureka beacons as the first 82nd serial crossed the initial point and lighted holophane markers on all three battalion assembly areas. As a result the 505th enjoyed the most accurate of the D-Day drops, half the regiment dropping on or within a mile of its DZ, and 75 per cent within .


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The other regiments were more significantly dispersed. The 508th experienced the worst drop of any of the PIRs, with only 25 per cent jumping within a mile of the DZ. Half the regiment dropped east of the Merderet, where it was useless to its original mission. The 507th PIR's pathfinders landed on DZ T, but because of Germans nearby, marker lights could not be turned on. Approximately half landed nearby in grassy swampland along the river. Estimates of drowning casualties vary from "a few" to "scores" (against an overall D-Day loss in the division of 156 killed in action), but much equipment was lost and the troops had difficulty assembling.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Timely assembly enabled the 505th to accomplish two of its missions on schedule. With the help of a Frenchman who led them into the town, the 3rd Battalion captured Sainte-Mère-Église by 0430 against "negligible opposition" from German artillerymen. The 2nd Battalion established a blocking position on the northern approaches to Sainte-Mère-Église with a single platoon while the rest reinforced the 3rd Battalion when it was counterattacked at mid-morning. The 1st Battalion did not achieve its objectives of capturing bridges over the Merderet at la Fière and Chef-du-Pont, despite the assistance of several hundred troops from the 507th and 508th PIRs.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: None of the 82nd's objectives of clearing areas west of the Merderet and destroying bridges over the Douve were achieved on D-Day. However one makeshift battalion of the 508th PIR seized a small hill near the Merderet and disrupted German counterattacks on Chef-du-Pont for three days, effectively accomplishing its mission. Two company-sized pockets of the 507th held out behind the German center of resistance at Amfreville until relieved by the seizure of the causeway on June 9.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Two pre-dawn glider landings, missions "Chicago" (101st) and "Detroit" (82nd), each by 52 CG-4 Waco gliders, landed anti-tank guns and support troops for each division. The missions took off while the parachute landings were in progress and followed them by two hours, landing at about 0400, 2 hours before dawn. Chicago was an unqualified success, with 92 per cent landing within of target. Detroit was disrupted by the same cloud bank that had bedevilled the paratroops and only 62 per cent landed within . Even so, both missions provided heavy weapons that were immediately placed into service. Only eight passengers were killed in the two missions, but one of those was the assistant division commander of the 101st Airborne, Brigadier General Don Pratt. Five gliders in the 82nd's serial, cut loose in the cloud bank, remained missing after a month.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: On the evening of D-Day two additional glider operations, mission "Keokuk" and mission "Elmira", brought in additional support on 208 gliders. Operating on British Double Summer Time, both arrived and landed before dark. Both missions were heavily escorted by P-38, P-47, and P-51 fighters.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Keokuck was a reinforcement mission for the 101st Airborne consisting of a single serial of 32 tugs and gliders that took off beginning at 18:30. It arrived at 20:53, seven minutes early, coming in over Utah Beach to limit exposure to ground fire, into a landing zone clearly marked with yellow panels and green smoke. German forces around Turqueville and Saint Côme-du-Mont, on either side of Landing Zone E, held their fire until the gliders were coming down, and while they inflicted some casualties, were too distant to cause much harm. Although only five landed on the LZ itself and most were released early, the Horsa gliders landed without serious damage. Two landed within German lines. The mission is significant as the first Allied daylight glider operation, but was not significant to the success of the 101st Airborne.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Elmira was essential to the 82nd Airborne, however, delivering two battalions of glider artillery and 24 howitzers to support the 507th and 508th PIRs west of the Merderet. It consisted of four serials, the first pair to arrive ten minutes after Keokuck, the second pair two hours later at sunset. The first gliders, unaware that the LZ had been moved to Drop Zone O, came under heavy ground fire from German troops who occupied part of Landing Zone W. The C-47s released their gliders for the original LZ, where most delivered their loads intact despite heavy damage.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The second wave of mission Elmira arrived at 22:55, and because no other pathfinder aids were operating, they headed for the Eureka beacon on LZ O. That wave too came under severe ground fire as it passed directly over German positions. One serial released early and came down near the German lines, but the second came down on Landing Zone O. Nearly all of both battalions joined the 82nd Airborne by morning, and 15 guns were in operation on June 8.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Two additional glider missions ("Galveston" and "Hackensack") were made just after daybreak on June 7, delivering the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment to the 82nd Airborne. The hazards and results of mission Elmira resulted in a route change over the Douve River valley that avoided the heavy ground fire of the evening before, and changed the landing zone to LZ E, that of the 101st Airborne Division. The first mission, Galveston, consisted of two serials carrying the 325th's 1st Battalion and the remainder of the artillery. Consisting of 100 glider-tug combinations, it carried nearly a thousand men, 20 guns, and 40 vehicles and released at 06:55. Small arms fire harried the first serial but did not seriously endanger it. Low releases resulted in a number of accidents and 100 injuries in the 325th (17 fatal). The second serial hit LZ W with accuracy and few injuries.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Mission Hackensack, bringing in the remainder of the 325th, released at 08:51. The first serial, carrying all of the 2nd Battalion and most of the 2nd Battalion 401st GIR (the 325th's "third battalion"), landed by squadrons in four different fields on each side of LZ W, one of which came down through intense fire. 15 troops were killed and 60 wounded, either by ground fire or by accidents caused by ground fire. The last glider serial of 50 Wacos, hauling service troops, 81 mm mortars, and one company of the 401st, made a perfect group release and landed at LZ W with high accuracy and virtually no casualties. By 10:15, all three battalions had assembled and reported in. With 90 per cent of its men present, the 325th GIR became the division reserve at Chef-du-Pont.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Two supply parachute drops, mission "Freeport" for the 82nd and mission "Memphis" intended for the 101st, were dropped on June 7. All of these operations came in over Utah Beach but were nonetheless disrupted by small arms fire when they overflew German positions, and virtually none of the 101st's supplies reached the division. Fourteen of the 270 C-47s on the supply drops were lost compared to only seven of the 511 glider tugs shot down.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: In the week following, six resupply missions were flown on call by the 441st and 436th Troop carrier Groups, with 10 C-47's making parachute drop and 24 towing gliders. This brought the final total of IX Troop Carrier Command sorties during Operation Neptune to 2,166, with 533 of those being glider sorties.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: "This section summarizes all ground combat in Normandy by the U.S. airborne divisions. The U.S. Army does not designate the point in time in which the airborne assault ended and the divisions that fought it conducted a conventional infantry campaign."


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: After 24 hours, only 2,500 of the 6,000 men in 101st were under the control of division headquarters. The 82nd had consolidated its forces on Sainte-Mère-Église, but significant pockets of troops were isolated west of the Merderet, some of which had to hold out for several days. The dispersal of the American airborne troops, and the nature of the hedgerow terrain, had the effect of confusing the Germans and fragmenting their response. In addition, the Germans' defensive flooding, in the early stages, also helped to protect the Americans' southern flank. The 4th Infantry Division had landed and moved off Utah Beach, with the 8th Infantry surrounding a German battalion on the high ground south of Sainte-Mère-Église, and the 12th and 22nd Infantry moving into line northeast of the town. The biggest anxiety for the airborne commanders was in linking up with the widely scattered forces west of the Merderet.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Many continued to roam and fight behind enemy lines for up to 5 days. The Air Force Historical Study on the operation notes that several hundred paratroopers scattered without organization far from the drop zones were "quickly mopped up", despite their valor and inherent toughness, by small German units that possessed unit cohesion. Most consolidated into small groups, however, rallied by NCOs and officers up to and including battalion commanders, and many were hodgepodges of troopers from different units. Particularly in the areas of the 507th and 508th PIRs, these isolated groupings, while fighting for their own survival, played an important role in the overall clearance of organized German resistance.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: On June 6, the German 6th Parachute Regiment (FJR6), commanded by Oberst Friedrich August von der Heydte, (FJR6) advanced two battalions, I./FJR6 to Sainte-Marie-du-Mont and II./FJR6 to Sainte-Mère-Église, but faced with the overwhelming numbers of the two U.S. divisions, withdrew. I./FJR6 attempted to force its way through U.S. forces half its size along the Douve River but was cut off and captured almost to the man. Nearby, the 506th PIR conducted a reconnaissance-in-force with two understrength battalions to capture Saint-Côme-du-Mont but although supported by several tanks, was stopped near Angoville-au-Plain. In the 82nd Airborne's area, a battalion of the 1058th Grenadier Regiment supported by tanks and other armored vehicles counterattacked Sainte-Mère-Église the same morning but were stopped by a reinforced company of M4 Sherman tanks from the 4th Division. The German armor retreated and the infantry was routed with heavy casualties by a coordinated attack of the 2nd Battalion 505th and the 2nd Battalion 8th Infantry.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: 101st units maneuvered on June 8 to envelop Saint-Côme-du-Mont, pushing back FJR6, and consolidated its lines on June 9. VII Corps gave the division the task of taking Carentan. The 502nd experienced heavy combat on the causeway on June 10. The next day it attacked the town, supported by the 327th GIR attacking from the east. The 506th PIR passed through the exhausted 502nd and attacked into Carentan on June 12, defeating the rear guard left by the German withdrawal.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: On June 13, German reinforcements arrived, in the form of assault guns, tanks, and infantry of "SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 37" (SS-PGR 37), "17. SS-Panzergrenadier Division". SS-PGR 37 and III./FJR6 attacked the 101st positions southwest of Carentan. The Germans pushed back the left of the U.S. line in a morning-long battle until Combat Command A of the 2nd Armored Division was sent forward to repel the attack. The 101st was then assigned to the newly arrived U.S. VIII Corps on June 15 in a defensive role before returning to England for rehabilitation.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The 82nd airborne still had not gained control of the bridge across the Merderet by June 9. Its 325th GIR, supported by several tanks, forced a crossing under fire to link up with pockets of the 507th PIR, then extended its line west of the Merderet to Chef-du-Pont. The 505th PIR captured Montebourg Station northwest of Sainte-Mere-Èglise on June 10, supporting an attack by the 4th Division. The 508th PIR attacked across the Douve River at Beuzeville-la-Bastille on June 12 and captured Baupte the next day. On June 14 units of the 101st Airborne linked up with the 508th PIR at Baupte.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The 325th and 505th passed through the 90th Division, which had taken Pont l'Abbé (originally an 82nd objective), and drove west on the left flank of VII Corps to capture Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte on June 16. On June 19 the division was assigned to VIII Corps, and the 507th established a bridgehead over the Douve south of Pont l'Abbé. The 82nd Airborne continued its march towards La Haye-du-Puits, and made its final attack against Hill 122 (Mont Castre) on July 3 in a driving rainstorm. It was "pinched out" of line by the advance of the 90th Infantry Division the next day and went into reserve to prepare to return to England.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Forty-two C-47s were destroyed in two days of operations, although in many cases the crews survived and were returned to Allied control. Twenty-one of the losses were on D-Day during the parachute assault, another seven while towing gliders, and the remaining fourteen during parachute resupply missions. Of the 517 gliders, 222 were Horsa gliders, most of which were destroyed in landing accidents or by German fire after landing. Although a majority of the 295 Waco gliders were repairable for use in future operations, the combat situation in the beachhead did not permit the introduction of troop carrier service units, and 97 percent of all gliders used in the operation were abandoned in the field.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: D-Day casualties for the airborne divisions were calculated in August 1944 as 1,240 for the 101st Airborne Division and 1,259 for the 82nd Airborne. Of those, the 101st suffered 182 killed, 557 wounded, and 501 missing. For the 82nd, the total was 156 killed, 347 wounded, and 756 missing.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Casualties through June 30 were reported by VII Corps as 4,670 for the 101st (546 killed, 2217 wounded, and 1,907 missing), and 4,480 for the 82nd (457 killed, 1440 wounded, and 2583 missing).


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: German casualties amounted to approximately 21,300 for the campaign. "Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 6." reported approximately 3,000 through the end of July. Divisional totals, which include combat against all VII Corps units, not just airborne, and their reporting dates were:


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: In his 1962 book, "Night Drop: The American Airborne Invasion of Normandy", Army historian S.L.A. Marshall concluded that the mixed performance overall of the airborne troops in Normandy resulted from poor performance by the troop carrier pilots. In coming to that conclusion he did not interview any aircrew nor qualify his opinion to that extent, nor did he acknowledge that British airborne operations on the same night succeeded despite also being widely scattered. Marshall’s original data came from after-action interviews with paratroopers after their return to England in July 1944, which was also the basis of all U.S. Army histories on the campaign written after the war, and which he later incorporated in his own commercial book.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: General Omar Bradley blamed "pilot inexperience and anxiety" as well as weather for the failures of the paratroopers. Memoirs by former 101st troopers, notably Donald Burgett ("Currahee") and Laurence Critchell ("Four Stars of Hell") harshly denigrated the pilots based on their own experiences, implying cowardice and incompetence (although Burgett also praised the Air Corps as "the best in the world"). Later John Keegan ("Six Armies in Normandy") and Clay Blair ("Ridgway’s Paratroopers: The American Airborne in World War II") escalated the tone of the criticism, stating that troop carrier pilots were the least qualified in the Army Air Forces, disgruntled, and castoffs. Others critical included Max Hastings ("Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy") and James Huston ("Out of the Blue: U.S. Army Airborne Operations in World War II"). As late as 2003 a prominent history ("Airborne: A Combat History of American Airborne Forces" by retired Lieutenant General E.M. Flanagan) repeated these and other assertions, all of it laying failures in Normandy at the feet of the pilots.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: This criticism primarily derived from anecdotal testimony in the battle-inexperienced 101st Airborne. Criticism from veterans of the 82nd Airborne was not only rare, its commanders Ridgway and Gavin both officially commended the troop carrier groups, as did Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Vandervoort and even one prominent 101st veteran, Captain Frank Lillyman, commander of its pathfinders. Gavin’s commendation said in part:


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: The troop carrier pilots in their remembrances and histories admitted to many errors in the execution of the drops but denied the aspersions on their character, citing the many factors since enumerated and faulty planning assumptions. Some, such as Martin Wolfe, an enlisted radio operator with the 436th TCG, pointed out that some late drops were caused by the paratroopers, who were struggling to get their equipment out the door until their aircraft had flown by the drop zone by several miles. Others mistook drops made ahead of theirs for their own drop zones and insisted on going early. The TCC personnel also pointed out that anxiety at being new to combat was not confined to USAAF crews. Warren reported that official histories showed 9 paratroopers had refused to jump and at least 35 other uninjured paratroopers were returned to England aboard C-47s. General Gavin reported that many paratroopers were in a daze after the drop, huddling in ditches and hedgerows until prodded into action by veterans. Wolfe noted that although his group had botched the delivery of some units in the night drop, it flew a second, daylight mission on D-Day and performed flawlessly although under heavy ground fire from alerted Germans.


title: American airborne landings in Normandy

text: Despite this, controversy did not flare until the assertions reached the general public as a commercial best-seller in Stephen Ambrose's "Band of Brothers", particularly in sincere accusations by icons such as Richard Winters. In 1995, following publication of "D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II", troop carrier historians, including veterans Lew Johnston (314th TCG), Michael Ingrisano Jr. (316th TCG), and former U.S. Marine Corps airlift planner Randolph Hils, attempted to open a dialog with Ambrose to correct errors they cited in "D-Day", which they then found had been repeated from the more popular and well-known "Band of Brothers". Their frustration with his failure to follow through on what they stated were promises to correct the record, particularly to the accusations of general cowardice and incompetence among the pilots, led them to detailed public rejoinders when the errors continued to be widely asserted, including in a History Channel broadcast April 8, 2001. As recently as 2004, in "MHQ: The Quarterly of Military History", the misrepresentations regarding lack of night training, pilot cowardice, and TC pilots being the dregs of the Air Corps were again repeated, with Ambrose being cited as its source.


title: Kangin

text: Kim Young-woon (born January 17, 1985), better known by his stage name Kangin (lit. meaning: "strong benevolence"), is a South Korean former singer, actor, television host and radio personality. He is best known as a former member of Super Junior and its subgroups Super Junior-T, Super Junior-H.


title: Kangin

text: Kangin officially debuted as part of 12-member project group "Super Junior 05" on November 6, 2005 on SBS' music program "Popular Songs", performing their first single, "Twins (Knock Out)". Their debut album "SuperJunior05 (Twins)" was released a month later on December 5, 2005 and debuted at number three on the monthly MIAK K-pop album charts.


title: Kangin

text: In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed and the company declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. Following the addition of thirteenth member Kyuhyun, the group dropped the suffix "05" and became officially credited as Super Junior. The re-polished group's first CD single "U" was released on June 7, 2006, which was their most successful single until the release of "Sorry, Sorry" in March 2009.


title: Kangin

text: In February 2007, he was placed in the trot-singing Super Junior-T. A year later, he became a member of Super Junior-H. Kangin's silver-screen debut was in the Super Junior film "Attack on the Pin-Up Boys", which premiered on July 26, 2007.


title: Kangin

text: In June, 2012, SM Entertainment announced that Kangin will rejoin Super Junior for the group's sixth album, "Sexy, Free & Single," which was released on July 1, 2012. This also marked the first time he appeared with Super Junior in three years since October 2009. On June 25, his teaser photo was released showing a slim downed Kangin with a frosty look and a net-like veil over his head.


title: Kangin

text: On July 11, 2019, Kangin withdrew from Super Junior, having been on hiatus since 2015 as a result of his second DUI offense. However, he will continue his contract with SM.


title: Kangin

text: After he debuted with Super Junior, Kangin became a regular on MBC variety show, "Image Survival" until February 2006. In 2006, Kangin frequently acted as an MC at fan meetings for SM artists such as DBSK and BoA and MC for channel EBS TV. In 2006 and 2007, he went on many variety show as a guest and sometimes as a regular cast member on shows such as "Love Triangle", KBS "Star King", KBS "Vitamin" and MBC Driving School with Leeteuk as a regular cast member. His television appearances and hosting gigs earned him the highest salary in Super Junior.


title: Kangin

text: Five days after Super Junior 05's debut performance, Kangin became the MC of Mnet's "M!Countdown" along with Leeteuk and Shindong. The trio stayed as the hosts throughout the remaining year until Kangin was replaced by Eunhyuk in mid-2006 due to his busy schedule from hosting "EBS Reckless Radio" and MBC's music program, "Show! Music Core". Kangin left "Reckless Radio" in June 2007 to host MBC's "Good Friend Radio" with Cho Jungrin. In 2008, Kangin was chosen to take the role of 'Kang Soo' in the Korean language film, "Hello, Schoolgirl".


title: Kangin

text: Kangin also became the television host for two of MBC's popular entertainment programs, "Sunday Sunday Night Dong-An Club" and "Nothing is Impossible". On channel Mnet, Kangin starred in 'Band of Brothers 2008' with Heechul, Jay and Jungmo. On channel MTV, Kangin was an MC for 'Class Up' in 2008. Kangin was one of four MCs for SBS 'Change' variety show in 2008. From September 9 to November 9, 2008, Kangin, along with bandmate Heechul, debuted as musical actors through the musical, "Xanadu". "Xanadu" was a 1980s musical film starring Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John. "Xanadu" has also been reproduced as a Broadway musical. Heechul and Kangin, along with Choi Sungwon, performed the same character, Sonny, according to their time slot, and auditions and casting picks were chosen in a process through reality television.


title: Kangin

text: In April 2008, Cho's hosting spot was replaced by Kim Tae-yeon. Kangin's last day of hosting the program was on April 19, 2009. From December 2008 to May 2009, Kangin and actress Lee Yoon-ji played a low-income college couple for the popular MBC reality show "We Got Married". This was the first MBC variety show Kangin participated in after the time-slot dispute between MBC and SM Entertainment regarding Kangin's job as host on SBS Super Junior Exploration of Human Body in 2007.


title: Kangin

text: In 2009, Kangin with other few Super Junior members hosted television show for charity named 'Miracle'. Kangin was also cast to take on the role of 'Hotae' for MBC's cable comedy drama, "Romance Zero". With a total of sixteen episodes, the drama ended in late May 2009 with acceptable reviews and ratings.


title: Kangin

text: In May 2019, Kangin starred in the ongoing web drama "What Happened to Mirae?", which was his first project since his DUIs in 2016; the first episode premiered on May 31.


title: Kangin

text: On July 5, 2010, Kangin enlisted for his mandatory military service at the Nonsan military camp in Chungcheongnam-do Province, for five weeks of basic training followed by 20 months of active duty with the Republic of Korea Army. He was discharged on April 16, 2012 from the 56th army division in Namyangju-si in Gyeonggi-do.


title: Kangin

text: A time-slot dispute occurred between SM Entertainment and MBC when SM insisted to have Kangin stay on SBS' "Explorers of the Human Body" instead of MBC's "Sunday Sunday Night Dong-An Club", in which Kangin was a regular host. MBC decided to temporarily ban Super Junior from appearing in any future performances on MBC. Kangin was replaced by T.O.P of Big Bang as the MC of "Show! Music Core". Kangin could also no longer host MBC variety shows "Nothing is Impossible" and "Sunday Sunday Night Dong-An Club" until the conflict was resolved. MBC also demanded an apology from SM Entertainment if SM artists should continue to perform on shows hosted by the channel. After Kangin left "Nothing is Impossible" and "Sunday Sunday Night Dong-An Club", both shows were later cancelled due to low ratings. A week later, MBC announced that they invited Super Junior to film an exclusive MBC segment, "Giving Children a New Life" despite their previous decision to ban Super Junior. The entertainment director for MBC claimed that the ban on Super Junior was never official, but a decision made by the programs' producers.


title: Kangin

text: On 16 September 2009, Kangin was arrested for his involvement in a fight between two men that took place outside a bar in Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. An eye-witness reported that two men entered a room where Kangin and his friend were present and began arguing heatedly. Kangin left the bar, but the two men followed him outside and began displaying acts of violence. Another witness reported that Kangin tried to stop the fight. A nearby surveillance camera caught the brawl, and it was immediately reported to the police. Kangin was brought into interrogation to aid with the investigation along with four other suspects. One of the suspects insisted that Kangin assaulted him, but it was later proven that Kangin only reacted in self-defense.


title: Kangin

text: As a result of this altercation, Kangin was dropped from being the main model of Andre Kim's fashion show. After Kangin's appearance in Super Junior's Super Show 2 concert in Hong Kong, all of Kangin's future schedules became temporarily postponed.


title: Kangin

text: On October 16, 2009 around 3 AM, Kangin collided into two parked taxis, and left the scene of the hit-and-run accident. The occupants of the two vehicles, including the drivers and two passengers, were reportedly uninjured. Five hours later, Kangin turned himself in to the police. He was recorded to have a blood alcohol content of 0.082% when he arrived at the station. He then failed to show up at the Seoul Gangnam Police Station at 2 PM on the same day for further investigation and had to be called in the following day.


title: Kangin

text: SM Entertainment and Kangin released a public apology shortly after. All of Kangin's activities were cancelled by SM Entertainment until the end of the year due to Kangin's actions. A month later, Kangin made an appearance in a new clothing company, SPAO's website. Netizens were enraged due to SM Entertainment's declaration of the suspension of Kangin's activities. It was later found out that the photos were taken prior to Kangin's DUI accident. On January 13, 2010, Kangin was indicted for drunk driving, hit-and-run and fined by the Seoul Central District Court.


title: Kangin

text: On May 24, 2016, Kangin was involved in another DUI hit-and-run incident, where he turned himself in after a few hours. He was then found with a blood alcohol content of 0.05%. SM Entertainment has issued a statement, stating his future activities were cancelled while he reflects on his actions. He entered the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on June 15, 2016, to face questioning over causing a traffic accident while under the influence of alcohol. Prosecutors summarily indicted him on July 7. On September 7, 2016, Kangin was sentenced to pay a ₩7 million ($6,420) fine.


title: Kangin

text: On November 17, 2017, police responded after receiving a call that Kangin was drunk and assaulting a female at an escort bar in the Nonhyeon neighborhood of Seoul. Upon investigation police described it as a “a minor dispute, and the parties reconciled at the scene and took measures to return home.” with no injuries, and no parties wished for charges to be pressed, so Kangin was sent off with a warning and not formally booked on any charges.


title: Level crossing

text: A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The term also applies when a light rail line with separate right-of-way or reserved track crosses a road in the same fashion. Other names include railway level crossing, railway crossing (chiefly international), grade crossing or railroad crossing (chiefly American), road through railroad, criss-cross, train crossing, and RXR (abbreviated).


title: Level crossing

text: The history of level crossings depends on the location, but often early level crossings had a flagman in a nearby booth who would, on the approach of a train, wave a red flag or lantern to stop all traffic and clear the tracks. Gated crossings became commonplace in many areas, as they protected the railway from people trespassing and livestock, and they protected the users of the crossing when closed by the signalman/gateman. In the second quarter of the 20th century, manual or electrical closable gates that barricaded the roadway started to be introduced, intended to be a complete barrier against intrusion of any road traffic onto the railway. Automatic crossings are now commonplace in some countries as motor vehicles replaced horse-drawn vehicles and the need for animal protection diminished with time. Full, half or no barrier crossings superseded gated crossings, although crossings of older types can still be found in places.


title: Level crossing

text: In rural regions with sparse traffic, the least expensive type of level crossing to operate is one without flagmen or gates, with only a warning sign posted. This type has been common across North America and in many developing countries.


title: Level crossing

text: Some international rules have helped to harmonize level crossing. For instance, the 1968 Vienna Convention states (chapter 3, article 23b) that:


title: Level crossing

text: This has been implemented in many countries, including countries which are not part of the Vienna Convention.


title: Level crossing

text: Trains have a much larger mass relative to their braking capability, and thus a far longer braking distance than road vehicles. With rare exceptions, trains do not stop at level crossings and rely on vehicles and pedestrians to clear the tracks in advance.


title: Level crossing

text: Level crossings constitute a significant safety concern internationally. On average, each year around 400 people in the European Union and over 300 in the United States are killed in level crossing accidents. Collisions can occur with vehicles as well as pedestrians; pedestrian collisions are more likely to result in a fatality. Among pedestrians, young people (5–19 years), older people (60 years and over), and males are considered to be higher risk users.


title: Level crossing

text: As far as warning systems for road users are concerned, level crossings either have "passive" protection, in the form of various types of warning signs, or "active" protection, using automatic warning devices such as flashing lights, warning sounds, and barriers or gates. In the 19th century and for much of the 20th, a sign warning "Stop, look, and listen" (or similar wording) was the sole protection at most level crossings. Today, active protection is widely available, and fewer collisions take place at level crossings with active warning systems. Modern radar sensor systems can detect if level crossings are free of obstructions as trains approach. These improve safety by not lowering crossing barriers that may trap vehicles or pedestrians on the tracks, while signalling trains to brake until the obstruction clears (however, they cannot prevent a vehicle from moving out onto the track once it's far too late for the locomotive to slow even slightly).


title: Level crossing

text: At railway stations, a pedestrian level crossing is sometimes provided to allow passengers to reach other platforms in the absence of an underpass or bridge, or for disabled access. Where third rail systems have level crossings, there is a gap in the third rail over the level crossing, but this does not necessarily interrupt the power supply to trains since they may have current collectors on multiple cars.


title: Level crossing

text: Source: Eurostat: The rail accident data are provided to Eurostat by the European Railway Agency (ERA). The ERA manages and is responsible for the entire data collection. The Eurostat data constitute a part of the data collected by ERA and are part of the so-called Common Safety Indicators (CSIs).


title: Level crossing

text: Note: Since 2010, use of national definitions is no longer permitted: 2010 CSI data represent the first fully harmonized set of figures


title: Level crossing

text: Traffic signal-controlled intersections next to level crossings on at least one of the roads in the intersection usually feature traffic signal preemption. Approaching trains activate a routine where, before the road lights and barriers are activated, all traffic signal phases go to red, except for the signal immediately after the crossing, which turns green (or flashing yellow) to allow traffic on the tracks to clear (in some cases, there are auxiliary traffic signals prior to the railroad crossing which will turn red, keeping new traffic from crossing the tracks. This is in addition to the flashing lights on the crossing barriers). After enough time to clear the crossing, the signal will turn. The crossing lights may begin flashing and the barriers lower immediately, or this might be delayed until after the traffic light turns red.


title: Level crossing

text: The operation of a traffic signal, while a train is present, may differ from municipality to municipality. In some areas, all directions will flash red, turning the intersection into an all-way stop. In other areas, the traffic parallel to the railroad track will have a flashing yellow for the duration of the train while the other directions face a flashing red light for the duration of the train. Still in other areas, the traffic parallel to the railroad track will have a green light for the duration of the train while the other directions face a red light for the duration of the train. Further still, in other areas traffic lights can operate relatively normally with only the blocked direction turning red for the duration of the train.