Senshi_Sōshō
The Senshi Sōsho (戦史叢書, War History Series), also called the Kōkan Senshi (公刊戦史), is the official military history of Imperial Japan's involvement in the Pacific War from 1937 to 1945. The task of compiling the official account of the Japanese involvement in World War II began in October 1955 with the opening of the War History Office (the present Military History Department of the “National Institute for Defense Studies”, or NIDS, of Japan's Ministry of Defense in Tokyo, Japan). Its main function was to serve as educational research material for the Self-Defense Forces. The office was led by Colonel Nishiura Susumu, a senior official in the War Ministry during the war. The publisher was Asagumo Shimbunsha.[1]
The history, comprising 102 volumes, the first of which was published in 1966 and the final one in 1980, was compiled from Imperial Japanese Army, Imperial Japanese Navy, other Japanese government records, and personal diaries and records which survived Japan's defeat in the war. Many of the records were initially confiscated by Allied governments, mainly the United States, but were returned to Japan in 1958.[2] The 102 numbered volumes of the series include 37 volumes on the Imperial Headquarters, 34 volumes on army campaigns, 21 volumes on navy campaigns, nine volumes about air services campaigns, and one volume of chronology.[3] In 1985 and 1986 two supplemental unnumbered volumes were published.