Kempeitai

Kempeitai
憲兵隊
Kempeitai logo found on officers' armbands
Active	1881–1945
Country	Empire of Japan
Branch	Imperial Japanese Army
Type	Gendarmerie, Military police and secret police
Role	Various duties, including military, civil, espionage, and counter-intelligence roles
Size	about 35,000 (c. 1945)
Part of	Home Ministry (Japanese home islands) Ministry of War (overseas territories)

The Kempeitai (Japanese: 憲兵隊, Hepburn: Kenpeitai) was the military police of the Imperial Japanese Army. The organization also shared civilian secret police, espionage, and counter-intelligence roles within Japan and its occupied territories, and was notorious for its brutality and role in suppressing dissent. The broad duties of the Kempeitai included maintaining military discipline, enforcing conscription laws, protecting vital military zones, and investigating crimes among soldiers. In occupied areas, it also issued travel permits, recruited labor, arrested resistance, requisitioned food and supplies, spread propaganda, and suppressed anti-Japanese sentiment. At its peak at the end of World War II, the Kempeitai was an extensive corps with about 35,000 personnel.

Founded in 1881 during the Meiji era, the size and duties of the Kempeitai grew rapidly as Japanese militarism expanded. During World War II, the organization ran Japan's prisoner of war and civilian internment camps, known for their mistreatment of detainees, and also acted as a political police force in the military and occupied territories. It carried out torture, summary executions, and violent reprisals and massacres against civilians, as well as procuring comfort women and human test subjects for Unit 731. The Kempeitai was disbanded after the war, and many of its leaders were tried and convicted of war crimes.

While institutionally part of the Army, the Kempeitai also discharged limited military police functions for the Imperial Japanese Navy. A member of the Kempeitai corps was called a kempei (憲兵).