The 15th Division was an infantry division in the Imperial Japanese Army. Its tsūshōgō code name was the Festival Division , and its military symbol was 15D. The 15th Division was one of four new infantry divisions raised by the Imperial Japanese Army in the closing stages of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). With Japan's limited resources towards the end of that conflict, the entire IJA was committed to combat in Manchuria, leaving not a single division to guard the Japanese home islands from attack. The 15th Division was initially raised from men in the area surrounding Nagoya under the command of Lieutenant General Okihara Kofu.

Kazushige Ugaki was a Japanese general in the Imperial Japanese Army and cabinet minister before World War II, the 5th principal of Takushoku University, and twice Governor-General of Korea. Nicknamed Ugaki Issei, he served as Foreign Minister of Japan in the Konoe cabinet in 1938.