Hakkōda Mountains disaster

Training in movement during winter conditions was also deemed necessary in light of a potential war with Russia, so a wintertime crossing of the Hakkōda Mountains was planned.

At 4 p.m. on 23 January, the unit reached the summit of Umatateba (732 meters (2,402 ft)), which was only four kilometers from the first day's objective, Tashiro Hot Spring.

The 5th Regiment and the 8th Division finally were placed on full-alert and launched major search-and-rescue/recover operations which lasted for months and involved tens of thousands of soldiers and villagers.

In 1971, after receiving numerous documents from Ogasawara, novelist Jirō Nitta published Death March on Mount Hakkōda:(八甲田山死の彷徨, Hakkōdasan shi no hōkō), a semi-fictional account of the disaster.

[3] The screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto, who is also famous for Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, adapted the novel and produced the 1977 movie Mount Hakkoda (八甲田山).