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Manchukuo Army Military Academy

The schooling environment at the Manchukuo Academy was tense, in part due to its significant ethnic, linguistic, and political diversity. Its student body was composed of around 10 Korean, 223 Chinese, and 107 Japanese people. According to Chong-sik Lee, Park excelled at the academy, especially in comparison to the non-Japanese students. He was fluent in Japanese, comparatively well-educated, and already accustomed to military drills and regimented dormitory life from his time at Taegu Normal School. He adopted and went by the Japanese name Takagi Masao (高木正雄).

Park was made to assist other students. Several of his Chinese and Korean classmates later described him as arrogant, and recalled that other students picked fights with him. In spite of this, according to Lee, Park remembered his time at the academy fondly. At a state dinner in Tokyo in November 1961, Park made a point to find and thank General Nagumo Shinichirō (南雲慎一郎), the former commandant of the academy, for his time there. Nagumo revealed that Park had been sending him gifts of ginseng.

At the time, Manchukuo was seen as a haven for Japanese political extremists of both the left and right, and the academy similarly had instructors who were then and later associated with significant controversy. According to one account, a Captain Kanno Hiroshi had previously partaken in the failed February 26 incident coup in Japan, and taught an analysis of the coup that Park possibly heeded. Lee evaluated this account as convincing, and theorized that, years later, Park applied the lessons to his own coup.

In March 1942, Park graduated among the top five students of the academy. After graduation, he took a three-month apprenticeship in the Kwantung Army's 30th Infantry Regiment in Harbin as a liaison.