Tsuji Masanobu

Tsuji Masanobu

Tsuji Masanobu ( Japanese 辻 政 信 ; * October 11, 1900 ; † July 20, 1961 ) was a Japanese colonel and tactician in the Imperial Japanese Army and later a politician. Tsuji's life and work, especially during World War II in the Pacific War , his involvement in war crimes , his own evasion before the allied war crimes trial in Tokyo , as well as his later work in Japanese politics and his books, made him one of the most controversial Japanese people.

Life

Born in Kaga ( Ishikawa Prefecture ) visited Tsuji from his sixteenth year, the cadet school in Nagoya and then the army officer school in Ichigaya , a district in the district of Shinjuku in Tokyo . His classmates at the time would play important roles over and over again in the course of his life. In 1921 Tsuji began serving in the General Staff of the Imperial Japanese Army and studied at the Army University from 1924 , which he graduated in 1931. He learned the Chinese and Russian languages , which has benefited him throughout his career.

China

Tsuji Masanobu came to China in 1932 . At that time, Japanese units were attacking the city of Shanghai in the first battle for Shanghai . Tsuji became the commander of a company and lost 16 of his soldiers in a skirmish with the Chinese. Shortly afterwards, he was touring the Xinjiang Province in western China with a translator .

Two years later, Tsuji served as a company commander at the Army Officer's School. At this time there was a clash of the two different groups within the Japanese military; the Tōsei-ha and the Kōdō-ha . While the Tōseiha under the leadership of Ugaki Kazushige and Tōjō Hideki as a prominent member pursued the course of the strong military without interfering in national politics, the Kōdōha followed a much more nationalistic path. Tsuji, who was closer to the Tōseiha, reported, as he later noted in one of his books, five of his subordinate students who were involved in the planning of an attempted coup - the November incident ( 十一月 事件 , jūichi-gatsu jiken ) - of the Kōdōha should be to the headquarters. They were expelled from the officers' school and two officers whom they had recruited were discharged from the army.

In 1939 Tsuji Masanobu moved with the rank of major to the staff of General Ueda Kenkichi , the commander of the Kwantung Army . In the middle of the year he was responsible, among other things, for planning the army's course of action during the Nomonhan incident . He then moved to the headquarters of the 11th Japanese Army in Hankou in September .

Invasion planning

When a military confrontation in Southeast Asia with the British and Australians on the Malay Peninsula was approaching, the Japanese leadership transferred three complete divisions to Formosa in December 1940 . They should train there under Colonel Yoshihide Hayashi for combat in tropical conditions. Tsuji Masanobu joined them in early 1941. Contradicting sources describe Tsuji once as a postponed, others as Tōjō Hideki's chief planner for the Malaysian operations.

Among his subordinates was a younger officer who he knew had willfully left his desk job in the Army Ministry and gone to Formosa under the false name Asaeda to fight the Dutch in their Southeast Asian colonies. Tsuji had him transferred to Tokyo under guard so that he could face the authorities there to counter a scandal. But shortly afterwards Asaeda returned to Formosa. Tsuji then hired him as a secret agent to spy on the situation in Burma , Thailand and the Malay Peninsula. Asaeda familiarized himself with the geography and national languages ​​and went to Thailand in the spring under the guise of an agricultural engineer. Once there, he photographed key parts of the country that were important for an invasion, talked to residents of higher and lower ranks and thus came to the conclusion that Thailand could be captured. Asaeda then went to Burma, where he mainly examined the climatic conditions in the north of the country in order to compare them with theories of warfare under tropical conditions. Tsuji dispatched Asaeda shortly after his return to the Malay Peninsula, where he examined the beaches and tidal conditions for a landing.

In June, secret maneuvers led by Hayashi and Tsuji took place in the Gulf of Tonkin off the Japanese-controlled island of Hainan . To test the psychological and physical properties of his soldiers, he had thousands of men in full riot gear climb into the scorching holds of the ships, where they had to spend a week at temperatures of up to 50 ° C. The horses also suffered under the same conditions. The ships then brought the units to open beaches, where they had to land under combat conditions. This happened with the infantry , the artillery and the engineer troops .

The Malaysian invasion was to be carried out by the Japanese 25th Army under General Yamashita Tomoyuki . Yamashita was grateful for the information Tsuji had gathered, but convinced himself of the situation by sending Major Kunitake Terundo, who works at the Japanese consulate in Singapore, there. Kunitake toured the peninsula and reported about 250 bridges, which was significantly more than Tsuji had assumed. So he suggested assigning a separate engineer regiment to each division, which had enough material to build bridges, and to have additional exercises for crossing rivers carried out.

Konoe assassination

In Tokyo, meanwhile, meetings between the foreign ministers of Japan and the USA, which had been set up to avoid war, were developing under the government of Prime Minister Prince Konoe Fumimaro . For this reason, two secret societies, which stood for a war, planned an overthrow with the help of assassinations. Tsuji Masanobu was a member of one of these organizations and was responsible for planning a railroad bomb. On September 18, 1941, Fumimaro was supposed to travel from Tokyo to Yokosuka . The train was about to explode on the Rokugo Bridge outside Tokyo. However, the day before the assassins were preceded by four unknown men who tried to stab Prince Fumimaro on the street. The attack failed and the planned trip was canceled. On October 17, Tennō Hirohito Tōjō Hideki instructed the formation of a new cabinet, which brought the far-right militarists to power and made further assassinations superfluous.

Malaysia

On October 22nd, Tsuji Masanobu decided to personally inspect the Malay Peninsula. Together with the pilot Captain Ikeda he boarded a Mitsubishi Ki-46 in Saigon . The plane took off at dawn. Due to bad weather over the peninsula, Ikeda had to go down below 2,000 meters, but the plane remained unmolested. So they could explore the northern airfields of the Allies and report the observations to General Terauchi Hisaichi , the new commander of the Southern Army . From this they developed new invasion plans, which Tsuji personally presented to the General Staff in Tokyo.

After the Tojo cabinet had decided to annex the Southeast Asian countries by war and the supposedly preventive attack on Pearl Harbor , the convoys from Hainan, Cam Ranh Bay and shortly afterwards from Saigon set sail on December 4 and set course south. Tsuji Masanobu went ashore with the main troops at Kota Bahru on the morning of December 8th . In contrast to Tsuji's plans, the Japanese expected significantly more resistance than expected. But although they were outnumbered at the beginning, they succeeded in expanding the bridgeheads. Especially in Thailand, where the main troops had come ashore, the advance in the direction of Singapore , the actual goal, could be started quickly.

During the fighting, Tsuji often appeared as a motivator for his own troops. He also planned attacks, but executives were often rejected by management. His popularity was limited, as he often pushed the soldiers to their limits because of his harsh behavior and dealings with them. When Tsuji was suspected of being involved in the murder of thousands of Chinese in Singapore in the spring of 1942, he resisted the punishment by Yamashita. But shortly afterwards he was transferred to the Philippines .

Philippines

Tsuji Masanobu arrived on Bataan in the Philippines a few days before the Allied surrender . Together with Major General Takaji Wachi , General Homma Masaharu's new Chief of Staff and around 4,000 relief soldiers for the units fighting since December 1941, he witnessed more than 70,000 Allied soldiers being captured. Tsuji took the view that all prisoners should be executed. The Americans because they were colonialists and the native Fillipinos because they had betrayed their "Asian brothers". He also vehemently represented this opinion in the General Staff and was so convincing that a staff officer took it up like an order and passed the alleged order on to the officer responsible for the prisoners. Even The Japan Times & Advertiser took up Tsuji's suggestions and wrote in its April 28 issue:

“They [the Allies] surrendered, only sparing their own lives… They cannot be treated like normal prisoners. They have broken the commandments of God and their defeat is their punishment. Showing them mercy would [only] prolong the war ... An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Hesitation is out of the question and the evildoers must be wiped out. "

- The Japan Times & Advertiser

General Homma had instructed his troops to respect the local soldiers and to refrain from acts of violence. Tsuji's influence was so strong that there were a few executions, including some high-ranking Filipino politicians.

Guadalcanal

After the Americans had started the Battle of Guadalcanal in August 1942 and the Japanese were being pushed back more and more, Tsuji Masanobu asked his superiors in Tokyo to send him to Rabaul as an observer . Tsuji acted as an intermediary between the army and navy, visiting Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku on the battleship Yamato , which was docked in Kure , to convince him of the need for a large-scale relief operation for the troops on Guadalcanal. Yamamoto quickly saw in this action the possibility of a decisive battle for the Pacific War. Together with Colonel Haruo Konuma , a former classmate from the Army Officer School and now a staff officer of Lieutenant General Hyakutake Seikichi in Rabaul, Tsuji worked out the details of the plan.

Battle preparations

When the requested relief units arrived on Guadalcanal on October 20, they were in such poor condition that Tsuji and Konuma decided to change their plan of operations. They ordered the troops to attack the Americans from the rear in a surprise night attack at Henderson Airfield . To do this, an almost 25-kilometer-long path had to be cut through the jungle, the vegetation of which was so thick that the Japanese could often only crawl through the branches. Meanwhile, Henderson Airfield was under sustained artillery fire. The Americans only managed to start eleven machines, but they hardly caused any damage to the Japanese ships at sea. The advancing infantry was under the personal command of Tsuji Masanobu. He had each soldier equipped with an artillery shell or part of a cannon in addition to his own rifle. He had forbidden cooking on punishment. On the third day, the men were so exhausted that they had to leave parts of their equipment on the edge of the path.

Intrigue against Kawaguchi Kiyotake

Kawaguchi Kiyotake , general of the Kawaguchi detachment named after him, which had lost the battle at Bloody Ridge in late September, was still on Guadalcanal. Tsuji, who knew Kawaguchi from the Philippines and was not convinced of his moderate leadership style, got rid of him with a ruse. When Kawaguchi asked Tsuji about possible weaknesses in his plan and put his own suggestions on the table, Tsuji thanked him and promised to inform Lieutenant General Maruyama Masao , the commander in chief of the 2nd Division (Sendai Division) on Guadalcanal. In truth, Tsuji continued to pursue his modified plan of the night attack. At the time of the attack, midnight October 24th to 25th, Kawaguchi's soldiers were therefore still more than 36 hours away from the planned new front line. Kawaguchi briefed Maruyama on his position, who was extremely indignant about his delay and relieved him from his post.

The Japanese defeat

The night attack was disastrous for the Japanese. They lost about 600 infantrymen and nine tanks during the premature fight. The Americans had become aware of the advancing Japanese through the sighting of fire and scouts and wiped out almost the entire Japanese regiment. Since the Navy assumed a success and believed Henderson Airfield in Japanese hands, their ships tried to land troops, but this was hindered by attacking American fighters at sea. Nevertheless, Yamamoto decided to bring his men ashore by all means. This venture degenerated into a two-day battle that killed 3,000 Japanese.

Tsuji fought his way back to the coast through the impassable jungle along the beaten path for five days. There he accused himself of failure by radio telegram to Field Marshal Sugiyama Hajime and assumed all the blame for the defeat because he had absolutely underestimated the strength of the enemy. Hajime refused a punishment requested by Tsuji and Tsuji went to Tokyo in November 1942.

On December 25th, due to the situation on Guadalcanal, an emergency conference lasting several days was hastily arranged in the imperial palace . The navy and army envoys argued vehemently over who would take responsibility for a possible withdrawal. Sugiyama and Tsuji advocated withdrawal on behalf of the army, while the navy advocated further attacks against the Americans. The final decision to withdraw was made on December 31, and Emperor Hirohito accepted it with bitter words. After the transmission of the relevant order, the Japanese began to withdraw their units from the island on January 23, 1943. Around 25,000 Japanese had fallen since Tsuji's intervention in Guadalcanal, the death of which Kawaguchi Kiyotake Tsuji was responsible for.

Burma

From the Japanese islands there was again a transfer to China in mid-1943, where Tsuji Masanobu served in the headquarters of the Japanese Expeditionary Corps in Nanjing . He stayed there for almost a year and was then deported to Burma. He arrived there on July 15, 1944 and reported to the headquarters of General Masaki Honda , the commander of the 33rd Army . The main task was at the time of the planning and execution of Operation Dan , the opening of the Burma Road from Lung Ling to the Salween aimed.

Upon arrival, Tsuji Masanobu was assigned to the planning staff of Major Shirazaki, who had a negative attitude towards Tsuji based on Tsuji's Guadalcanal losses. By means of suitable tactical suggestions, for example the relocation of the headquarters, and a self-confident demeanor, Tsuji succeeded in convincing General Honda of his qualities and so he succeeded Major Shirazaki after a short time.

Meanwhile, the Chinese troops under General Joseph Stilwell threatened the left flank of the planned offensive position at Myitkyina . Should the city fall, the Allies would have opened the supply route to the Chinese border. On July 31, 1944, the garrison commander reported to headquarters that he was no longer able to hold the city. Tsuji replied that under no circumstances should he give up the city. This order was authorized by General Honda. But shortly afterwards Myitkyina fell to Stillwell and the garrison commander performed the seppuku ritual. The rest of the 33rd Army got the order from Honda to face the advancing Chinese until they died. In mid-October the British and Chinese began their last major offensive on the already very weakened Japanese and locked them in a great pincer movement. Although the 33rd Army managed to hold out until the end of January 1945 and not retreat to Lashio , they then had to open the supply route from India to China.

On February 11, General Honda and Tsuji Masanobu met for a conference at which Tsuji, who had been badly wounded in the fighting, was awarded a medal of valor . In April, the Japanese headquarters was in a temple in Pyinmana when the city was overrun by the 161st Indian Brigade . During the night they managed to escape to the north unnoticed. Tsuji radioed instructions to the commanders of the 33rd, 28th and 15th Japanese Armies to follow the course of the Sittang and to cross over to the other bank before Rangoon. In a fiery speech he urged all soldiers to give their lives for the emperor and Japan.

Tsuji Masanobu managed to escape to Thailand via Bilin and Moulmein in June 1945 . There he was able to escape the rebellious Thai soldiers with the help of some old friends from the army officer school. He spent some time in Don Maung before attempting to get to Tokyo via Saigon in August . Since he was repeatedly turned away there and couldn't get a flight, he returned to Bangkok.

After the end of the war

Ten days after the end of the war, the Japanese surrendered in Burma and General Honda and his staff were taken prisoner by the British. After some investigation, the British came to the conclusion that Tsuji Masanobu should be drafted as a war criminal. Tsuji was meanwhile in hiding in Thailand. Under the pseudonym of a Buddhist priest named Aoki Norinobu and changed appearance, he lived with seven other Japanese; some were old classmates; in Bangkok. When the British occupied the city in late October and announced that priests would also be interned, Tsuji decided to go to China.

With the help of the so-called blue coats , a group that worked for Chiang Kai-shek's secret service , he managed to escape through Indochina to Hanoi , which he reached on November 29, 1945. He stayed there for about three months until he was able to fly to Kunming in early March 1946. Meanwhile, he had his name in Shih Kuang-yu changed and flew a few days later to Chongqing , where he worked for the military propaganda office of the Kuomintang worked and Japanese documents that the Chinese Communists were directed, translated.

During his stay in China, Tsuji Masanobu survived a cholera illness . At the beginning of July, Tsuji flew via Hankou to Nanjing, where he was employed under the name Wu Chieh-nan in the National Self-Defense Working Group, Defense Section. Shortly after his arrival, he visited the former Japanese headquarters and met other Japanese there who were working on deciphering communications from the communists.

Masonobus statue in Kaga (Ishikawa)

In China, too, Tsuji Masanobu repeatedly dealt with war issues. He wrote a treatise on possible strategy and combat scenarios during the Second World War, instructions for bad weather operations, and also on the strategic use of topographical data. He spent six months translating the Japanese manual on the fighting with the Soviet Union in Siberia into Chinese in 1924.

Tsuji, along with other officers hired by the Chinese, visited Japanese prisoners in Nanjing and followed the war crimes trials that were beginning. He also advocated the transfer of a defendant he knew personally to a better prison in Shanghai.

In February 1947, Tsuji Masanobu asked to be released from Chinese service, which was granted. On May 15, Tsuji left Nanjing and one day later boarded a ship in Shanghai on which around 60 Japanese prisoners of war were brought to Japan for trial. During a stop on Formosa, the Chinese brought another 300 Japanese on board. The ship reached Sasebo on May 26, 1948.

Since the Allies, especially the British, continued to look for Tsuji Masanobu as a war criminal, he had to spend the first few years in Japan underground. Although most of the war crimes trials had ended and the Allied Land Forces South East Asia (ALFSEA) had already been replaced by the Far Eastern Land Forces (FARELF), the British insisted that they would reopen Tsuji's case out of a legitimate national interest. At the same time, however, London had to admit that it would not be able to deploy the necessary staff again.

Shortly afterwards, Tsuji Masanobu began a new career as a politician. Due to his high popularity, especially in nationalist circles, but also because of his now published books on the war in Southeast Asia, he was elected to the Shūgiin (lower house) in the Japanese parliament in 1952. He was re-elected three times and remained in the House of Commons until 1959, until he was elected to the Sangiin in 1959, where he had a seat until his death (nominally the full term of 6 years until 1965 due to his absence).

At the beginning of the 1960s, Tsuji Masanobu began to travel to other Asian countries again. From one of these trips, historians speak of North Vietnam or Laos , he did not return in 1961 and was declared dead under Japanese law in 1968.

swell

1. ↑ Tsuji's date of birth differs depending on the source between 1900 and 1903. His date of death relates to the "For-Death Declaration" in Japan, as he is considered missing in Laos and North Vietnam.
2. ↑ Colonel Tsuji of Malaya (biography excerpt) under: Colonel Tsuji of Malaya (part 2) ( Memento from October 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
3. ^ British War Crimes Trials of Japanese - Nature-People-Society: Science and the Humanities, No. July 31, 2001 by Hayashi Hirofumi (Kanto Gakuin University) under: British War Crimes Trials of Japanese ( Memento of November 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive )

Works

• Japan's Greatest Victory, Britain's Worst Defeat: Capture and Fall of Singapore, 1942 , Spellmount Publishers Ltd, 2002, ISBN 978-1-86227-129-6
• Singapore, 1941-42 , OUP Australia and New Zealand; New Ed edition, 1988, ISBN 978-0-19-588891-1
• Underground Escape , 1952

literature

• Kohei Miki: Sanbo Tsuji Masanobu Raosu no kiri ni kiyu , Nami Shobo, ISBN 4-8164-1193-3

Web links

• Detailed biography of Tsuji Masanobu (English)
• Australia-Japan Research Project - Human face of war, TSUJI Masanobu ( Memento from July 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
• Researching Japanese War Crimes - Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records, Interagency Working Group, Washington, DC (English; PDF file; 2.50 MB)

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Tsuji is the family name, Masanobu the first name.