Toyoda OEMu

Admiral Toyoda

Toyoda Soemu , Japanese 豊 田 副 武 , (born May 22, 1885 in Ōita Prefecture , Japan ; † September 22, 1957 in Tōkyō ) was the Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet of Japan ( 聯合 艦隊 , Rengō Kantai ) during World War II .

Life

Start of career

In 1905 (Meiji 38) he graduated from the naval school. During his service as a naval officer, he also stayed in England, where he received special training from the British Navy . Shortly before the outbreak of the Pacific War he was chief of the naval main administrative office and subsequently became chief of the naval base in Kure near Hiroshima .

Admiral and Commander in Chief

He was hostile to the war, like Grand Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku and Admiral Itō Seiichi . When the Tōjō Cabinet was formed in 1941, Toyoda was considered a candidate for the Ministry of the Navy , but Shimada Shigetaro was given preference.

In May 1944, Toyoda became Commander in Chief of the United Fleet, succeeding Admiral Koga Mineichi , who was killed in a plane crash in March 1944. Thereupon he led the high command in the Mariana and Philippines naval battles . His ingenious but also complex strategy turned out to be a major failure, as he had to fragment the fleets and a combined attack turned out to be impossible. He acted in the tradition of the Japanese Navy, which preferred complex strategies. So the small fleets were broken up one by one by superior American fleets. Another important factor was the early discovery of his fleets by submarines, which caused the Japanese heavy losses even before the actual battle. Another mistake was the indirect management of such large associations from the "green table" in Tōkyō. At this time he underestimated the Allied air and sea power, which he wanted to break ad hoc with almost the entire Japanese fleet.

After these battles he had lost much of the fleet and the remainder was almost inoperable. From this point on, no major fleet operations were carried out because the ships could no longer be repaired, there was no fuel and the necessary safety from the air was no longer available.

In the Battle of Okinawa , he ordered the suicidal final deployment of the last operational battleship , the Yamato , which was the largest battleship ever built. This is the largest kamikaze mission in world history. Its results were the destruction of the battleship, an accompanying cruiser and most of the crews, but not the breaking of the American resistance, as the ship had already been sunk by aircraft before reaching Okinawa. With the death of the commander of this combat group, Admiral Itō, the Japanese fleet completely lost its operational base. Even the losses of American carrier aircraft in this defensive battle were negligible when you consider that the Yamato had the most powerful anti-aircraft weapons in the world. The bottom line was that this last deployment of Japanese capital ships had been completely pointless.

After he had given the supreme command of the combined fleet to Admiral Ozawa Jisaburō , Toyoda was head of the Admiralty from May 1945 until the end of the war. In this function, Toyoda sat with Army Minister Anami Korechika and Chief of Staff Umezu Yoshijirō in the liaison conference for the continuation of the war, as they hoped that the Japanese troops would inflict a serious defeat on Japanese soil for the Allied forces and this would lead to an acceptable peace could.

End of war and death

After the war, he escaped prosecution before the Far East International War Tribunal despite being taken to Sugamo Prison . Separately, he was summoned to an Allied military tribunal and found innocent on all charges.

He published his memoirs in 1950 and died of a heart attack in 1957 at the age of 73.

reference

Toyoda Soemu must not be confused with Admiral Toyoda Teijirō (1885–1961), who in 1941 succeeded Matsuoka Yōsuke's foreign minister in the third Konoe cabinet . Toyoda Teijirō was Vice Minister of the Navy next to Navy Minister Oikawa in 1940, Minister of Commerce in the second Konoe cabinet in 1941 and finally Minister of Foreign Affairs. Toyoda was Minister for Armaments, Transport and Communications in the Suzuki Cabinet in 1945.

literature

• ambiguous: Kase Toshikazu: Journey to the Missouri . ed. by Rowe, DN, New Haven 1950, pp. 49-51, 144, 231/233 f.
• misleading on the other hand: Coox, Alvin, D .: The Pacific War . In: The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. VI, ed. By Peter Duus, New York et al. 1988, pp. 315-382, here: p. 375.
• Tōgō Shigenori: Japan in World War II. Memories of the Japanese Foreign Minister 1941–1942 and 1945 . Bonn 1958, passim.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Toyoda is the family name, Soemu the first name.