Yamada Otozo

Yamada Otozo

Yamada Otozō ( Japanese 山田 乙 三 ; born November 6, 1881 in Nagano Prefecture , Japanese Empire , † July 18, 1965 in Japan) was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army .

Life

Born in Nagano Prefecture, Yamada graduated from the 14th grade at the Army Officer School in 1903 and the 24th grade from the Army College in 1912 . After graduating, he was transferred to the cavalry and rose through the ranks there over the next few years. After his promotion to colonel in 1925, he was given command of the 26th Cavalry Regiment.

In 1926 he became chief of staff of the Chosen Army stationed in Korea , Japan . From 1927 to 1930 he was employed in the communications department of the 3rd General Staff Office . Before he was briefly commandant of the Army Cavalry School in 1930, Yamada was promoted to major general. In 1931 and 1932 he held a field command again when he commanded the 4th Cavalry Brigade. Subsequently, he was deployed in various administrative positions until 1937, including as commander of the army officer school. In between, he was promoted to lieutenant general in 1934 .

In March 1937 Yamada was given command of the 12th Division stationed in Manchukuo , and in January of the following year he became commander-in-chief of the newly established 3rd Army , which guarded the Manchukuo border with the Soviet Union. In December 1938 he took over the supreme command of the Central China Expeditionary Army as the successor to Hata Shunroku , which he led until its dissolution in September 1939. Yamada was then ordered back to Japan, where he was appointed inspector general of military training and was promoted to full general in 1940. In parallel, he served on the Supreme War Council . In July 1941 he took over as a substitute for the newly formed Central Defense Command , which he handed over to Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko after Japan entered the war .

In July 1944, Yamada returned to Manchukuo and took over the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung Army . Since he was aware that he would not be able to defend effectively with the available forces in the event of a Soviet invasion, he asked for troops in Japan, which he was denied. As a result, he began an extensive recruitment program for volunteers and conscripts among the Japanese population in Manchukuo, from which he set up eight new infantry divisions and seven infantry brigades, which were understaffed and very poorly equipped. When the Soviets finally launched Operation August Storm on August 9, 1945 , Yamada's forces were completely wiped out within a few days.

After the surrender of Japan , Yamada was taken prisoner by the Soviets and in December 1949 was sentenced to 25 years in a labor camp in the Khabarovsk war criminals trial. In 1956, he and all other convicts who were still alive were released and deported to Japan, where Yamada died in 1965.

literature

Richard B. Frank: Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. Penguin Books, 2001, ISBN 0-14-100146-1 . Richard Fuller: Shokan: Hirohito's Samurai. Arms and Armor Press, 1992, ISBN 1-85409-151-4 . Saburō Hayashi and Alvin D. Cox .: Kōgun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War. Greenwood Press, 1978, ISBN 0-313-20291-5 .

Web links

• Yamada Otozō in the Database of Generals of World War II. Retrieved June 16, 2011.

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