On this date,
December 23, 1948, Seven Japanese convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East
are executed at Sugamo Prison
in Tokyo, Japan. I will post information about one of the condemned convicts,
General Heitarō Kimura from Wikipedia.
Born
|
28 September 1888
Saitama prefecture, Japan |
Died
|
23 December 1948 (aged 60)
|
Allegiance
|
Empire of Japan
|
Service/branch
|
Imperial Japanese Army
|
Years of service
|
1908–1945
|
Rank
|
General
|
Commands held
|
32nd Division
Burma Area Army |
Battles/wars
|
Siberian Intervention
Second Sino-Japanese War World War II |
Heitarō Kimura
(木村 兵太郎 Kimura Heitarō (sometimes Kimura
Hyōtarō), 28
September 1888 – 23 December 1948) was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army.
Biography
Kimura
was born in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo, but was raised in Hiroshima
prefecture, which he considered to be his home. He attended military schooling
from an early age, and graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in
1908. He went on to graduate from the Army War College in 1916 and was
commissioned into the artillery. He served during the Japanese Siberian
Intervention of 1918–1919 in support of White Russian forces against the Bolshevik
Red Army. He was subsequently sent as a military attaché to Germany.
From
the late 1920s Kimura was attached to the Inspectorate of Artillery and an
instructor at the Field Artillery School. He was selected as a member of the
Japanese delegation to the London Disarmament Conference from 1929 to 1931. On
his return to Japan, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and assigned command
of the IJA 22nd Artillery Regiment. From 1932 to 1934, he returned to the Field
Artillery School, followed by the Coastal Artillery School as an instructor.
In
1935, Kimura first served in an influential role close to the centre of
Japanese policy when he was appointed Chief of the Control Section in the
Economic Mobilisation Bureau at the Ministry of War. The next year, he was
appointed Head of the Ordnance Bureau. He was promoted to the rank of major
general in 1936. He became a lieutenant general in 1939, and was assigned a
combat command with the IJA 32nd Division in China from 1939 to 1940. From 1940
to 1941, Kimura served as Chief of Staff of the Kwangtung Army in Manchukuo.
Kimura
returned to the Ministry of War in 1941 as Vice Minister of War, assisting War
Minister Hideki
Tōjō in planning strategies for campaigns in the Second Sino-Japanese
War as well as the Pacific War. From 1943 to 1944, he was a member of the Supreme
War Council, where he continued to exert a major influence on strategy and
policy.
Late
in 1944, as the course of the war went against Japan after the disastrous Battle of Imphal, Kimura was again assigned
to the field, this time as commander in chief
of the Burma Area Army,
defending Burma against the Allied
South East Asia
Command. The situation was not promising as Japanese forces were
under severe pressure on every front, and the Allies had complete air superiority. Reinforcements and
munitions were short, and Imperial
General Headquarters entertained the unsupported hope that Kimura
would be able make his command logistically self-sufficient.
Unable
to defend all of Burma, Kimura fell back behind the Irrawaddy River to attack the Allies when
their supply lines were stretched thin - a move which initially dislocated the
Allied plans. Unfortunately, such was Allied material superiority that the main
weight of the offensive was switched, and the vital positions of Meiktila and Mandalay were captured at the Battle
of Meiktila and Mandalay. From that point, Kimura was only capable
of delaying actions. He opted to preserve his forces rather than defend the
capital, Rangoon to the last man. Promoted to the
rank of general in 1945, he was still reorganising
his forces at the surrender of Japan
in mid-1945.
After
the end of World War II, Kimura was arrested by the Allied
occupation powers and tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East
for war crimes. The tribunal cited his role in
planning the strategy for the war in China and Southeast Asia, and condemned
him for laxity in preventing atrocities against prisoners of war in Burma. Although the Death Railway was built from 1942 to 1943,
and Kimura did not arrive in Burma until late 1944, Kimura was also charged
with the abuse and deaths of the military and civilian prisoners used to
construct the railroad. Found guilty in 1948 on Counts 1, 27, 29, 31, 32, 54
and 55, of the indictment he was condemned to death by the International
Military Tribunal for the Far East and hanged as a war criminal.
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