On this day, Hideki Tojo,
prime minister of Japan during the war, is born in Tokyo.
After graduating from the
Imperial Military Academy and the Military Staff College, Tojo was sent to
Berlin as Japan's military attache after World War I.
Having
already earned a reputation for sternness and discipline, Tojo was given
command of the 1st Infantry Regiment upon return to Japan. In 1937, he was made
chief of staff of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria, China. Returning again to his
homeland, Tojo assumed the office of vice-minister of war and quickly took the
lead in the military's increasing control of Japanese foreign policy,
advocating the signing of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy in 1940
that made Japan an "Axis" power. In July of 1940, he was made
minister of war and soon clashed with the Prime Minister, Prince Fumimaro
Konoye, who had been fighting to reform his government by demilitarizing its
politics. In October, Konoye resigned because of increasing tension with Tojo,
who succeeded as prime minister while holding on to his offices of army
minister and war minister, and assuming the offices of minister of commerce and
of industry as well.
Tojo, now a virtual dictator,
quickly promised a "New Order in Asia," and toward this end supported
the bombing of Pearl Harbor
despite the misgivings of several of his generals. Tojo's aggressive policies
paid big dividends early on, with major territorial gains in Indochina and the
South Pacific. But despite Tojo's increasing control over his own country, even
assuming the position of the chief of the general staff, he could not control
the determination of the United States,
which began beating back the Japanese in the South Pacific. When Saipan fell to
the U.S. Marines and Army, Tojo's government collapsed. Upon Japan's surrender,
Tojo tried to commit suicide by shooting himself with an American .38 pistol
but was saved by an American physician who gave him a transfusion of American
blood. He lived only to be convicted of war crimes by an international
tribunal—and was hanged on December 22, 1948.
Asao Uchida portrayed him in
the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!.
Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tojo-is-born [30.12.2014]
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