HAJIME SUGIYAMA

(1 January 1880 - 12 September 1945) was a field marshal who served as successively as chief of the Army General Staff, and minister of war in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II between 1937 and 1944. As war minister in 1937, he was one of the principal architects of the China Incident or second Sino-Japanese War. Later, as army chief of staff in 1940 and 1941, he was a leading advocate of expansion into Southeast Asia and later preventive war against the United States. He was also known as 'Gen Sugiyama'.

Contents

Military career

Political career

References

External links

Military career

Born to a former ''samurai'' family from Kokura City(now part of Kitakyushu), Fukuoka Prefecture, he served as a lieutenant in the infantry in the Russo-Japanese War. After graduating from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1910 and serving on the Army General Staff, he was posted as military attaché to the Philippines and Singapore in 1912. Promoted to major in 1913, he was posted again as military attaché to British India in 1915. During this time, he also visited Germany, and became acquainted with the use of aircraft in combat. On his return, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and commander of the 2nd Air Battalion in December 1918. He was a strong proponent of military aviation, and after his promotion to colonel in 1921, became the first head of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in 1922.
In May 1925, he became a major general and acting Vice War Minister in June 1930. In August, he became Vice War Minister and a lieutenant general. He returned to command the expanded Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in March 1933. He became a full general in November 1936.
Shortly after the February 26 Incident, he became minister of war. Under his tenure, the situation between Japanese forces in Manchukuo and China became more severe, cumulating with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident and the invasion of Shanxi Province. Sugiyama briefly accepted a field command as commanding general of North China Area Army and the Mongolia Garrison Army in December 1938.
On his return to Japan, Sugiyama was briefly appointed head of Yasukuni Shrine in 1939. On 3 September 1940, he succeeded the elderly Prince Kan'in Kotohito as as chief of the Army General Staff. On 5 September 1941, on the verge of the war against the United States and Great Britain, he was blamed by the Emperor Shōwa for having confidently told in 1937 that Japanese invasion of China would be completed within three months. He was awarded the honorary rank of field marshal in 1943.
On 21 February 1944, he was replaced as chief of the Army General Staff by General Hideki Tojo (who continued to serve concurrently as prime minister) and appointed to the inspector-general of Military Training. In July 1945, he was asked to take command of the First Theatre Army, which directed defenses of the Japanese mainland against the anticipated Allied invasion.
Shortly after the end of the war, after finishing preparations for the final dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Army, Sugiyama committed suicide by shooting himself four times in the chest with his revolver while seated at his desk in his office. At home, his wife also killed herself.

Political career

Although never elected to political office, Sugiyama is regarded as a nationalist politician. He started in the ''Toseiha'' faction, led by Kazushige Ugaki, with Koiso Kuniaki, Yoshijiro Umezu, Tetsuzan Nagata, and Hideki Tojo. They opposed the radical ''Kodaha'' faction under Sadao Araki. Later both factions combined in the Imperial Way Faction movement, and he became one of its ideological leaders.

References

★ Dupuy, Trevor N. ''The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography''. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1992. ISBN 0-7858-0437-4

★ Jansen, Marius B. ''The Making of Modern Japan.'' Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000.

External links

★ Generals from Japan [1]