HISAICHI TERAUCHI

Count (8 August 1879 - 12 June 1946) was a field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army and Commander of the Southern Expeditionary Army Group during World War II.
Born in Yamaguchi prefecture, he was the eldest son of Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake. He attended the Imperial Japanese Military Academy and after graduating in 1900 he joined the Army, and served in the Russo-Japanese War. After the war, Terauchi spent time in as a military attaché in Germany and worked as a lecturer at the Military Academy. In 1919, he was ennobled with the title of ''hakushaku'' (count), and raised in military rank to colonel. He became a major general in 1924, and was assigned command of the Chosen Army in Korea in 1927. After his promotion to lieutenant general in 1929, he was assigned command of the 5th Division and later transferred to the 4th Division in 1932. In 1934, he became commander of the Taiwan Army.
In October 1935 he was promoted to full general and became involved with the Kodoha faction in politics. After the February 26 Incident he was the army's choice as War Minister in 1936, under Prime Minister Hirota Koki, which further intensified the conflict between the military and the civilian political parties in the Japanese Diet. He returned to combat duty when he was given command of the North China Area Army immediately after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War. He was awarded the 1st class Order of the Rising Sun in 1938, and transferred to command of the Southern Expeditionary Army Group on 6 November 1941 and soon afterwards began devising war plans with Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku for the Pacific War.
After leading the conquest of Southeast Asia, he established his headquarters in Singapore. Promoted to field marshal on 6 June 1943, he moved to the Philippines in May 1944. When this area came under threat, he retreated to Saigon in French Indochina. Upon hearing of the loss of Burma by Japan, he suffered a stroke on 10 May 1945. Japanese forces in Southeast Asia were surrendered on his behalf in Singapore on September 12, 1945 by General Itagaki Seishiro. Terauchi personally surrendered to Lord Mountbatten on September 30, 1945 and died in a prisoner of war camp in Malaya after the end of the war.

Contents

Trivia

References

External links

Trivia

★ Terauchi surrendered his family heirloom ''wakizashi'' short sword to Lord Mountbatten in Saigon in 1945. The sword dates from 1413, and is now kept at Windsor Castle. It was almost the subject of a diplomatic incident in the mid-1980s, when the Queen Mother wanted to place it on prominent display during a dinner held for Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan. The Queen vetoed the idea. However, as the guests were gathering to sit down to dinner, the Queen Mother allegedly said "Come on everybody - Nip on! Nip on!", playing what she may have thought was an innocent pun on the use of "" to refer to eating, while it was also a racial slur against the Japanese during World War II[1].

References

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

★ Kogun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War, , Saburo, Hayashi, Marine Corps. Association, 1959, ASIN B000ID3YRK

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

External links

★ Brief biography

★ Generals from Japan [2]