was a lieutenant-general in the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

. He is best known for his involvement in the Jinan Incident.

Biography

Fukuda was born in

Yamaguchi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Yamaguchi Prefecture has a population of 1,377,631 (1 February 2018) and has a geographic area of 6,112 km2 (2,359 sq mi). Yamaguchi Prefecture borders Shimane Prefecture t ...

an graduated from the 7th class of the

Imperial Japanese Army Academy The was the principal officer's training school for the Imperial Japanese Army. The programme consisted of a junior course for graduates of local army cadet schools and for those who had completed four years of middle school, and a senior course f ...

in May 1896 and from the 16th class of the

Army Staff College Staff colleges (also command and staff colleges and War colleges) train military officers in the administrative, military staff and policy aspects of their profession. It is usual for such training to occur at several levels in a career. For exa ...

. In December 1903, he was assigned to the

Japanese Korean Army The was an army of the Imperial Japanese Army that formed a garrison force in Korea under Japanese rule. The Korean Army consisted of roughly 350,000 troops in 1914. History Japanese forces occupied large portions of the Empire of Korea du ...

. He subsequently served on the staff of the

Imperial Guard An imperial guard or palace guard is a special group of troops (or a member thereof) of an empire, typically closely associated directly with the Emperor or Empress. Usually these troops embody a more elite status than other imperial forces, i ...

, the Personnel Department of the

Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office The , also called the Army General Staff, was one of the two principal agencies charged with overseeing the Imperial Japanese Army. Role The was created in April 1872, along with the Navy Ministry, to replace the Ministry of Military Affairs ...

and the

Ministry of the Army The , also known as the Ministry of War, was the cabinet-level ministry in the Empire of Japan charged with the administrative affairs of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). It existed from 1872 to 1945. History The Army Ministry was created in ...

, and as a

military attache A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

Vladivostok Vladivostok ( rus, Владивосто́к, a=Владивосток.ogg, p=vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, c ...

in Russia. He was promoted to major in 1908. In 1910, he was transferred to Omsk, and on his returned to Japan, was a military attache to the Russian Embassy in Tokyo. After serving as a battalion commander in the IJA 37th Infantry Regiment, he was promoted to Lieutenant colonel in 1913. In October 1915, he was sent as a military observer embedded within the Imperial Russian Army during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. In August 1916, he was promoted to colonel and in January 1917 was given command of the IJA 60th Infantry Regiment, which was part of the Japanese contingent in the

Siberian Intervention The Siberian intervention or Siberian expedition of 1918–1922 was the dispatch of troops of the Entente powers to the Russian Maritime Provinces as part of a larger effort by the western powers, Japan, and China to support White Russian f ...

. In August 1920, he was promoted to major general and given command of the

IJA 15th Division The was an infantry division in the Imperial Japanese Army. Its tsūshōgō code name was the , and its military symbol was 15D. The ''15th Division'' was one of four new infantry divisions raised by the Imperial Japanese Army in the closing s ...

. In May 1925, he was promoted to lieutenant general and commander of the Shimonoseki Fortress. In March 1926, he became commander of the

IJA 6th Division The was an infantry division in the Imperial Japanese Army. Its call sign was the . Actions The 6th Division was formed in Kumamoto City on 12 May 1888, as one of the new divisions to be created after the reorganization of the Imperial Japanese ...

. From April to September 1928, the division was dispatched to Shandong Province in China.

Jinan Incident

Jinan, the capital of Shandong, housed some 2,000 Japanese residents and was of significant Japanese commercial interest. Having received word of the entry of

Northern Expedition The Northern Expedition was a military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the "Chinese Nationalist Party", against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926. The ...

, troops of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army into Jinan (contrary to Chiang Kai-shek's orders and agreement with Japanese Prime Minister

Tanaka Giichi Baron was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, politician, cabinet minister, and the Prime Minister of Japan from 1927 to 1929. Early life and military career Tanaka was born as the third son of a low-ranking ''samurai'' family in the se ...

), and concerned of a repeat of the

Nanking incident of 1927 The Nanking Incident () occurred in March 1927 during the capture of Nanjing (then Nanking) by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) in their Northern Expedition. Foreign warships bombarded the city to defend foreign residents against rioting an ...

which resulted in a loss of Japanese lives, and property, Fukuda moved troops from

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

into Ji'nan and Qingtao along the Jiaoji Railway. This was known in Japanese as the . Although Fukuda had acted on his own initiative, he wished to avoid conflict and was preparing to withdraw his forces on observing that the Chinese forces were acting orderly and not threatening the foreign residents. Nonetheless, tensions were high, and on the morning of May 3, when Japanese consul-general Koichi Nishida was returning from a meeting with Chiang Kai-shek, he was repeatedly fired upon by Chinese soldiers and looting started, resulting in the deaths and mutilation of 12 Japanese civilians. Events rapidly escalated out of control from that point, leading to a week of violence and armed conflict known as the Jinan Incident. Fukuda's action in violating orders from Tokyo has been citied by historians such as C. Martin Wilbur as the start of a series of similar violations by field commanders in China which eventually resulted in the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

. On Fukada's return in 1929, he was reassigned to the reserves. We was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 1st class on August 1, 1929. He died in 1959.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fukuda, Hikosuke 1875 births 1959 deaths Japanese generals Military personnel from Yamaguchi Prefecture