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 ...

, and governor of Japanese-occupied

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. His name is occasionally transliterated "Tanaka Hisaichi".

Biography

Early career

Tanaka was born in

Hyōgo Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and has a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to the southeast, an ...

to the Koganei family, and was later adopted into the Tanaka family, whose surname he took. He graduated from the 22nd 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 1910 and after serving as a junior officer with the IJA 37th Infantry Regiment, he attended the Army's Toyama School and subsequently graduated from the 30th 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 1918. He served in various bureaucratic staff positions within the

Imperial Japanese Army General Staff 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 ...

from 1919 to 1920, and was sent as a

military attaché A military attaché is a military expert who is attached to a diplomatic mission, often an embassy. This type of attaché post is normally filled by a high-ranking military officer, who retains a commission while serving with an embassy. Opport ...

to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

from 1923 to 1924. After his return to Japan, he continued to serve in various staff positions, mostly as an instructor, except for a brief stint as commander of the 1st Guards Regiment from 1935 to 1937.

As general

Tanaka was promoted to

major general Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

at the end of 1937, and briefly assigned as

Chief of Staff The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supporti ...

of the Taiwan Army in 1938. However, with the increase in military activity in China due to 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 ...

, Tanaka was quickly reassigned to become chief of staff of the newly-formed

Japanese Twenty-First Army The was an army of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. History The Japanese 21st Army was formed on September 19, 1938 under the Imperial General Headquarters. It was transferred to the control of the China Expedit ...

from 1938 to 1939. This army was under the control of the

China Expeditionary Army The was a general army of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1939 to 1945. The China Expeditionary Army was established in September 1939 from the merger of the Central China Expeditionary Army and Japanese Northern China Area Army, and was headqu ...

would later be assigned the primary role in the

Canton Operation The Canton Operation (; pinyin: Guǎngzhōu Zhànyì) was part of a campaign by Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War to blockade China to prevent it from communicating with the outside world and importing needed arms and materials. Contr ...

(the invasion of

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

Province) in southern China; however, Tanaka returned to Japan in August 1939 to serve as Commandant of the Toyama Army Infantry School, before combat operations began. In August 1940, he was promoted to

lieutenant general Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...

and given command of the IJA 21st Division. As part of the Japanese 12th Army, the division participated in counter-insurgency operations in northern China as well as the

Battle of South Shanxi The Battle of South Shanxi , also known as the Battle of Jinnan () and Zhongtiao Mountains campaign () by the Chinese and as the Chungyuan Operation by the Japanese, was one of the 22 major engagements between the National Revolutionary Army an ...

in May 1941, and the subsequent

Hundred Regiments Offensive The Hundred Regiments Offensive also known as the Hundred Regiments Campaign () (20 August – 5 December 1940) was a major campaign of the Chinese Communist Party's National Revolutionary Army divisions. It was commanded by Peng Dehuai against ...

. From November 1941, the division was transferred to the control of the

Southern Expeditionary Army Group ''Nanpō gun'' , image = 1938 terauchi hisaichi.jpg , image_size = 200px , caption = Japanese General Count Terauchi Hisaichi, right, commanding officer of the Southern Expeditiona ...

and transferred to the Philippines, landing at

Lingayen Gulf The Lingayen Gulf is a large gulf on northwestern Luzon in the Philippines, stretching . It is framed by the provinces of Pangasinan and La Union and sits between the Zambales Mountains and the Cordillera Central. The Agno River and the Balili ...

in February 1942 for the Philippines Campaign. Tanaka was transferred to command the IJA Twenty-Third Army in China from March 1943. This was primarily a

garrison A garrison (from the French ''garnison'', itself from the verb ''garnir'', "to equip") is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a mil ...

force to deter the possible landings of Allied forces in southern China. It was involved in the

Battle of Guilin-Liuzhou A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...

(part of

Operation Ichi-Go Operation Ichi-Go ( ja, 一号作戦, Ichi-gō Sakusen, lit=Operation Number One) was a campaign of a series of major battles between the Imperial Japanese Army forces and the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China, fought from Apri ...

) from August to November 1944 and surrendered to the Chinese

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

forces on August 15, 1945 with the

surrender of Japan The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy ...

. Concurrently, from February 1945 to the end of the war, Tanaka was Governor-General of Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation. At the end of the war, Tanaka was arrested by the American occupation authorities and tried before an American

military tribunal Military justice (also military law) is the legal system (bodies of law and procedure) that governs the conduct of the active-duty personnel of the armed forces of a country. In some nation-states, civil law and military law are distinct bodie ...

held in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

in 1946 for

command responsibility Command responsibility (superior responsibility, the Yamashita standard, and the Medina standard) is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes.

in the

extrajudicial execution An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether ...

of an American POW. He was found guilty and

sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

by hanging. However, he was then turned over to the

Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal The Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal was established in 1946 by the government of Chiang Kai-shek to judge Imperial Japanese Army officers accused of crimes committed during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It was one of ten tribunals established by the ...

in connection with the actions of IJA 23rd Army in China. Tanaka had both permitted and, at times, ordered and encouraged his troops to commit atrocities, including the rape, torture, and massacres of Chinese POWs and civilians.Budge, The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia Tanaka was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was publicly shot in Canton on 27 March 1947. Tanaka was buried in Guangzhou and his remains were repatriated back to Japan in 1972.

Footnotes

References

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External links

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Trial of General Tanaka Hisakasu and Five Others United States Military Commission
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanaka, Hisakazu 1880s births 1947 deaths Military personnel from Hyōgo Prefecture Imperial Japanese Army generals of World War II Japanese generals Japanese military attachés Japanese mass murderers Japanese military personnel of World War II Japanese occupation of Hong Kong Japanese colonial governors and administrators Japanese people convicted of war crimes Executed military personnel Prisoners sentenced to death by the United States military People executed by the Republic of China by firearm Japanese people executed abroad Executed Japanese people People executed for war crimes 20th-century Hong Kong people 20th-century executions by China Executed mass murderers