was a Japanese
army officer
An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an Military, armed force or Uniformed services, uniformed service.
Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer, or a warrant off ...
. As a
general
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED ...
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 ...
during
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 opposing ...
, he was instrumental in the
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
The Empire of Japan's Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria on 18 September 1931, immediately following the Mukden Incident. At the war's end in February 1932, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. Their occupation lasted until the ...
.
As a leading intelligence officer, he played a key role to the Japanese machinations that led to the occupation of large parts of China, the destabilization of the country, and the disintegration of the traditional structure of
Chinese society
Chinese culture () is one of the world's oldest cultures, originating thousands of years ago. The culture prevails across a large geographical region in East Asia and is extremely diverse and varying, with customs and traditions varying grea ...
to diminish reaction to the Japanese plans by using highly-unconventional methods. He became the mastermind of the
Manchurian drug trade and the real boss and sponsor behind every kind of gang and underworld activity in China.
After the end of World War II, he was prosecuted for
war crimes in the
International Military Tribunal for the Far East. He was found guilty,
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 ...
, and hanged in December 1948.
Early life and career
Kenji Doihara was born in
Okayama City
is the capital city of Okayama Prefecture in the Chūgoku region of Japan. The city was founded on June 1, 1889. , the city has an estimated population of 720,841 and a population density of 910 persons per km2. The total area is .
The city i ...
,
Okayama Prefecture. He attended military preparatory schools as a youth, and graduated from the 16th 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 1904. He was assigned to various
infantry
Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and mar ...
regiments as a junior officer, and returned to school to graduate from the 24th 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 1912.
Doihara longed for a high-ranking military career, but his family's low social status stood in the way. He therefore contrived to use his 15-year-old sister as a
concubine
Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive.
Concubi ...
for a prince, who in exchange, rewarded him with a military rank and a posting to the Japanese embassy in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
as assistant to the
military attaché General
Hideki Tōjō
Hideki Tojo (, ', December 30, 1884 – December 23, 1948) was a Japanese politician, general of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), and convicted war criminal who served as prime minister of Japan and president of the Imperial Rule Assista ...
. After that, Doihara quickly rose within the ranks of the army. He spent most of his early career in various postings in northern China, except for a brief tour in 1921-1922 as part of the Japanese forces in eastern Russia during 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 ...
. He was attached to IJA 2nd Infantry Regiment from 1926 to 1927 and IJA 3rd Infantry Regiment in 1927. In 1927, he was part of an official tour to China and then attached to
IJA 1st Division
The was an infantry division in the Imperial Japanese Army. Its call sign was the . The 1st Division was formed in Tokyo in January 1871 as the , one of six regional commands created in the fledgling Imperial Japanese Army. The Tokyo Garrison h ...
from 1927 to 1928.
He learned to speak fluent
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
and other
Chinese dialects, and with this, he managed to take a position in
military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...
. From that post in 1928, it was he who masterminded the assassination of
Zhang Zuolin
Zhang Zuolin (; March 19, 1875 June 4, 1928), courtesy name Yuting (雨亭), nicknamed Zhang Laogang (張老疙瘩), was an influential Chinese bandit, soldier, and warlord during the Warlord Era in China. The warlord of Manchuria from 1916 to ...
, the Chinese warlord who controlled Manchuria, devising a scheme to detonate Zuolin's train as it traveled from Beijing to Shenyang. After that he was made military adviser to the
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 ...
Government until 1929. In 1930, he was promoted to
colonel
Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations.
In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge o ...
and commanded IJA 30th Infantry Regiment.
Member of the "Eleven Reliable" clique
Doihara's performance was recognized, and by 1930 he was assigned to 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 ...
. There, together with
Hideki Tojo
Hideki Tojo (, ', December 30, 1884 – December 23, 1948) was a Japanese politician, general of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), and convicted war criminal who served as prime minister of Japan and president of the Imperial Rule Assistan ...
,
Seishirō Itagaki
was a Japanese military officer and politician who served as a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II and War Minister from 1938 to 1939.
Itagaki was a main conspirator behind the Mukden Incident and held prestigious chief of ...
, Daisaku Komoto, Yoshio Kudo, Masakasu Matsumara and others, he became a chosen member of the "Eleven Reliable" circle of officers. The Eleven Reliable clique was an external tool of a more closed group of three influential senior military officers called the "
Three Crows" (
Tetsuzan Nagata
was a Japanese military officer and general of the Imperial Japanese Army best known as the victim of the Aizawa Incident in August 1935.
Nagata was an influential military figure in the Meiji government and the '' de facto'' leader of the ...
,
Yasuji Okamura
was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army, and commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Army from November 1944 to the end of World War II. He was tried but found not guilty of any war crimes by the Shanghai War Crimes Tribunal after the ...
and Toshishiro Obata) who wanted to modernize the Japanese military and to purge it of its anachronistic
samurai
were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...
tradition and the dominant allied clans of
Chōshū and
Satsuma Satsuma may refer to:
* Satsuma (fruit), a citrus fruit
* ''Satsuma'' (gastropod), a genus of land snails
Places Japan
* Satsuma, Kagoshima, a Japanese town
* Satsuma District, Kagoshima, a district in Kagoshima Prefecture
* Satsuma Domain, a sou ...
that favored that tradition. The real sponsor behind both two bodies was
Field Marshal Royal Prince
Naruhiko Higashikuni
General was a Japanese imperial prince, a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Army and the 30th Prime Minister of Japan from 17 August 1945 to 9 October 1945, a period of 54 days. An uncle-in-law of Emperor Hirohito twice over, Prince Hi ...
, uncle and advisor of the
Emperor Hirohito
Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...
, and responsible for eight fake coups d'état, four assassinations, two religious hoaxes, and countless threats of murder and blackmail between 1930 and 1936 in his effort to neutralize the Japanese moderates, who opposed war, by spreading terror. Higashikuni highly favored covered work by faithful officers inside the intelligence departments in order to bring about the political program of his own clique named ''
Tōseiha
The ''Tōseiha'' or was a political faction in the Imperial Japanese Army active in the 1920s and 1930s. The ''Tōseiha'' was a grouping of moderate officers united primarily by their opposition to the radical ''Kōdōha'' (Imperial Way) faction ...
''. This clique had a decisive materialistic, westernizing approach on the issue of the Empire's expansion, in a rather colonization-like fashion, as opposed to the rival ''
Kōdōha
The ''Kōdōha'' or was a political faction in the Imperial Japanese Army active in the 1920s and 1930s. The ''Kōdōha'' sought to establish a military government that promoted totalitarian, militaristic and aggressive expansionistic ideals, ...
'' clique which was for a more "spiritual" way of expansion as an effort to liberate and unite all Asian peoples under a racial, not nationalistic Empire. ''Kōdōha'', headed by Gen.
Sadao Araki
Baron was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II. As one of the principal nationalist right-wing political theorists in the Empire of Japan, he was regarded as the leader of the radical faction within the polit ...
, under the national socialistic, totalitarian and populistic philosophical influence of
Ikki Kita
was a Japanese author, intellectual and political philosopher who was active in early Shōwa period Japan. Drawing from an eclectic range of influences, Kita was a self-described socialist who has also been described as the "ideological father ...
charged ''Tōseiha'' for collusion with the
Zaibatsu
is a Japanese term referring to industrial and financial vertically integrated business conglomerates in the Empire of Japan, whose influence and size allowed control over significant parts of the Japanese economy from the Meiji period unt ...
financial conglomerate business clique, or to simply put it, for
amoralism
Moral nihilism (also known as ethical nihilism) is the meta-ethical view that nothing is morally right or wrong.
Moral nihilism is distinct from moral relativism, which allows for actions to be wrong relative to a particular culture or indivi ...
and pro-
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
. It is not quite clear whether Doihara joined the movement for ideological or opportunistic reasons, but in any case, from then on his military career accelerated. In 1931, he became head of the military espionage operations of the Japanese Army of Manchuria in
Tientsin
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 popul ...
. The following year, he was transferred to
Shenyang as head of the Houten Special Agency, the military intelligence service of the Japanese
Kwantung Army
''Kantō-gun''
, image = Kwantung Army Headquarters.JPG
, image_size = 300px
, caption = Kwantung Army headquarters in Hsinking, Manchukuo
, dates = April ...
.
"Lawrence of Manchuria”
While at Tientsin, Doihara, together with Seishirō Itagaki engineered the infamous
Mukden Incident by ordering Lieutenant Suemori Komoto to place and fire a bomb near the tracks at the time when a Japanese train passed through. In the event, the bomb was so unexpectedly weak and the damage of the tracks so negligible that the train passed undamaged, but the Imperial Japanese Government still blamed the Chinese military for an unprovoked attack, invaded and occupied Manchuria. During the
invasion
An invasion is a Offensive (military), military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitics, geopolitical Legal entity, entity aggressively enter territory (country subdivision), territory owned by another such entity, gen ...
, Doihara facilitated the tactical cooperation between the
Northeastern Army
The Northeastern Army (), was the Chinese army of the Fengtien clique until the unification of China in 1928. From 1931 to 1933 it faced the Japanese forces in northeast China, Jehol and Hebei, in the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese War. ...
Generals
Xi Qia
Aisin-Gioro Xiqia (Aisin-Gioro Hsi-hsia; ; 1883–1950), commonly known as Xi Qia or Xi Xia (Hsi Hsia; ; Hepburn: ''Ki Kō''), was a general in command of the Kirin Provincial Army of the Republic of China, who defected to the Japanese during t ...
in
Kirin,
Zhang Jinghui
Zhang Jinghui (Chang Ching-hui; ; Hepburn: ''Chō Keikei''); (1871 – 1 November 1959) was a Chinese general, warlord and politician during the Warlord era. He is noted for his role in the Japanese puppet regime of Manchukuo in which he serve ...
in
Harbin and
Zhang Haipeng
Zhang Haipeng (, Hepburn: ''Chō Kaihō''; 1867–1949), was a Chinese Northeastern Army general, who went over to the Japanese during the Invasion of Manchuria and became a general in the Manchukuo Imperial Army of the State of Manchuria.
Bio ...
at
Taonan
Taonan (), formerly Tao'an County (), is a county-level city of 100,000 in the northwest of Jilin province in Northeast China. It is under the administration of Baicheng prefecture-level city.
Administrative Divisions
There are 6 subdistricts ...
in the northwest of
Liaoning province.
Next, Doihara took the task to return former
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...
Emperor
Pu Yi
Aisin-Gioro Puyi (; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), courtesy name Yaozhi (曜之), was the last emperor of China as the eleventh and final Qing dynasty monarch. He became emperor at the age of two in 1908, but was forced to abdicate on 1 ...
to Manchuria as to give legitimacy to the puppet regime. The plan was to pretend that Pu Yi had returned to resume his throne due to imaginary popular demand of the people of Manchuria and that although Japan had nothing to do with his return, it could do nothing to oppose the will of the people. To carry out the plan, it was necessary to land Pu Yi at
Yingkou
Yingkou () is a coastal prefecture-level city of central southern Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, on the northeastern shore of Liaodong Bay. It is the third-smallest city in Liaoning with a total area of , and the ninth most popul ...
before that port froze; therefore, he had to arrive there before 16 November 1931. With the help of the legendary spy
Kawashima Yoshiko, a woman well-acquainted with the Emperor, who regarded her as a member of the Chinese Imperial Family, he succeeded in bringing him into Manchuria within the deadline.
In early 1932, Doihara was sent to head the Harbin Special Agency of the Kwantung Army, where he began negotiations with General
Ma Zhanshan
Ma Zhanshan (Ma Chan-shan; ; November 30, 1885 – November 29, 1950) was a Chinese general who initially opposed the Imperial Japanese Army in the invasion of Manchuria, briefly defected to Manchukuo, and then rebelled and fought against the ...
after he had been
driven from Tsitsihar
Qiqihar () is the second-largest city in the Heilongjiang province of China, in the west central part of the province. The built-up (or metro) area made up of Longsha, Tiefeng and Jianhua districts had 959,787 inhabitants, while the total popula ...
by the Japanese. Ma's position was ambiguous; he continued negotiations while he supported Harbin-based General
Ting Chao
Ding Chao (; 1883–1950s) was a military general of the Republic of China, known for his defense of Harbin during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and 1932.
Biography
Ding Chao's forces commenced mobilization in November 1931 at the r ...
. When Doihara realized his negotiations were not going anywhere, he requested that Manchurian
warlord
A warlord is a person who exercises military, economic, and political control over a region in a country without a strong national government; largely because of coercive control over the armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of h ...
Xi Qia advance with his forces to take Harbin from General Ting Chao. However, General Ting Chao was able to defeat Xi Qia's forces, and Doihara realized he would need Japanese forces to succeed. Doihara engineered a
riot in Harbin to justify their intervention. That resulted in the
IJA 12th Division under General
Jirō Tamon
was a lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army in the early Second Sino-Japanese War. He was noted as the commander in many of the operations of the invasion of Manchuria.
Biography
The second son of a doctor in Shizuoka prefecture, Tam ...
coming from
Mukden
Shenyang (, ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly known as Fengtian () or by its Manchu name Mukden, is a major Chinese sub-provincial city and the provincial capital of Liaoning province. Located in central-north Liaoning, it is the prov ...
by rail and then marching through the snow to reinforce the attack. Harbin fell on 5 February 1932. By the end of February, General Ting Chao retreated into northeastern Manchuria and offered to cease hostilities, ending Chinese formal resistance. Within a month, the
puppet state
A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government, is a state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders.Compare: Puppet states have nominal sove ...
of
Manchukuo was established under Doihara's supervision who had named himself mayor of Mukden. He then arranged for the puppet government to ask Tokyo to supply "military advice". During the next months 150,000 soldiers, 18,000
gendarmes
Wrong info! -->
A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to "men-at-arms" (literally, " ...
and 4,000 secret police came into the newly founded protectorate. He used them as an occupying army, imposing slave labour and spreading terror to force the 30 million Chinese inhabitants into abject submission.
Ma's fame as an uncompromising fighter against the Japanese invaders survived after his defeat and so Doihara made contact with him offering a huge sum of money and the command of the puppet state's
army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
if he would defect to the new Manchurian government. Ma pretended that he agreed and flew to Mukden in January 1932, where he attended the meeting on which the state of Manchukuo was founded and was appointed War Minister of Manchukuo and Governor of
Heilongjiang Province
Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost provinc ...
. Then, after using the Japanese funds to raise and re-equip a new
volunteer force
The Volunteer Force was a citizen army of part-time rifle, artillery and engineer corps, created as a popular movement throughout the British Empire in 1859. Originally highly autonomous, the units of volunteers became increasingly integrated ...
, on 1 April 1932, he led his troops to
Tsitsihar
Qiqihar () is the second-largest city in the Heilongjiang province of China, in the west central part of the province. The built-up (or metro) area made up of Longsha, Tiefeng and Jianhua districts had 959,787 inhabitants, while the total popula ...
, re-establishing the Heilongjiang Provincial Government as part of the
Republic of China and resumed the fight against the Japanese.
From 1932 to 1933, the newly promoted
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 ...
Doihara commanded IJA 9th Infantry Brigade of
IJA 5th Division
The was an infantry division of the Imperial Japanese Army. Its call sign was the . The 5th Division was formed in Hiroshima in January 1871 as the , one of six regional commands created in the fledgling Imperial Japanese Army. Its personnel we ...
. After the seizure of
Jehol in
Operation Nekka
The defense of the Great Wall () (January 1 – May 31, 1933) was a campaign between the armies of Republic of China and Empire of Japan, which took place before the Second Sino-Japanese War officially commenced in 1937 and after the Japanese in ...
, Doihara was sent back to Manchukuo to head Houten Special Agency once again until 1934. He was then attached to
IJA 12th Division until 1936.
For the key role he played in the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, he earned the nickname "Lawrence of Manchuria," a reference to
Lawrence of Arabia
Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–191 ...
. However, according to Jamie Bisher, the flattering sobriquet was rather misapplied, as that
Colonel
Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations.
In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge o ...
T.E. Lawrence
Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–191 ...
had fought to liberate, not to oppress people.
Second Sino-Japanese War and Second World War
From 1936 to 1937, Doihara was the commander of the 1st Depot Division in Japan until the
Marco Polo Bridge Incident, when he was given command of the
IJA 14th Division
The was an infantry division in the Imperial Japanese Army. Its tsūshōgō code name was the , and its military symbol was 14D. The 14th Division was one of four new infantry divisions raised by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) in the closing ...
under the
Japanese First Army
The was an army of the Imperial Japanese Army. It was raised and demobilized on three occasions.
History
The Japanese 1st Army was initially raised during the First Sino-Japanese War from 1 September 1894 – 28 May 1895 under the command of ...
in North China. There, he served in the
Beiping–Hankou Railway Operation
The Beiping–Hankou Railway Operation ( ja, 京漢線作戦; Mid August – Dec. 1937) was a follow up to the Battle of Beiping–Tianjin of the Japanese army in North China at the beginning of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, fought simultaneously w ...
and spearheaded the campaign of
Northern and Eastern Henan, where his division opposed the Chinese counterattack in the
Battle of Lanfeng
The Battle of Lanfeng (), in the Second Sino-Japanese War, was part of the larger campaign for Northern and Eastern Henan (February 7 – June 10, 1938) and took place at the same time as the Battle of Xuzhou (Late December – Early June 1938) ...
.
After the Battle of Lanfeng, Doihara was attached to the Army General Staff as head of the Doihara Special Agency until 1939, when he was given command of the
Japanese Fifth Army
The was an army of the Imperial Japanese Army based in Manchukuo from the Russo-Japanese War until the end of World War II. During World War II it was under the overall command of the Kwantung Army.
History
Russo-Japanese War
The Japanese 5 ...
, in Manchukuo under the overall control of the Kwantung Army.
In 1940, Doihara became a member of the
Supreme War Council which shifted its military policy in China that year to what was called the
Three Alls
The Three Alls Policy (, ja, 三光作戦 Sankō Sakusen) was a Japanese scorched earth policy adopted in China during World War II, the three "alls" being . This policy was designed as retaliation against the Chinese for the Communist-led Hun ...
("Kill all – Burn all – Loot all"). He then became head of the
Army Aeronautical Department of the
Ministry of War Ministry of War may refer to:
* Ministry of War (imperial China) (c.600–1912)
* Chinese Republic Ministry of War (1912–1946)
* Ministry of War (Kingdom of Bavaria) (1808–1919)
* Ministry of War (Brazil) (1815–1999)
* Ministry of War (Estoni ...
, and Inspector-General of Army Aviation until 1943. From 1940 to 1941, he was appointed Commandant of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. On 4 November 1941, as a
general
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED ...
in the
Japanese Army Air Force
The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS) or Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF; ja, 大日本帝國陸軍航空部隊, Dainippon Teikoku Rikugun Kōkūbutai, lit=Greater Japan Empire Army Air Corps) was the aviation force of the Im ...
and a member of the Supreme War Council he voted his approval of the
attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii ...
.
In 1943, Doihara was made
Commander in Chief of the
Eastern District Army
The was a field army of the Imperial Japanese Army responsible for the defense of the Kantō region and northern Honshū during the Pacific War. It was one of the regional commands in the Japanese home islands reporting to the General Defense ...
. In 1944, he was appointed the
Governor of Johor State,
Malaya, and commander in chief of the
Japanese Seventh Area Army
The was a field army of the Imperial Japanese Army formed during final stages of the Pacific War and based in Japanese-occupied Malaya, Singapore and Borneo, Java, and Sumatra.
History
The Japanese 7th Area Army was formed on March 19, 1944 ...
in
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
until 1945.
Returning to Japan in 1945, Doihara was promoted to
Inspector-General of Military Training (one of the most prestigious positions in the Army) and commander in chief of the
Japanese Twelfth Area Army
The was a field army of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.
History
The Japanese 12th Area Army was formed on February 2, 1945 under the First General Army as part of the last desperate defense effort by the Empire of Japan to deter ...
. At the time of the
surrender of Japan in 1945, Doihara was commander in chief of the
1st General Army.
Criminal activities
Doihara's activity in China vastly exceeded the normal behaviour of an intelligence officer. As chief of the Japanese secret services in China, he worked out, put in motion, and oversaw a wide series of activities, systematically exploiting the occupied areas and disrupting Chinese social structure in the rest of the country to weaken public resistance by using every possible kind of action, including deliberately fueling criminality; fostering drug addiction; sponsoring terrorism, assassinations, blackmail, bribery, opium trafficking, and racketeering; and spreading every kind of corruption in the almost-ungovernable country. The extent of his activities and covert operations is still inadequately understood. According to
Ronald Sydney Seth, his activity played a key role in shattering China's ability to confront Japan's expansion by generating chaotic conditions, which prevented any mass reaction in the invaded country.
After the occupation of Manchuria, the Japanese secret service, under his supervision, soon turned Manchukuo into a vast criminal enterprise in which rape, child molestation, sexual humiliation, sadism, assault, and murder became institutionalized means of terrorizing and controlling Manchuria's Chinese and Russian populations. Robbery by soldiers and gendarmes of the
Kenpetai, arbitrary confiscation of property, and unabashed extortion became common. Underground brothels, opium dens, gambling houses, and narcotics shops run by Japanese gendarmes competed with the state monopoly syndicate of opium. Many conscientious Japanese officers protested the conditions, but Tokyo ignored them and so they were silenced. The ritual suicide of ''
Gensui''
Baron Mutō Nobuyoshi, who allegedly had left a note to the emperor, Hirohito, pleading for mercy for the people of Manchuria, was in vain.
Doihara soon expanded his activity into the still unoccupied parts of China. By using about 80,000 paid Chinese villains known as Chiang Mao Tao, he funded hundreds of criminal groups, using them for every kind of social disturbance, turnover, assassinations and sabotage inside unoccupied China. Through the organizations, he soon managed to control a large part of the opium traffic in China, using the money earned to fund his covert operations.
He hired an army of agents and sent them throughout China as representatives of various humanitarian organizations. They established thousands of health centers, mainly in the villages of the districts, for curing
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...
, which was then epidemic in China. By adulterating medicines with
opium, he managed to addict millions of unsuspecting patients, expanding societal degeneration into areas which had been hitherto untouched by the increasing breakdown of Chinese society. The scheme also created a pool of addicted victims desperate to offer any kind of service to secure a daily dose of opium.
He initially gave food and shelter to tens of thousands Russian
White émigré
White Russian émigrés were Russians who emigrated from the territory of the former Russian Empire in the wake of the Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War (1917–1923), and who were in opposition to the revolutionary Bolshevik commun ...
women who had taken refuge in the Far East after the defeat of the
White Russian anti-Bolshevik movement during the
Russian Civil War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Russian Civil War
, partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I
, image =
, caption = Clockwise from top left:
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*Soldiers ...
and the withdrawal of the
Entente and
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
armies from
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...
. Having lost their livelihoods, and with most of them widowed, Doihara forced the women into prostitution, using them to create a network of
brothels throughout China where they worked under inhuman conditions. The use of heroin and opium was promoted to them as a way to tolerate their miserable fate. Once addicted, the women were used to further spread the use of opium among the population by earning one free opium pipe for every six they were selling to their customers.
Winning the necessary support from the authorities in Tokyo he persuaded the Japanese tobacco industry
Mitsui
is one of the largest ''keiretsu'' in Japan and one of the largest corporate groups in the world.
The major companies of the group include Mitsui & Co. ( general trading company), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Nippon Paper Industries ...
of Mitsui Zaibatsu to produce special cigarettes bearing the popular to the Far East trademark "
Golden Bat
The golden bat (''Mimon bennettii'') is a bat species found in Brazil, Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Ve ...
". Their circulation was prohibited in Japan, as they were intended only for export. Doihara's services controlled their distribution in China and Manchuria where the full production was exported. In the mouthpiece of each cigarette a small dose of opium or
heroin was concealed, and by this subterfuge millions of unsuspecting consumers were added to the ever-growing crowds of drug addicts in the crippled country, simultaneously creating huge profits. According to testimony presented at the Tokyo War Crimes trials in 1948, the revenue from the narcotization policy in China, including Manchukuo, was estimated as twenty to thirty million yen per year, while another authority stated during the trial that the annual revenue was estimated by the Japanese military at 300 million dollars a year.
Given the chaotic situation in China, the corruption Doihara methodically spread did not take long to reach the very top. In 1938, Chiang had eight generals, all in command of Chinese divisions, executed when it was found that they were informers for Doihara's services. This heralded a wave of executions of high-ranking Chinese officials found guilty for every kind of dealing with Doihara during the next six years of the war. To many Westerners in touch with the Chinese leadership, the purges did not have lasting results.
Prosecution and conviction
After the
surrender of Japan, he was arrested by the
Allied occupation authorities and tried before the
International Military Tribunal of the Far East as a Class A
war criminal together with other members of the Manchurian administration responsible for the Japanese policies there. He was found guilty on counts 1, 27, 29, 31, 32, 35, 36, and 54 and was sentenced to death, while his close colleague
Naoki Hoshino, financial expert and director of the Japanese State Opium Monopoly Bureau in Manchuria, was sentenced to life imprisonment. According to the indictment, as tools of successive Japanese governments they: "... pursued a systematic policy of weakening the native inhabitants' will to resist ... by directly and indirectly encouraging the increased production and importation of opium and other narcotics and by promoting the sale and consumption of such drugs among such people." He was
hanged
Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging i ...
on 23 December 1948 at
Sugamo Prison.
[Maga, Judgment at Tokyo]
See also
*
Japanese war crimes
References
Books
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Doihara, Kenji
Imperial Japanese Army generals of World War II
Imperial Japanese Army personnel of World War II
Japanese generals
Japanese people convicted of war crimes
Japanese people convicted of the international crime of aggression
Japanese people convicted of crimes against humanity
People executed by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East
Executed military leaders
1883 births
1948 deaths
Generals of Manchukuo
People from Okayama
History of Manchuria
People executed for war crimes
People executed for crimes against humanity