Masanobu Tsuji
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Masanobu Tsuji (辻 政信 Tsuji Masanobu?, 11 October 1902 – 20 July 1961?) was a tactician of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War and later a politician. While he was never indicted for war crimes after World War II, subsequent investigations have revealed that he was involved in various war crimes throughout the Pacific war including the massacre of Chinese civilians in Singapore, the executions of numerous surrendered prisoners of war during the Bataan Death March, and other war crimes in China.
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[edit] Biography
Tsuji was born sometime around 1902 in the Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan. He received his secondary education from a military academy and later attended the War College.
During the Pacific war he served mainly in Malaya, Burma, and Guadalcanal.
In Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45, Max Hastings writes, "Col Masanobu Tsuji [was] a fanatic repeatedly wounded in action and repeatedly transferred by generals exasperated by his insubordination. Tsuji once burned down a geisha house to highlight his disgust at the moral frailty of the officers inside it. His excesses were responsible for some of the worst Japanese blunders on Guadalcanal. He was directly responsible for brutalities to prisoners and civilians in every part of the Japanese empire in which he served. In northern Burma, he dined off the liver of a dead Allied pilot, castigating as cowards those who refused to share his meal: 'The more we eat, the brighter will burn the fire of our hatred for the enemy.'"[1]
Some time after Japan's surrender in 1945, Tsuji went into hiding in Thailand for fear of being brought up on war crimes charges. When it was clear he would not be tried, he returned to Japan to write of his years in hiding in a book titled Senko Sanzenri (潜行三千里, lit. Lurking 3000 li) that became a best seller. The book made him famous and he later became a member of the Diet.
In 1961 he disappeared in the Plain of Jars, Laos.
[edit] Honors
- Order of the Rising Sun, 4th Class.[2]
- Order of the Sacred Treasure, 3rd Class.[2]
- Order of the Golden Kite, 4th Class and 5th Class.[2]
- Decoration of Manchuria, 4th Class and 5th Class.[2]
- Commemoration Medal of the Coronation of Emperor Showa.[2]
- Commemoration Medal of the Census.[2]
- Commemoration Medal of the Founding of Manchuria.[2]
- Commemoration Medal of the 2,600th Year after the Accession of Emperor Jimmu.[2]
- Campaign Medal of the Chinese Incident.[2]
- Campaign Medal of the Manchurian Incident.[2]
[edit] References
- Peterson, James W., Barry C. Weaver and Michael A. Quigley. (2001). Orders and Medals of Japan and Associated States. San Ramon, California: Orders and Medals Society of America. ISBN 1-8909-7409-9
- Tsuji, Masanobu. (1997). Japan's Greatest Victory, Britain's Worst Defeat, Margaret E. Lake, tr. New York: Da Capo Press. 10-ISBN 1-873-37675-8; 13-ISBN 978-1-873-37675-1 (cloth)
