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Tsuji Masanobu was the most notorious Japanese war criminal
to escape trial after the war. Though only a colonel, he was a
leading proponent of gekokujo,
"leading from below" or "loyal insubordination." This was not an
uncommon pattern in the Japanese Army, where it
was unacceptable for subordinates to voice reasoned skepticism,
but
excessive displays of aggression were tolerated by superiors
afraid of
losing face. Tsuji also seems to have
had
political connections that allowed him to exercise control beyond
his
nominal
rank. A member of the Control Faction (Tōseiha), he had played a role in
averting a coup by members of the Imperial Way
Faction (Kōdōha) in
November 1934, and this seems to have made him a favorite of the
future wartime Premier, Tojo
Hideki. Tsuji was also a protégé of Itagaki Seishiro, who
as a former Minister of War still had considerable influence in
the Army.
Tsuji was a staff officer with
Kwantung Army
from 1937-1939 and had a hand in the various border clashes with
the Russians. He was
infuriated that Army
General Staff restrained Kwantung Army from
forcibly seizing the disputed Kanchatzu Island on the Amur in the summer of 1937,
an attitude he passed on to newer staff officers joining Kwantung
Army. In March 1939, following the Japanese defeat in the
border incident at Changkufeng, Tsuji led a force of 40 men to
within 200 yards of the Russian border outposts, with their rifles
slung over their shoulders to show a lack of hostile intent. Tsuji
had
the men line up, undo their trousers, and urinate in plain view of
the
astonished Russians, then sit down and eat a boxed lunch. After
singing
some military songs, the Japanese withdrew, leaving behind gifts
of
meat, chocolate, and whiskey for the puzzled Soviet troops. It was
all
an elaborate diversion
staged to cover a thorough photographic reconnaissance of the
Russian positions, meant to prove the Russians had encroached into
unambiguously Japanese territory and shame the Army General
Staff into authorizing an attack on the Russians. However,
the Nomonhan Incident
preempted any such operation.
Shortly after returning from Changkufeng, Tsuji issued a hyperaggressive border policy in the name of Kwantung Army that led directly to the debacle at Nomonhan (Goldman 2012):
... if the enemy crosses the frontiers ... annihilate him without delay, employing strength carefully build up beforehand. To accomplish our mission, it is permissible to enter Soviet territory, or to trap or lure Soviet troops into Manchukuoan territory and allow them to remain there for some time....
Where boundary lines are not clearly defined, area defense commanders will, upon their own initiative,establish boundaries and indicate them to the forward elements....
In the event of an armed clash, fight until victory is won regardless of relative strengths or of the location of the boundaries.
If the enemy violates the borders, friendly units must challenge him courageously and endeavor to triumph in their zone of action without concerning themselves about the consequences, which will be the responsibility of higher headquarters.
This policy, which was an invitation to serious border incidents and was completely at odds with the policy of the Japanese government in Tokyo, was a remarkable example of gekokujo at its most extreme. Under this policy, the commander of 23 Division, Komatsubara Michitaro, felt obligated to respond forcefully to a minor incursion of Mongol puppet forces at Nomonhan. This escalated into a border war in which the Japanese were soundly defeated. Tsuji himself was active throughout the campaign, conducting reconnaissance flights over the area, accompanying 23 Division headquarters in its incursion across the Kolkin-Gol into undisputed Mongolian territory, but escaping the final debacle. When Army General Staff rebuked Kwantung Army for an unauthorized air raid deep in Mongolian territory, Tsuji drafted an astonishingly insubordinate reply (Goldman 2012):
There appear to be certain differences between Army General Staff and this Army in evaluating the battlefield situation and measures to be adopted. It is requested that the handling of trivial matters in border areas be entrusted to this Army.
This so infuriated the Emperor
that plans
were made to sack the responsible officers as soon as the
immediate
fighting was over. However, Tsuji had the patronage of the War
Minister, Itagaki Seishiro, who saw to it that Tsuji was
transferred to a research unit on Formosa
rather than being cashiered. Eventually other friends in the Army
were
able to get Tsuji transferred to the operations section of the
General
Staff, where, in the words of Military Service Bureau chief Tanaka
Ryukichi, he became "the most determined single protagonist of war
with
the United States" (Goldman 2012). During the final weeks of
peace, he
is alleged to have plotted the assassination of Prime Minister
Konoye
if the latter succeeded in arranging a last-minute peace summit
with Roosevelt.
Suzuki Sosaku, who had
tangled with Tsuji as chief of staff of 25 Army,
reportedly told another officer (Toland 1970):
It was the Ishihara-Tsuji clique — the personification of gekokujo that brought the Japanese Army to this deplorable situation. In Malaya, Tsuji's speech and conduct were often insolent, and there was this problem of inhumane treatment of Chinese merchants, so I advised General Yamashita to punish Tsuji severely and then dismiss him. But he feigned ignorance. I tell you, so long as they exert influence on the Army it can only lead to ruin. Extermination of these poisonous insects should take precedence over all other problems.
Tsuji was associated with atrocities in Malaya (including the Alexandra Hospital massacre and the massacre of Chinese civilians in Singapore), the Philippines (including the Death March), and Burma (including the cannibalism of a downed American flier). He was intensely pan-Asian and contemptuous of all things Western.
We honestly believed that America, a nation of shopkeepers, would not persist with a loss-making war, whereas Japan could sustain a protracted campaign against the Anglo-Saxons.
Utterly cold-blooded and remorseless, and a misogynist who had
tried to get female typists at
the Army base at Davao recalled
to Japan, Tsuji was
also a
gifted staff officer and helped set up the Japanese
Army's jungle warfare school
in
Taiwan in January 1941. He was
a lieutenant colonel
and chief of Yamashita's
Operations and Planning staff when war broke out, and the main
architect of the Malaya campaign, for which he personally carried
out
much of the
advance reconnaissance.
His
efforts at Nomonhan before
the
war, in the planning for the Kokoda
campaign, and at Guadalcanal
in 1942 were less successful. The signature of his handiwork was
an
emphasis on offensive and initiative and a disregard for
conserving the
lives of his men. For Tsuji, the chief and only guiding principle
was
military necessity. This included forcing officers who had been
taken
prisoner at Nomonhan
to
commit suicide
after being repatriated, an action that helped establish the
Army's
brutal attitude towards surrender. His final wartime posting was
in Burma, where his
work during the fighting retreat
from Imphal
won the commendation of his superiors. However, even the
hardbitten Tanaka Shinichi
berated Tsuji for a lack of sympathy with his men.
Tsuji was possessed of a twisted courage, as when he insisted on
visiting the front line at Kokoda, only to be wounded in the throat by a bomb fragment when his destroyer
was hit by Allied aircraft. The wound was relatively minor, but
Hyakutake's chief
of staff quietly advised Hyakutake to keep Tsuji at
Rabaul lest Tsuji create more
mischief in Tokyo. When Honda's
headquarters was surrounded at Pyawbwe in April 1945, Tsuji
reputedly
stripped naked and took a leisurely bath in a well in plain sight
of
the Japanese troops in the area and while under enemy fire, as a
way to
forestall panic and restore morale.
Tsuji was responsible for bringing down both Yamashita, who was
posted
to Manchuria, and Homma,
who was forced into
retirement. In both cases, the charge was that these officers had
been
too soft on the enemy. Ironically, both officers were later
executed
for war crimes. But Tsuji had an amazing talent for deflecting
criticism to
others. After the collapse of the Kokoda campaign, Tsuji told
reporters
at a press conference at Rabaul that the campaign was "A blunder.
Cross
the mountains and you'll
get the worst of it. Don't you see that? A blunder" (Collie and
Marutani 2009).
Following the surrender, Tsuji escaped to Japan via Indochina and China disguised as a Buddhist priest. Arriving in Japan in 1949, after the Far East Tribunal had completed the trials of the major war criminals, he escaped attention from Allied occupation authorities and was elected to the Diet in 1952. The next year he founded a military rearmament society, denouncing the American presence in Japan and openly advocating for the rearmament of Japan in preparation for a second, final war with the United States. He was reelected to the Diet in 1956 in spite of being denounced for his war crimes by Kawaguchi Kiyotake. Tsuji wrote a number of books and articles on his experiences, of which his account of the Malaya campaign from the Japanese side has received the most attention from Western historians. His writings should, however, be taken with a grain of salt.
In a bizarre twist, recently declassified CIA files show that an
attempt was made to recruit Tsuji as an intelligence agent after
he came out of hiding. However, he proved useless, the CIA
concluding that "In either politics or intelligence work, he is
hopelessly lost both by reason of personality and lack of
experience... Tsuji is the type of man who, given the chance,
would start World War III without any misgivings" (AP 2007).
Tsuji never returned from a trip to Laos in 1961, and it was rumored that he had made the trip to advise the Viet Cong.
References
Associated
Press (2007-2-25; accessed 2014-3-29)
Ford (1994; accessed 2011-6-16)
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