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." He also seems to have
had
political connections that allowed him to exercise control beyond his
nominal
rank. 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 was associated with atrocities in Malaya (including the massacre of Chinese civilians in Singapore), the Philippines (including the Death March), and Burma (including the cannibalism of a downed American flier). Following the surrender, he 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. He was intensely pan-Asian and contemptuous of all things Western, and it is rumored that his later disappearance was a trip to advise the Viet Cong.
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, Tsuji was
also a
gifted staff officer and was responsible for setting up the Japanese
Army's jungle warfare school in
Taiwan. 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 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. He ended the war in Burma, where his
work for the fighting retreat from Imphal
won the commendation of his superiors.
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.
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.
References
"Colonel Tsuji of Malaya" (accessed 29 December 2006)
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