MICHINOMIYA HIROTO
Emperor
Alternative Names:
Birth Date: April 29, 1901 Death Date: January 7, 1989 Term Date: He was Japan's longest-reigning monarch, ruling from 1926 to 1989. In September 1940, the Axis Powers, consisting of Japan, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, signed the Tripartite Pact. Within it, they agreed to assist one another should any of them be attacked by a country not already involved in the war. In the same month, Japan sent troops to occupy French Indochina and the United States responded with economic sanctions, including an embargo on oil and steel. A little over a year later, Hirohito consented to the decision of his government to battle the Americans. On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes bombarded the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbour near Honolulu, Hawaii, destroying and crippling 18 ships and killing almost 2,500 men. The United States declared war one day later and this was the beginning of the Pacific War. Over the next seven months, Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies, British Singapore, New Guinea, the Philippines and a number of other locations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. But the tide started turning at the June 1942 Battle of Midway and soon after at Guadalcanal. By mid-1944, Japan’s military leaders recognized that victory was unlikely, yet the country did not stop fighting until after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the following August. On August 15, 1945, Hirohito made a radio broadcast announcing Japan’s surrender. |
‘I made efforts to swallow tears and to protect the species of the Japanese nation.’ |
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HIDEKI TÔJÔ
40th Prime Minister of Japan
General of the Imperial Japanese Army Birth Date: December 30, 1844 Death Date: December 23, 1948 when he was hung to death after being arrested for war crimes after World War II In mid-1940 Tojo was appointed war minister in the second Fumimaro Konoe government, which proceeded at once to sign the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. Relations with the United States gradually worsened during succeeding months as Japanese troops moved south into Indochina; but ‘Tojo hewed to a hard line’. Convinced of the righteousness of the imperial cause and of the ruthless hostility of the Americans, the British, the Chinese, and the Dutch, he stoutly opposed the negotiations and concessions that Konoe contemplated. Speaking for the army command, Tojo demanded a decision for war unless the United States backed away from its embargo on all exports to Japan. Tōjō was also one of the most aggressive militarists in the Japanese leadership. He led his country’s war efforts after the attack on the U.S. military base at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, and under his direction smashing victories were initially scored throughout Southeast Asia and the western Pacific region. After a series of Japanese military reverses in the Pacific, Tōjō assumed virtual dictatorial powers, taking over the post of the chief of the General Staff. The successful Allied invasion of the Mariana Islands so weakened his government, however, that he was removed as chief of staff on July 16, 1944, and on July 18 he and his entire cabinet announced their resignation. Four days later, he was succeeded as prime minister by Koiso Kuniaki. Tōjō spent the remainder of the war in the military reserve, effectively banned from power. |