Hideki Tojo - Japan's Banzai Warlord Documentary

[Music] the man known to history as Hideki Tojo was born on the 30th of December 1884 in the Japanese capital of Tokyo his father hidden or Ito Jo whose ancestors came from the noble samurai caste was a left tenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army and served in various conflicts during his career such as the Satsuma rebellion of 1877 when the Japanese army crushed an uprising of disaffected samurai as well as the sino-japanese war and the russo-japanese war the former of which he helped to write a history of before retiring in 1907 hideki's mother Chatto Sato Jo was the daughter of a Buddhist priest which combined with her husband's profession as a soldier made the family socially respectable and as well as Hideki cheeto se also parented two other sons with hidden Ori of which Hideki was the youngest young Tojo was born at the dawn of one of the most transformative periods in Japanese history as the country had from the beginning of the 17th century been ruled by military government named the Tokugawa Shogunate that was ruled by a de-facto dictator known as the Shogun in an era that is now referred to as the ed o or Tokugawa period the Shogun's had ruled japanses the 12th century when the effectively replaced japan's emperors as rulers of the country and in the century since various feudal lords known as demeo's vied with one another for the title of Shogun in a number of bloody wars most notably through the Sengoku Jidai period that ended with the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the beginning of the Edo period in 1603 the Edo period itself saw Japan adopt a strict isolationist foreign policy whereby all overseas influences were prohibited and restricted and as one as this the government demanded that his population adhere to traditional Japanese ways of life but despite this the Japanese economy experienced steady growth during this time and Japanese art and culture were encouraged and as a result flourished however this period of isolationism and tradition effectively turn Japan into a time capsule and when by the 19th century it was evident that the country lacked way behind countries such as the United States Russia and Great Britain to name but a few the then Shogun Tokugawa yamaki opened up Japan to Western trade these policies were met with fierce resistance from the country's traditionalist daimyo and samurai particularly those in such regions as Satsuma and Choshu in the south of Japan who were known as XI XI meaning men of high purpose who then rose up against the Tokugawa Shogunate after the then Japanese Emperor kome ordered the expulsion of all Europeans in 1863 these uprisings came to nothing however as Ian watch he maintained his control over Japan's government and then seeing that an overthrow power was impossible does she she then sought to combine traditional Japanese culture with Western technologies and after embracing this new philosophy both Satsuma and Choshu now armed with Western weaponry formed a pact that is now known as the Sako alliance that drove back the Shogun's forces in 1866 had eventually forced the new Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu to resign although he for a time retained a degree of power and influence despite this victory both Satsuma and Choshu then demanded a full restoration of the Emperor to power and enraged by this the armies of Tokugawa and the Sancho alliance then fought one another in the bo Shin war from 1868 to 1869 in which the Tokugawa Shogunate was ultimately defeated and the Emperor Meiji was restored to power and afterwards moved his seat of government to Oedo which was renamed Tokyo and then seized the lands and Holdings of the Japanese daimyo x' that effectively centralized power a marked the beginning of the empire of japan this Meiji Restoration of 1868 was one of the most important events in the history of Japan and although Emperor Meiji had been restored as ruler as he was still a boy real power now lay in the hands of samurai who over the coming years sought to transform Japan into a modern nation by trading with the Western powers such as France Russia the United States and Britain these new trade networks sparked a revolutionary metamorphosis within Japan as it quickly changed from insular feudal state into a modern world power in a matter of decades and it's military that had formerly been comprised of armies of professional samurai under the command of regional daimyo x' was over time replaced with a conscripted peasant army of rifle arm soldiers that were under the direct control of the country's centralized government this perhaps inevitably caused resentment among Japan's traditionalists samurai who thought the country was changing for the worse and so it wasn't long before uprisings broke out such as the Satsuma rebellion of 1877 that was led by Saigo Takamori who after leading a valiant campaign against the modern imperial army was finally killed in the Battle of shiroyama on the 24th of September 1877 in which he led his army of 500 samurai against an army of 30,000 government troops earning him the posthumous title of the last true samurai the Satsuma rebellion also marked the end of the feudal era of japan however the sheer heroism and warrior's spirit Saigo Takamori showed during the uprising soon elevated him to near legendary status within japan until he was later posthumously pardoned by emperor meiji in 1889 and as the sun set on the 19th century many within the country began to question the wisdom of abandoning traditional japanese values in favor of Western culture this traditional sentiment then began to manifest itself over the coming decades as the influence of the samurai as well as the Bushido itself re-emerge within the Japanese national consciousness as well as powerful lobbies within the country who sought to turn it into a militaristic state whose primary goal was excellence in warfare by twisting and changing the samurai warrior code to suit their nationalistic political ends Bushido which is formed from the two words bushi meaning warrior and doe meaning the way or path describes a moral code of conduct that encompasses frugality loyalty to one's Lord and the Emperor martial skill in battle and honor until as well as during death that was used by those who we today refer to as samurai although in Japan itself these legendary warriors are simply known as bushi immediately after the Meiji Restoration at least Japan's new centralized government as well as its military had no need of the customs of the past and over the next decade the country embarked on a period of territorial expansion as it occupied the Ryu ku islands south of Japan in 1879 that included Okinawa and then in the 1890s seized control over Korea as well as Taiwan after the first sino-japanese war in which the modern Japanese army soundly defeated the Chinese in the Korean Peninsula this expansion marked the beginning of an increase in the Japanese sphere of influence in East Asia that would in time bring it into direct competition with the Western powers who ironically had helped the country to modernize over the preceding decade as well as Japan's new found military prominence after the Empress restoration the Meiji Constitution was proclaimed in 1889 that established the new system of governance in which the emperor was the supreme leader under whom a cabinet of ministers headed by a prime minister was created to form and enact policies all of whom were in turn appointed on the advice from an unelected Privy Council that advised the Emperor who could ratify or reject any policy he wished despite the fact that the Emperor was head of state and had the final say in all affairs of state the Japanese monarch increasingly took a back seat in the governance of the country while the Prime Minister ran the government and as the cabinet and Prime Minister did not have to be elected the Constitution was open to interference and manipulation as if a certain political group seized control over the Privy Council that appointed the Prime Minister and cabinet they would not only effectively control the emperor but also prevent any other political group from entering government as well as this the Constitution also allowed the creation of a House of Peers and a House of Representatives the former of which was made of the country's nobility who by and large held their positions for life whilst in contrast the latter was made up of representatives who were elected by the wealthiest 1% of the Japanese population which was an electorate that was only widened with the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1925 whereas women were not allowed to vote in Japan until after World War two both of these houses had the right to put forward legislation however legislation from the House of Representatives had to be passed by the House of Peers the country's Cabinet prime minister and Emperor before coming into law and as the cabinet and Prime Minister of Japan were entirely independent of the houses of peers and Representatives being appointed by the Emperor and his advisors the houses in effect had little say over the direction of the country it was this system which given Japan's increasing revenants and adherence to military tradition eventually allowed powerful militarists to take control of the Japanese government largely because each of the Emperor's cabinet ministers and their departments were only accountable to the monarch that would in time cause conflict and even violence at the top of the Japanese state as vying factions particularly within the military would fight with one another for control of the Emperor's Privy Council which in time led to career soldiers such as Hideki Tojo being promoted to lead the Japanese nation as descendants of samurai the Tojo family still retained a degree of prestige during this period and it was because of this combined with a new Meiji education system prioritizing military training for young boys the young Hideki was schooled in the art of warfare from an early age way he and his classmates would undergo military-style drills and were taught above all that war was the most noble of arts and that the Emperor was an Earthbound God whose will must be obeyed above all else it is therefore perhaps no surprise that this strict and traditional system of education shaped young Hideki into a stern humorless child who is extremely confident in his opinions as he would regularly get into fights with his classmates as after all prowess in the martial arts was to be admired and encouraged because there was no place in the Meiji system of education for weaklings or cowards as well as this it is said of Tojo that he was an incredibly hard worker despite him showing average intelligence and later in his life Hideki would often state that I'm just an ordinary man possessing no shining talents anything I have achieved I owe to my capacity for hard work and never giving up after completing his early education Tojo in 1899 aged 15 entered army cadet school where he would for the next 7 years being co-located in the methods and doctrines of the imperial japanese army's officer corps in which young men were trained to almost spartan levels of discipline self-control and willpower that were designed to produce men who knew no fear and would obey any order without question Hideki seems to have been ideally suited to this strict regime as he was not creative or imaginative but instead possessed a great capacity for hard work and self-discipline that saw him advance rapidly through cadet school and on into the army itself where he soon became renowned for his eye for detail and methodical nature at the time of KO Jo's graduation into the Japanese army the country was emerging victorious from the russo-japanese war of 1904 to 1905 that had seen the Land of the Rising Sun Wynne was formerly Russian territory on mainland China despite emerging from the conflict as victors the widespread sentiment across the country was that Japan had been betrayed and forced into an unsatisfactory peace by the American President Theodore Roosevelt in the Treaty of Portsmouth which was a u.s. shipyard in Maine where the peace agreement had been ratified the reason for this nationwide outrage within Japan was that one of the top priorities of the war have intercedes portions of Siberia from Russia thusly the country being rewarded with a small parcel of land on a Chinese Peninsula was seen as unsatisfactory due to the meddling of the US president which ignited a long-standing hatred and mistrust of the Americans across Japan and within Hideki Tojo himself further resentment against America within Japan was brought to the surface in 1924 when the United States Congress passed the Asian exclusion act that prevented all Asians from settling within the United States prompting Tojo to write at the time that Asians would never be seen as equals within America and that the people of Japan would need to be strong to secure their place in the world in 1909 Tojo was married to katsu ko ito whom he would go on to parent three sons and four daughters with and would bring up in the same fastidious manner that he had experienced during his own childhood evidence for which can be found in the fact that when his offspring were ill both Hideki and his wife would keep detailed Diaries on the children's condition in which temperature dietary intake and bowel movements were all recorded in detail after a short period with the Japanese Army in Siberia aiding its intervention in the Russian Civil War Tojo now a captain was sent for further training to Germany in 1919 as the two nations had enjoyed close ties despite the fact chap and fault on the side of the Allies during World War one and after the conflict gained possession of a number of German islands in the Pacific Ocean as well as the Shangdong region on the eastern coast of China that was given back to the Chinese in 1922 under the supervision of the United States which caused yet more distrust and anger across Japan whilst in Germany Tojo became acquainted with the country's military practices and despite the fact his armed forces had been greatly reduced as a consequence of the Versailles Treaty he would later claim to have been impressed by the German populations courage but above all remarked that the discipline and sheer quality of the officer corps of the German army was something that Japan should seek to emulate during the fallout from the Armistice of World War one Japan became a member of the League of Nations which was founded in January of 1920 and had been formed by the American President Woodrow Wilson in an effort to secure peace for future generations by means of an international body that was designed to police the world and mediate in disputes during the formation of the League of Nations Japan had asked that all races be treated as equals however this move was rejected by the other major powers particularly those with empires as the move would have inevitably resulted in countries such as France and Britain being forced to treat their colonial subjects as equal citizens which at the time was unthinkable to them shortly afterwards in 1922 the Washington Naval Treaty was formally agreed between Britain France the United States Italy and Japan they restricted the number of capital ships or battleships each nation could construct over the coming years that was designed to prevent the kind of naval arms race that had been seen in the lead-up to World War one this treaty was controversial to say the least within the Japanese government and military as both had previously planned to build a fleet 70% the size of the American Navy which was the minimum number that was deemed necessary to defeat the Americans who the Japanese now saw as their main rival in the Pacific Theater the reason for this large fleet being seen as necessary was that military planners within Japan correctly saw that America would be able to build more ships at a faster pace than the Japanese in the event of an outbreak of hostilities therefore it was agreed that having as larger Navy as possible at the outbreak of war was desirable as Japan's only hope of victory would lie in delivering a speedy knockout blow against the United States Pacific Fleet before its Atlantic Fleet could reinforce it this strategy effectively remained unchanged for the next 20 years as in the lead-up to World War two Japan would employ this plan in the hope of gaining a speedy naval victory over the United States but in the meantime and despite the resistance of the Japanese Navy the Washington Naval conference convened with all signatories agreeing to limit the tonnage and number of their battleships battle cruisers and aircraft carriers before returning home in 1922 Tojo across the Atlantic to the United States and embarked on a cross-country rail journey from east to west to form the basis of his first and last visit to America and after returning home he stated that he thought Americans to be soft selfish people who were far more interested in wine women and song than the more disciplined Japanese populace the early 1920s marked the period in Japanese history where the country's military began to hold greater sway over the Land of the Rising Sun which in part caused a severe downturn in the country's economy that was in turn compounded by its suffering a colossal natural disaster in 1923 in the shape of the Kanto Earthquake near Tokyo that measured seven point nine on the Richter scale which killed nearly a hundred and fifty thousand people and in the aftermath martial law was declared as looting rioting and massacres of Korean immigrants took place across the country this hostility against immigrants was in large part due to Korean dissidents who had been undertaking terrorist acts across the country therefore in response the Japanese government enacted security measures including an increase in the country's internal security forces the most notable and infamous of which was the Kempeitai who were the military police within the army brucer acted as the secret police within japan itself as well as its occupied territories in 1926 the Japanese Emperor Yoshihito the son of Emperor Meiji died and was replaced by his young and timid son the 124th Emperor Hirohito who would largely due to his inexperience increasingly come under the influence of the now powerful militarists within the Japanese government particularly factions within the Army and Navy through the country's Ministry of War that was only accountable to the Emperor himself and had held a veto over all policy decisions within Japan since the turn of the century in 1928 Tojo was promoted to the rank of colonel and placed in command of the 1st Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Army and during this period he earned the respect and admiration of those under him as he fostered close relations with his subordinate officers and became well respected for his organizational skills as well as his insistence in the adoption of strict discipline that then in 1934 gained him another promotion to the rank of Major General of the army ministry which was the conduit between the army and the government during this period Tojo helped to write a book with other high-ranking Japanese officers named essays in a time of national emergency in which Hideki and his peers called for the establishment of a national defensive state and also argued that Japanese soldiers were better than those of other nations such as Russia because they were the superior race of warriors Japan's government because of the flaws in the Meiji Constitution had been since the beginning of the 20th century in an almost constant state of flux or upheaval they saw the country between 1900 and the outbreak of war in 1941 being led by a staggering 30 prime ministers of various parties and factions but until 1932 the growing influence of the militarists within the upper echelon of the Japanese state had been kept in check however since the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty and the economic upheaval of the recession of the 1920s combined with the Great Depression of the early 1930s the Nationalists and the militarists have been calling and plotting to overthrow the civilian government and install a military dictatorship that culminated in the eventual assassination in 1932 of the countries then civilian prime minister in youkai to Yoshi who was shot dead by a number of young Navy officers who were due to popular support across the country given incredibly light sentences over time this militaristic Lobby within Japan of which Tojo was a part began to exploit and enhance this growing nationalistic sentiment by drawing on Japan's ancient warrior culture including the samurai as well as Bushido and twisting it into a propaganda tool that was used to foster a greater sense of national identity and militaristic zeal in order to transform the country into a state that was geared to military conquest in the meantime the far-reaching consequences of adopting and incorporating or twisting elements of bushido into the Japanese Armed Forces were seen as entirely necessary and logical during the early 1930s as although Japan could not compete with its rivals in terms of industrial output it could compete in the quality of its soldiers or rather in its soldiers unflinching obedience and fearlessness in the face of Japan's enemies that in a short period of time there would be plenty of a large part of the resentment to growing militaristic Lobby within Japan held towards the West Was its perception that Japan had time and time again been prevented from expanding its territories and creating its own Eastern Empire which many within the country felt was the right and destiny of the Land of the Rising Sun and as well as this there were pragmatic strategic reasons for colonial expansion as the Japanese home islands lacked vital commodities such as oil natural gas coal iron copper and rubber to name but a few these aspirations for territory and resources that were meant to help propel Japan into a first-rate world power inevitably caused friction with other countries such as France America and Great Britain who all had overseas colonies in East Asia and the Pacific and naturally were wary of any potential challenge to their lucrative trade networks especially from a country like Japan that had the potential to rival them militarily this suspicion and resistance naturally angered the Japanese who increasingly determined to ignore and pursue their own foreign policies in Asia regardless for the opinions of the Western powers and regardless of what their reactions might be this seemingly irresistible push towards the creation of a Japanese Empire perhaps inevitably resulted in the country turning its attention to its neighbor China or rather Manchuria that Japan had been least portions of after the russo-japanese war in 1905 that included the rights of the operation of the South Manchurian branch of the Chinese eastern railway that extended over the border of the japanese-held territory into China itself this in short meant that Japanese troops were policing sections of the railway network within eastern China and during this time there were numerous reports of Japanese troops conducting raids on Chinese villages in the area which was a symptom of an increasingly aggressive mindset there was now widespread within the Japanese army as many of its officers believed an invasion of Manchuria should be undertaken as soon as possible especially as they were fears that Soviet Russia could annex the northern Chinese territory instead therefore in 1931 a decision was taken by the commanders of the Japanese Army in Manchuria in defiance of the civilian government in Tokyo to fake a sabotage attack on the railway by Chinese dissidents in order to force a reactionary invasion of Manchuria and their fall after the explosives were planted near a section of the railway by army sappers on the 18th of September 1931 they were detonated and even though the explosives caused little to no damage the Japanese army had fabricated the justification for war it needed in what is now known as the Mukden incident and over the coming weeks Imperial forces proceeded to occupy the whole of Manchuria this largely independent action by a Japanese Army of Occupation goes to illustrate the considerable power and influence the country's armed forces gained by the early 1930s and perhaps emboldened by the successes combined with a near total lack of effective resistance both from within and without Japan further plans for militaristic expansion were put into place over the coming years however Japan's invasion of Manchuria led to widespread condemnation and criticism from the international community and when the Chinese protested via the League of Nations a report was published that blamed Japan for the outbreak of hostilities therefore imperial delegates stormed out of the League of Nations effectively meaning that any prospect of peace between the Japanese and the Chinese had now been lost and as a consequence the Land of the Rising Sun was now more isolated and aggrieved than ever in 1935 Tojo was posted to Manchuria as the commander of the now Japanese provinces kanpei Thai secret police force during which time he earned the nickname the jeiza because of his proactive and decisive manner of command and it was perhaps due to him being appointed to command the Kempeitai in Manchuria that Tojo would later expand the remit of the military police after his ascension to power resulting in the organization becoming one of the most hated and feared instruments of state repression throughout Japan and its overseas colonies as well as this it is likely the Tojo's insistence in commanding the Kempeitai in Manchuria in a by-the-book manner in which he always adhered to the orders of those above him earned him the admiration and praise of his superiors in Tokyo resulting over the coming years in him being given a steady stream of promotions especially as the power and influence of the Japanese military increased yet further and the country dove deeper and deeper into war across Asia since the country's annexation of Manchuria after which a puppet state had been set up named Manchu Koo under the rule of the deposed Chinese Emperor Puyi the Japanese Army extended its control over an ever-increasing expanse of northern China as the ancient country that had overthrown Puyi in 1911 was now headed by a Republican nationalist government and a tian kai-shek who was fighting a civil war against Chinese Communists the Japanese however now sought to annex china themselves which would in time weaken the Nationalists under Chiang kai-shek and allow the Communists under Mao Zedong to eventually gain control of China after World War two however in the meantime fearing a Japanese invasion the Nationalists agreed to a ceasefire and entered a military alliance with the Communists in 1936 so that China could more effectively fight the foreign aggressor this agreement was timely as on the 7th of July in 1937 Japanese troops that had by this time gained control of most of northeastern China without any resistance conducted a late-night military exercise near the Marco Polo Bridge in Peking modern-day Beijing and after completing the exercise the Japanese complained that one of their soldiers had not returned to their lines and demanded to be allowed to enter Chinese territory in order to search for him this ultimatum was then refused by the Chinese and over the coming hours tensions between the two armies escalated until at around 5 a.m. in the morning gunfire broke out and before long a full-scale battle had erupted between the Chinese and Japanese troops that eventually culminated in the capture of Peking along with the surrounding area the Japanese were after this action satisfied with their newly conquered territory however Chiang kai-shek had other ideas and refused to capitulate to the invaders resulting in the war escalating over the coming months until Nanking the then capital of China was itself captured on the 13th of December 1937 and Japanese troops who were enraged by the ferocity of the resistance they encountered embarked on a whole scale massacre of the city's population in which hundreds of thousands civilians including women children and even babies were literally butchered in what is now considered to be the greatest single war crime undertaken by the Japanese Empire Tojo who had by this time been promoted to chief of staff of the occupying army within China turned a blind eye to the killings as he did not publicly promote or dissuade his troops from killing civilians however his reluctance to intervene in the Nanking Massacre would later be used against him after World War 2 and despite the Land of the Rising Sun pouring more and more forces into China over the coming years the country was never completely occupied and the war would drag on until 1945 resulting in the deaths of a huge number of people including three to five million Japanese casualties dead wounded and captured as well as over 10 million Chinese military casualties now perhaps as many as 30 million Chinese civilians in the meantime Tojo whose star was rising fast was recalled to Japan in May of 1938 where he was promoted to vice minister of war as well as Inspector General of army aviation and in 1940 when Tojo's political ally koishi Kido was appointed to be the lord keeper of the Privy seal there was a position that essentially controlled what information Emperor was given and also who could obtain an audience with the Emperor Tojo was promoted to become Minister of War that effectively placed him in charge of the Japanese Army and Navy despite Tojo's rise to power all was not well with the Japanese war effort as during the summer of 1939 the country had been defeated in a series of skirmishes against the Soviets along the northern Manchurian border in which the Land of the Rising Sun had been soundly defeated and as a result caused the Japanese cabinet and war ministry to rethink their aggressive stance against the Soviets although this confrontation was relatively minor the ramifications of the Japanese defeat would affect the outcome of the entire Second World War as the country would two years later signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union on the 13th of April 1941 that essentially prevented the Japanese from attacking the Soviet Union during Germany's later invasion that enabled Joseph Stalin to divert his Siberian divisions to the west and defeat the Germans on the outskirts of Moscow in the winter of 1941 the Russian border confrontations also caused divisions between the Japanese Army and Navy as the army wanted revenge on the Soviets whilst the Navy saw expansion to the south as being a wiser course of action as the majority of the raw materials the Japanese war effort required was situated in South Asia such as the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies therefore as the time for war against Russia passed by and relations between the countries thawed the army joined with the Navy and resolved to undertake the military expansion in the Pacific the Japanese were also given fresh cause for optimism when Germany successfully defeated the Western European allies in little more than six weeks during the summer of 1940 and with Britain seemingly on its knees and France dismembered the Japanese government as the British Empire was about to collapse chose to throw in their lot with Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy culminating in the signing of the tripartite pact in Berlin on the 27th of September 1942 solidified the alliance of the Axis powers in which Germany and Italy promised to respect Japan's territorial conquests in the Pacific in return for Japan respecting both Italy and Germany's conquests in Europe and North Africa as well as this all three countries began to cooperate with one another as an intelligence level but crucially the alliance between Axis powers would remain a distant one as Japan would over the coming years fight alone against the Allied powers in Asia whilst Germany and Italy received little concrete help from the Japanese however after the fall of France an agreement was struck in July of 1941 with Germany and the vassal eyes French Vichy government for France's colonies in Indochina they were comprised of modern-day Laos Cambodia and Vietnam to be occupied by the Japanese army the United States however protested against this move and as a result embargoed all exports of raw materials including nearly 90% of Japan's oil supply and refused to recommence exports until Japan withdrew from Indochina meaning that the Land of the Rising Sun had to choose between further expansion to replace its lost imports of raw materials or retreat and as the hardline ultra-nationalists were now in charge the decision was taken to continue with a policy of military expansion to the south that would inevitably threaten the United States colonies in the Philippines as well as Britain's imperial outpost in Hong Kong and Singapore this embargo caused panic amongst more moderate members of the Japanese government who now argued that a peaceful resolution should be found with the United States however the militarists who control the Privy Council was strongly in favor of a declaration of war against the United States therefore an imperial conference was held on the 6th of September 1941 where it was agreed that a deadline should be sent for a diplomatic solution with the United States that was to expire in the 14th of October after which war would be inevitable [Music] negotiations continued into the autumn of 1941 in which japan's Prime Minister Karen a desperately tried to mediate viola US Embassy in Japan but when the Americans demanded a total Japanese withdrawal from China and Manchuria in return for a resumption of exports the Japanese felt they had no other option than to declare war as surrendering their conquest was not an option and so when the 14th of October deadline came in past Prime Minister connais resigned on the 16th and acting on the advice of the keeper of the Privy seal curry G Kaido Hideki Tojo was summoned by the Emperor and asked a former cabinet as Japan's new prime minister the reasons for this appointment have been debated ever since however it is largely accepted that the Emperor wanted a soldier are not a civilian prime minister to lead Japan into war and it is also claimed that of all the candidates Tojo was the only man who had gained the support of the army and navy factions as he agreed that war with the United States was now inevitable and therefore after being ordered to conduct a review into the state of war preparations Tojo finally told the Emperor that conflict with America was inevitable on the 2nd of November 1941 after which Hirohito gave his approval for hostilities to commence and the next day plans for an audacious preemptive strike against the United States was shown to the Emperor by Tojo that involved a massive aircraft carrier borne air raid on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii at this stage the prospects for success against America was seen as favorable as in 1941 the Japanese Navy was the third largest in the world consisting of a dozen battleships 20 heavy and light aircraft carriers over 50 cruisers 350 destroyers and escort vessels and around 200 submarines all of which were concentrated in the Pacific Theater where in contrast Japan's two great rivals for dominance over the seas in the East Britain and America were forced to disperse their naval forces across the globe meaning that at this time Japan would enjoy naval supremacy anywhere in the Pacific providing it struck quickly and in strength preparations for the attack on Hawaii with in fine lines with the Emperor's approval by the commander-in-chief of the Japanese Navy is Oroku Yamamoto that involved a massive naval task force attacking Pearl Harbor along with simultaneous invasions of British and American colonies in the western Pacific with a view to ultimately seizing the South Asian oil fields that were to replace that lost American imports thusly on the 26th of November 1941 a large naval fleet set sail from the Japanese home islands under the command of Admiral chewy Chee Nagumo and headed east across the Northern Pacific before turning south towards the Hawaiian archipelago before finally attacking the islands on the morning of the 7th of December 1941 resulting in over a dozen US ships being sunk or badly damaged three days later on the 11th of December 1941 Germany and Italy joined with their Japanese allies and two clared war in the United States that in effect sealed their doom as the world's richest the most powerful industrial nation had now joined the conflict with whom the Axis powers would soon realize they could not hope to compete with spurred on by the success of the Japanese Navy the Imperial Army now also embarked on a whirlwind advance through Southeast Asia in which Hong Kong the Philippines Borneo and Malaya were captured and in February of 1942 the vital British outpost in Singapore was also taken effectively making the Land of the Rising Sun the dominant power in Asia as well as the western Pacific these victories marked the high-water mark of Japanese expansion in the Pacific and in Japan itself Tojo was hailed as a hero by a jubilant populace however the man himself was far more subdued than the rest of the Japanese population as he knew his country had not yet delivered a knockout blow against the United States soon after this Tojo was shown to be correct in his reluctance to celebrate as the Japanese population was then shaken out of his complacency when the Americans bombed Japan on the 18th of April 1942 in what is now known as the Doolittle raid in which sixteen aircraft carrier born 25b bombers undertook a daring strike on the greater Tokyo area these raids shook the Japanese people's perception of invincibility to its core and after the attack a number of American pilots who were shot down during the raid were taken prisoner three of whom were executed in reprisal on the Emperor's orders against Tojo's advice as he argued that killing prisoners of war would risk the Americans doing the same to Japanese prisoners this action flies in the face of the modern perception of Hideki Tojo the labels him is a hardliner within the Japanese government and there are also accounts of him going to great lengths to see that the Japanese people were not suffering too much due to the war effort as during this time he would often was driving through Tokyo stop and check the rubbish bins outside ordinary people's houses so he can ascertain what food they were eating great lengths were also taken by the now state-controlled media to portray Tojo as a benevolent father figure whose only concern was the care and protection of the Japanese homeland and in an effort to garner support from the people and the countries of Asia Tojo promoted the idea of a Greater East Asian co-prosperity sphere that involved the Japanese leading a coalition of free Asian states or as the West saw it Japanese puppet states that would join together to throw the Western powers out of Asia although he was portrayed at the time and is still seen by some in Japan today as being a protector of Asians throughout the world there was a darker more pragmatic side to Tojo's Premiership as during the war all radio broadcasts and newspaper articles were subject to strict censorship and although this was not as wide reaching or extreme as in Nazi Germany around four to five thousand people were arrested and imprisoned during the conflict for what is called thought crimes against the state and in many cases extreme measures such as torture we used to extract confessions by the Kempeitai secret police under Tojo's orders this insistence on submission in order especially extended to the military as adherence to the way of the warrior was literally beaten into Japanese soldiers from the outset of their training in which all individualism was crushed and replaced with a mindset of total obedience to the Emperor and on Tojo's orders every Japanese soldier was issued with a written copy of the military code of conduct known as the cen jin-kun which was heavily inspired by elements of Bushido as it stated that surrender was not allowed under any circumstances however the increasing reverence to the way of the warrior that after all was born out of feudal Japan would during World War two come to have both positive and negative outcomes for the Japanese as the fearless disciplined warriors that is modern warrior doctrine helped to produce prove themselves to be capable of superhuman feats during battle but on the flip side also made Japanese soldiers extremely intolerant of enemy prisoners of war as well as foreigners in general one of the most notable incidents of the mistreatment and even murder of prisoners of war by the Japanese was the Bataan Death March of April 1942 during which American and Filipino prisoners were marched for almost seventy miles in searing heat across Bataan in the Philippines resulting in between 5 to 18,000 men dying of exhaustion lack of water and execution another example of the Japanese Army's mistreatment of prisoners comes from the infamous building of the Burma railway that involved as many as a quarter of a million civilians and allied prisoners constructing around 250 miles of narrow gauge railway in the tropical heat of Japanese occupied Burma in little over a year between 1942 to 1943 which resulted in the deaths of nearly 100,000 men from dysentery beatings execution exhaustion and starvation a stark statistic regarding the death toll of Allied prisoners is that 27% of all POWs died under Japanese care whilst in Europe the figure was around 6% however Tojo would later claim during his trial that the mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war was the responsibility of commanders in the field although it is true that both he and his government could have stopped the mistreatment in killings had they so wished indeed the true number of prisoners of war and civilians who were killed by the Japanese during the 1930s and 1940s is widely considered to be at the very least in the region of 3 million people especially in China and Manchuria whilst higher estimate state that the actual number of dead is far close to 14 million which is more than double the amount killed during the Holocaust another largely negative consequence of the Japanese military's obsession with never surrendering to the enemy or viewing defeat as the ultimate dishonor would as World War 2 progressed or rather regressed from the Japanese perspective results in Japanese soldiers embarking in suicidal attacks against Allied forces or even in committing suicide without ever attacking the enemy if the commanders and troops in question felt that the battle was lost this in essence showed the flaws of implementing ancient warrior codes of conduct and morality within modern warfare as in many instances the Japanese army and navy would embark in all-out suicidal attacks on allied troops and shipping during World War two rather than considering the far more effective and pragmatic solutions are fighting withdrawals or even full-scale retreats there may have been considered dishonorable by some but in the long run may on the flipside have borne strategic and tact called fruit to counter this it could be said that as many of the battles the Japanese army were involved in during World War two well on small archipelagos or island chains fighting to the last man was in many ways inevitable given that retreat was impossible as the Land of the Rising Sun had lost naval and air supremacy over the majority of the Pacific by 1943 however it is hard to justify large numbers of Japanese troops embarking in suicidal attacks or rather in the Japanese government including Hideki Tojo in sanctioning such attacks when those in power in Japan knew full well the war against America was lost from relatively early on the first and possibly the largest hammer blow that Japanese suffered before 1945 then came in the South Pacific in June of 1942 at the Battle of Midway when the United States Pacific Fleet effectively destroyed the Japanese first carry a striking force that lost all four of his largest aircraft carriers along with 248 aircraft and over 3,000 personnel during the battle this defeat is widely considered to be the turning point of the Pacific War as the whole Japanese war effort in World War two depended on naval and air supremacy therefore the bravery and fanaticism of his armies and soldiers was made irrelevant after the Battle of Midway as the United States was from then on able to attack any of Japan's territorial conquests with overwhelming force without effective reply instead of taking back all of the Japanese gains the Americas concluded that the best route to victory lane taking back a series of strategically vital islands across the eastern Pacific that came to be known as island hopping the ultimate goal of which was to bring their naval and air forces within striking distance of the Japanese home islands after the defeat at Midway the Japanese Navy attempted to prevent the scale of the losses it had incurred from becoming public knowledge as staggeringly even Tojo himself was not informed of the disaster for nearly two weeks after the last Japanese carrier had disappeared below the waves however when he did hear of the calamity Tojo ordered that description should be increased so that every healthy man was brought into the armed forces this belated effort to swell the numbers of men in the Japanese Armed Forces had little effect however as it was Japan's inability to compete with Allied industrial might that lay at the heart of his reversals and as well as this Tojo was constantly hindered by the widespread in fighting and squabbling that became increasingly rife throughout the military in government as navy and army factions fought one another for supremacy and resources by 1944 the war situation across the Pacific was grim to say the least as the Americans led by General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz began to close the noose around the neck of the Land of the Rising Sun by invading and successfully occupying the strategically vital island of Saipan during which the Japanese defenders mounted desperate massed Banzai or suicide charges that resulted in nearly 30,000 deaths including mass suicides of soldiers as well as civilians this defeat meant that the Americans were now able to mount bombing raids on Japan itself and across the country the civilian population was prepared for the oncoming onslaught even though the majority of Japanese houses were made of wood making them particularly vulnerable to incendiary bombing and the resulting fire storms after Saipan Tojo was blamed for the defeat and seeing his Premiership as an obstacle to the possible peace with the Allies a powerful lobby began to form within the Japanese government for his removal prompting the Prime Minister to seek the Emperor's backing which was not given therefore seeing no other course of action Hideki Tojo then resigned as Prime Minister of Japan on the 18th of July 1944 although his policies had undoubtedly led to his expulsion Tojo was not publicly blamed or shamed for the loss of Saipan and afterwards remained a loyal servant of the Emperor explaining in his farewell radio broadcast that he was saddened at the worrying stress the ward caused his master but despite this and the growing number of devastating air raids across Japan Tojo continued to advocate his former policy of no surrender but even he could not have imagined the colossal blow that would within a year of his dismissal bring about Japan's final subjugation by the summer of 1945 the Americans had now occupied a number of the Japanese home islands including Aero Jima and Okinawa enabling them on the 6th of August 1945 to unleash their secret weapon the atomic bomb that was dropped on the coastal city of Hiroshima and three days later a second bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki culminating the Japanese Empire surrendering to the Allies unconditionally on the 15th of August 1945 Tojo who until now had been in retirement was largely blamed in the West for starting the war and was now faced with the decision that his own policies had forced on hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers that being surrender or death and after the Americans began to occupy Japan in late August of 1945 Tojo prepared his final will and political Testament then on the 11th of September 1945 when American military police surrounded Tojo's house he greeted them from a window and then slammed it shut and shortly afterwards a gunshot was heard Tojo had fired a bullet into his chest but it had missed his heart and whilst he lay bleeding beside him a note was found in which the former prime minister acknowledged that he had been responsible for the war however no doubt of his dismay the attending doctors were able to bring him back from death over the coming days until within a matter of weeks he was well on his way to making a full recovery once he had regained his health Tojo was sent to prison to await trial for war crimes along with a number of other high-ranking Japanese generals and officials until in late April of 1946 seedings began in which 28 defendants most of whom came from Tojo's war cabinet were charged from 55 separate counts those being of class a war crimes Class B conventional war crimes and Class C crimes against humanity when he was finally caught to give his testimony in 1947 Tojo presented the tribunal with his affidavit in which he laid out his version of events up to and during his tenure as prime minister and accepted that he had been responsible for starting the war but claimed that hostilities were necessary as America had forced Japan to defend itself with its hostile foreign policy including the build-up of naval forces at Pearl Harbor and his punitive embargoes of raw materials the prosecution that was led by the former US Attorney General of Ohio Joseph Keenan who had formerly overseen the prosecutions of some of America's most notorious gangsters including Machine Gun Kelly and Al Capone rejected Tojo's claims as militaristic propaganda and presented the tribunal with evidence that Tojo had been fully aware of the mistreatment of prisoners and civilians by the Japanese Army in so-called Class B war crimes in response Tojo rejected Keenan's accusations as he claimed that killing people in wartime could hardly be seen as criminal however both he and his fellow defendants unanimously accepted that starting the war had been their decision and continually stated that the Emperor Hirohito had only approved the instigation of hostilities due to their advice this was the militarists last act of service to their master as to them the emperor was still a living God who was blameless and above reproach their thought they saw it as their patriotic duty to deflect all blame from Hirohito even though he had had the final say on nearly every major strategic decision the Japanese made during World War two another reason that Hirohito was never blamed for Japanese aggression or war crimes was that the commander of the US forces in Japan Douglas MacArthur had decided that the Emperor's help and therefore survival was essential in order to subjugate the Japanese population as putting Hirohito on trial or even convicting him could have potentially resulted in a mass uprising against the occupying Americans the decision was therefore taken before the trial that the militarists and a particular Tojo himself were to bear the brunt of the blame for Japan's actions during the war and therefore it could be said that the tribunal was unfair or even raked as not all those responsible were put on trial and those who were had effectively been judged before proceedings began the tribunal dragged on until 1948 when on the 12th of November Hideki Tojo along with six of his co-defendants were sentenced to death and over a month later he was hanged on the 23rd of December 1948 before his death Tojo issued a statement in which he apologized for the crimes Japan had committed against Allied soldiers and civilians and begged the Americans to show the Japanese people mercy and after the execution Tojo's body was cremated after which orders were given to scatter the ashes in secret however Japanese Patriots obtained the remains of their former prime minister and his fellow defendants and over the coming years several shrines were constructed across Japan where even today prayers are offered for the dead men's souls in recent years Hideki Tojo and his like have come to be seen by some as victims as many Japanese believe that Tojo's assertion that Japan was forced into a war with America as an act of self-defense was the truth and also believed that at his trial he was made a scapegoat by the Americans he wants to portray him as a villain on a par with Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler his belief is angrily disputed by many of Japan's neighbors and many people in Japan itself still blame and even hate Hideki Tojo for starting a war Japan had no hope of winning that resulted in the deaths of 2 to 3 million Japanese soldiers and civilians as well as tens of millions from the lands conquered and enemies of the Land of the Rising Sun most historians agree that Hideki Tojo was not a dictator such as Adolf Hitler as he was after all merely the Prime Minister of Japan however there is a consensus he did play a crucial role in the instigation of World War two in the Pacific and in advocating the adoption of a brutal warrior code within the Japanese military Tojo helped to create the mindset that would lead to many of the atrocities that were perpetrated by Japan's armed forces across Asia and the Pacific during the Second World War what do you think of Hideki Tojo was he an aggressive militarist and war criminal who wanted to form a Japanese colonial empire by brutal means or was he simply a humble servant of Emperor Hirohito who ordered an attack on the United States as an act of self-defense and was after the war unfairly used as a scapegoat by both his own countrymen and the wider world let us know in the comments section and until next time thank you very much for watching you [Music] you

Channel: The People Profiles

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Keywords: Biography, History, Historical, Educational, The People Profiles, Biography channel, the biography channel

Id: vgeGzRulpik

Length: 57min 0sec (3420 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 19 2019