was a Japanese army officer and politician. During World War II, he was an important tactical planner in the Imperial Japanese Army and developed the detailed plans for the successful Japanese invasion of Malaya at the start of the war. He also helped plan and lead the final Japanese offensive during the Guadalcanal campaign.
A Pan-Asianist, Tsuji pressured Asian countries to support Japan in World War II, despite being involved in atrocities such as the Bataan Death March and Sook Ching mass killings. He meticulously planned the mass murders in Singapore and surrounding regions, personally overseeing the Pantingan River massacre. He also once cannibalized a downed Allied airman.
Tsuji was among the most aggressive and influential Japanese militarists. He was a leading proponent of the concept of gekokujō, (literally "the bottom overthrowing the top") by acting without or contrary to authorization. According to historian John W. Dower, Tsuji was a "fanatical ideologue and pathologically brutal staff officer".
Early life and career
Masanobu Tsuji was born in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. He received his secondary education at a military academy and later graduated from the War College.
By 1934, he was active in the Army's political intrigues as a member of the Tōseiha
("Control Faction") and helped block the attempted coup d'état of the rival Kōdōha ("Imperial Way Faction"). That brought him the patronage of General and future Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and General and future War Minister Seishirō Itagaki.
When the war against America and Britain started, Tsuji was on the staff of General Tomoyuki Yamashita, whose army invaded Malaya. He was largely responsible for planning Yamashita's successful landing in Malaya and subsequent campaign against Singapore. After the capture of Singapore, Tsuji helped plan the Sook Ching, a systematic massacre of thousands of Malayan Chinese who might be hostile to Japan. He is also alleged to have cannibalized an executed American flyer during the occupation of Singapore.
He was then transferred to the staff of General Homma in the Philippines. After the US surrendered there, Tsuji sought to have all American prisoners killed and encouraged the brutal mistreatment and casual murder of prisoners in the Bataan Death March. He also had many captured officials of the Philippines government executed, including by ordering the execution of Filipino Chief Justice José Abad Santos and the attempted execution of former Speaker of the House of Representatives Manuel Roxas.
After the war, Japanese war criminals were prosecuted for the Bataan Death March, Sook Ching and other atrocities, but Tsuji fled and avoided trial. Some other army officials, who had followed Tsuji's command, were charged, and two of them were executed.
World War II
In 1932, Tsuji saw action in China, and subsequently travelled as far as Sinkiang.
After the defeat at Khalkhin Gol, Tsuji opposed any further conflicts with the Soviet Union. After their attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, the Germans urged the Japanese to join the invasion, and many in the Japanese military wanted to avenge the defeat at Khalkhin Gol. However, Tsuji was an influential advocate of the attack on the United States. General Ryukichi Tanaka testified after the war that "the most determined single protagonist in favor of war with the United States was Tsuji Masanobu." Tsuji later wrote that his experience of Soviet firepower at Khalkhin Gol convinced him not to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.
Postwar life and disappearance
When the Japanese position in Burma collapsed in 1945, Tsuji escaped, first to Thailand and then to China, where he renewed the contacts made in Nanking. He also visited Vietnam, which was in disorder with the Viet Minh resisting the re-establishment of French rule. In China, Tsuji was both a prisoner and an employee of Chinese intelligence. and re-elected twice.
thumb|Memorial statue of Masanobu Tsuji in [[Kaga, Ishikawa]]
Information later disclosed in CIA files
CIA files declassified in 2005–2006 show that Tsuji also worked for the CIA as a spy during the Cold War. The files also acknowledged Tsuji's writings in his book Senkō Sanzenri to be mostly factual. The documents described Tsuji to be an "inseparable pair" with Takushiro Hattori and stated them to be "extremely irresponsible" and that they "will not take the consequences for their actions." Additionally, Tsuji was stated to be "the type of man who given the chance, would start World War III without any misgivings." As an asset to the CIA, he was described as having no value because of lack of expertise in politics and information manipulation.
Additionally, the files contain information that Hattori had allegedly planned a coup to overthrow the Japanese government in 1952 that involved the assassination of Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida and replacing him with Ichirō Hatoyama of the DPJ, but Tsuji prevented the coup by persuading the group that the real enemies were not conservatives like Yoshida but the Socialist Party. However, the files also state that the CIA learned about the attempt only after the fact and that the information was gained from an unreliable source from China. Some academics such as the media theorist and Americanist Tetsuo Arima of Waseda University have suggested that the entire story might have been a bluff leaked to the Chinese by Tsuji himself as a way to make him seem more influential than he actually was.
According to the CIA files, when Tsuji returned to Vientiane from Hanoi, he was kidnapped by the Chinese Communist Party and was being imprisoned in Yunnan, ostensibly to be used in some way to worsen Japanese-American relations or Japan's standing in Southeast Asia. Tsuji was considered to be still alive as of 8 August 1962 on the basis of handwriting analysis conducted on the writing on an envelope that was brought on 24 August 1962. However, he was never heard from again.
See also
- List of people who disappeared
Honors
- Order of the Sacred Treasure, 3rd Class
- Order of the Golden Kite, 4th Class and 5th Class