Sasaki Tōichi
Sasaki Tōichi | |
|---|---|
 1935 portrait of Sasaki | |
| Born | 27 January 1886 |
| Died | 30 May 1955 (aged 69) |
| Occupation | Soldier |
| Years active | 1902–1945 |
| Organisation(s) | Imperial Japanese Army Concordia Association |
Lieutenant General Sasaki Tōichi (佐々木 到一, 27 January 1886 – 30 May 1955) was a soldier in the Imperial Japanese Army. He was known as an expert on Chinese affairs, had close relationships with leading figures in the Kuomintang's National Revolutionary Army, and expressed understanding of their cause during the 1920s. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, he was directly involved in perpetrating the Nanjing Massacre.
Early life
Sasaki Tōichi was born in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, on 27 January 1886, but grew up in Hiroshima. He was the eldest son of Major Sasaki Tōru (佐々木 透). He attended the Kaikosha-affiliated Seibi Primary School and Hiroshima Prefectural First Middle School, and then entered the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1902. He graduated in November 1905, and in June 1906, entered service as an infantry second lieutenant in the 11th Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Japanese Army, and was later transfered to the 71st Infantry Regiment.
Military career
In March 1911, the 71st Regiment was deployed to Manchuria, and this was the first time Sasaki set foot in a foreign country. After failing to gain admission to the Army War College in December of that year, after the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution, Sasaki decided to remain in Manchuria to learn Mongolian and Chinese, and thus tranfered to the Manchruia Independent Garrison Unit, which was charged with guarding the South Manchuria Railway.
In February 1912, with a wave of anti-Manchu sentiment sweeping China, Sasaki's battalion was ordered to protect warehouses in Tieling. Sasaki recieved praise for negotations with revolutions in the area, which allowed for their safe passage through Tieling without conflict.
Following this incident, Sasaki interest in China only continued to grow. Having recieved advice that he would need to graduate the Army War College if he wanted to become China specialist for the military, Sasaki took the entrance test again in 1914, gaining admission. Upon entrance to the college, Sasaki performance in subjects unrelated to Chinese studies, in which he had little interest, was so poor that he was fell into danger of dropping out. Despite this, he succesfully completed his course and graduated from the college in November 1917.
In 1918, he was assigned to the defence force of Japanese-occupied Qingdao, and in 1919, he deserved in Siberia deployment.
As a liason to the KMT during the 1920s
In 1922, he was assigned to the post of military attaché in Guangzhou, which was at that time the base of Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang government. He studied the Kuomintang, and developed close relationships with important members of its leadership. He was later referred to as an 'expert' on the KMT because of the relationships he developed during this time. Sun Yat-sen would later request assistance in forcing back the forces of Chen Jiongming, and Sasaki became one of his military advisors. Sasaki travelled with Sun on his military trains, and observed the KMT's fighting conditions, and was also introduced to Chiang Kai-shek. In Sasaki's 'Autobiography of a Certain Soldier', he claims that, during this time, he proposed the design of what would later become known as the Zhongshan suit.
In 1924, he returned to Japan to serve in the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and as an instructor at the Army War College. Focusing on future of Sun and the KMT, whom he admired, Sasaki published papers suggesting that the KMT would go on to unify China. However, the Imperial Japanese Army was extremely sceptical of Sun, and Sasaki recalls being teased 'Sasaki, where's that revolution of yours?' When Sasaki participated in an lecture held by Shūmei Ōkawa's Jinnmu Kai (a right-wing organisation), he referred to Sun with the honorific sensei, which Okawa criticised as being absurd, and a verbal argument ensued. The two later became friends, and Sasaki's writings were frequently published by Ogawa's organisations. In 1924, Sasaki returned to China to visit Sun Yat-sen, who had become stricken with illness. Sun would go on to die the next year, and Sasaki speculated that this would result in the KMT's unleashing of 'a new level of destructiveness'. Continuing to make numerous trips to China, Sasaki was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1926, and was then assigned to the Japanese Legation in Beijing (then under the control of the KMT's rival, the Beiyang government). Sasaki, who desipised the warlords of the Beiyang government, did not get along with Zhang Zuolin's Japanese military advisors. Around this time, Chiang Kai-shek had taken up leadership of the National Revolutionary Army, had begun the Northern Expedition, and had become an attack on Hankou. In a paper published in April 1927, Sasaki wrote of his expectation that the KMT would successfully united China, but most of his colleagues were pesimistic about that prospect.
In March 1927, following the Nanjing Incident, Sasaki was posted to Nanjing, where it was hoped that his connections with KMT could be used to the advantage of the Japanese. The army had decided to lay the blame for that incident on radical communist fringes, and began to search for a way to co-operate with Chaing Kai-shek. Sasaki was concerned about the destructive force being unleashed by the revolutionary movement, and Iwane Matsui even suggested that he try and become Chiang's military advisor, but Sasaki replied that he would merely be used by Chiang, and declined. During this time, Sasaki moved his base of operations to Shanghai.
In January 1928, Chiang Kai-shek, returned to the position of leader of the Northern Expedition, following a political conflcit whereupon he had stepped down. Sasaki requested permission to embed with the National Revolutionary Army, which was to restart the Northern Expedition, and was granted perimisison to do so from April 1928. The Japanese command was concerned that the advancing NRA, which was approaching the Japanese sphere of influence in Shandong Province, might come into conflict with Japanese forces in the region, and hoped that Sasaki could serve as a liason between the two sides. During this time, the Japanese Shandong Expeditions had heightened anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese, and in May 1928, the two sides came into conflict in the Jinan Incident. Sasaki served as a mediator between the two sides during the incident, and tried to establish a ceasefire. While in this process, he was captured by Chinese soliders, and badly beaten. He was only saved by one Chiang's officers, but this event would have a large impact on Sasaki's view of China. In order to report on the nature of what had occured, Sasaki returned to Japan. Sasaki's words were twisted by newspapers into expressing support for the KMT side, and was treated as a coward and traitor upon his arrival back in Japan. He was thus orded to take leave, but Kanichiro Tashiro requested that return to China, upon which he returned to Nanjing. However, from this point, the Chinese side refused all contact with Sasaki. When Chaing Kai-shek visited the injured Sasaki during the Jinan incident, he expressed distrust in the actions of the Japanese military, and said that his hopes for co-operation with the Japanese military had evaporated. Sasaki wrote to his superiors that if the Chinese tried to evade responsibility for the Jinan incident, the Japanese would have no choice but to respond with force, favouring a hardline approach. Despite this, he was removed from the negotiations. In this way, Sasaki found himself being treated by the Japanese as if he were a KMT spy, and by the Chinese as if he were a spy of the Japanese military. In this way, he fealt that China had not risen to his expectations, and began to shift toward a hardline view on China.
Manchuria
Sasaki claimed that, in 1928, he gave Kōmoto Daisaku the idea for Zhang Zuolin's assination in the Huanggutun incident, suggesting that the death of Zhang would sweep up Manchuria in a revolution that would arouse the Japanese public to interest in Manchuria, but there is no independent verification of this claim.
In April 1929, Sasaki was assigned to the 46th Infantry Regiment. In August 1930, he was elevated to the rank of colonel. In 1931, when he was serving as commander of the Toyohashi 18th Infantry Regiment, he took part in the October incident coup attempt as a liason to coup supporters across Japan. The attempt failed, and Sasaki questioned by the Kempeitai, but he recieved no punishment.
Nanjing Massacre
Sasaki commanded the 13th Brigade (of the 16th Division) during the Battle of Nanjing.
In a 13 December 1937 diary entry, Sasaki described his unit's participation in the Nanjing Massacre:
The number of abandoned enemy bodies in our area today was ten thousand plus thousands more. If we include those [Chinese] whose escape rafts or boats on the Yangzi were sunk by fire from our armored cars, plus POWs killed by our units, our detachment alone must have taken care of over 20,000. We finished the mop-up and secured our rear at about 2:00 p.m. While regrouping, we advanced to Heping Gate. Later, the enemy surrendered in the thousands. Frenzied troops-- rebuffing efforts by superiors to restrain them-- finished off these POWs one after another. Even if they aren’t soldiers [e.g., medics or priests], men would yell, “Kill the whole damn lot!” after recalling the past ten days of bloody fighting in which so many buddies had shed so much blood.
Later life
Following the end of the Second World War, Sasaki was captured by the Soviet Army in Manchuria, and held prisoner. He was later handed over to the Chinese Communist authorities, who held him at the Fushun War Criminals Management Centre in Liaoning Province, where he died of a cerebral haemorrhage on 30 May 1955.
References
Citations
Bibliography
- Tobe, Ryōichi (1999). Nihon rikugun to chūgoku: shinatsū ni miru yume to satetsu (in Japanese). Tokyo: Kodansha.
- Sasaki, Tōichi (1963). Aru gunjin no jiden [Autobiography of a Certain Soldier] (in Japanese). Futsūsha.
- "Sasaki Tōichi". Kotobank: 20th Century Japanese Biographical Dictionary (in Japanese). Retrieved 23 April 2021.
- Fujiwara, Akira (2007). "The Nanking Atrocity: An Interpretive Overview". The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.