Why was hideki tojo important

Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Hirohito was emperor of Japan from until his death in He took over at a time of rising democratic sentiment, but his country soon turned toward ultra-nationalism and militarism. After the April 9, U. Marines stormed the beaches of the strategically significant Japanese island of Saipan, with a goal of gaining a crucial air base from which the U. In June , Japan had seized the remote, sparsely inhabited islands of Attu Army and U.

Marine Corps troops descended on the Pacific island of Okinawa The Battle of Midway was an epic clash between the U. The U. On September 15, , U. Over the next several weeks, ferocious Japanese resistance inflicted heavy casualties on U.

When they fell, we followed along and spat on them. And now we have virtually forgotten about them. In the end, Tojo was found guilty on various counts of waging wars of aggression in violation of international law and of ordering inhumane treatment of prisoners of war and others. He and six other defendants were sentenced to death and the rest to prison sentences.

Many others were tried in other proceedings and either executed or imprisoned. MacArthur declined to commute the death sentences, a decision he found very difficult to make, and Tojo and the six others were hanged in the Sugamo Prison. On the scaffold they wore American army work clothes with no insignia of any sort. His remains were buried in the Yasukuni Shrine with those of more than two million Japanese war dead, including more than 1, convicted war criminals. Visits to the shrine by Japanese prime ministers and leading politicians still cause controversy.

Tojo Hideki Executed. Popular articles. When the Men Came Marching Home. Fact File. Student Activities. Table of Contents. Add a header to begin generating the table of contents. Who was Hideki Tojo? How was Hideki Tojo promoted in the Japanese military? Why did Hideki Tojo resign? Why was Hideki Tojo executed? Key Facts And Information. The Pearl Harbor attack marked the beginning of the Pacific War, which would continue until America and Britain began to take action that suggested they were close to war with Japan in late , prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Tojo became Kwantung Army chief of staff in Key Facts In , Tojo became army vice minister and in he became army minister.

Tojo wanted an alliance between Japan, Germany and Italy and pushed for it in the government. Tojo wanted to create a dictatorship like those of Joseph Stalin in Russia and Adolf Hitler in Germany but he was not successful. He was forced to resign on 18 July, , after the fall of Saipan to the Allied Forces on 9 July, Assassination plots began to surface in the summer of , but they were not successful.

Many expected Tojo to commit suicide. Tojo was tried for war crimes, found guilty and sentenced to death. Hideki Tojo was hanged on 23 December, His years in power gave him the tools for perpetuating numerous war crimes including the systematic massacre and starvation of civilians and prisoners of war.

He was hanged on 23 December In this period, Japanese society was divided into four castes: Merchants, Artisans, Peasants and Samurai. After the Meiji Restoration in , the caste system was slowly abolished, ending in but the distinctions remained and persisted.

His father was turned from samurai to army officer while his mother was the daughter of a Buddhist priest, making the family respectable, but poor. This message was relentlessly drilled into Japanese students. They made the generation believe that war was the most beautiful thing, that the Emperor was a living god and that the greatest honour was to die for him.

The girls were taught that the highest honour for a woman was to have many sons so that they could die for the Emperor. The schools in the Meiji era were very competitive, and there was no tradition of sympathy for failure.