Hitoshi Imamura - World War II

World War II

Imamura became the commander of the Sixteenth Army in November 1941, and was directed to lead that army in the invasion of the Netherlands East Indies. As his fleet approached Java, during the invasion, his transport, the Ryujo-maru was sunk by torpedoes (most probably by friendly fire) in the Battle of Sunda Strait and he was forced to swim to shore.

He subsequently assumed command of the new Eighth Area Army - responsible for Seventeenth Army (in the Solomon Islands campaign) and Eighteenth Army (New Guinea campaign) - in late 1942. Imamura was based at Rabaul, New Britain. Imamura adopted an unusually lenient policy towards the local population of the former Netherlands East Indies, often in conflict with senior staff of the Southern Army and Imperial General Headquarters. However, his policies won some support from the population and reduced the difficulties of the occupation.

Imamura was promoted to full General in 1943. Along with the naval commander at Rabaul, Vice Admiral Jinichi Kusaka, Imamura surrendered the Japanese forces in New Guinea and the southern Pacific Islands to Australian forces, representing the Allies, in September 1945.

At the end of the war, Imamura was detained at Rabaul by the Australian Army, as he and troops under his command were accused of war crimes, including the execution of Allied prisoners of war, and were to be held for a military tribunal. In April 1946, Imamura wrote to the Australian commander at Rabaul, requesting that his own trial for war crimes be expedited in order to speed the prosecution of war criminals under his command. Imamura was charged with "unlawfully to discharge his duty...to control the members of his command, whereby they committed brutal atrocities and other high crimes...". He was tried by an Australian military court at Rabaul on May 1–16, 1947; convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment for ten years. Imamura served his imprisonment at Sugamo Prison, in Tokyo, until he was released in 1954.