Subsequent Political Activity
Yonai served as Deputy Prime Minister and concurrently as Navy Minister again under the cabinet of Prime Minister Kuniaki Koiso from 22 July 1944, during which time he returned to the active duty roster from the reserve list. By this time, Saipan had fallen to the Allies.
Yonai remained Navy Minister under the administration of Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki. In the last few weeks before Japan's surrender, he sided with Prime Minister Suzuki and Foreign Minister Shigenori Tōgō in support of acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration in opposition to Minister of War Korechika Anami, Chief of Naval General Staff Admiral Soemu Toyoda and Chief of the Army General Staff General Yoshijirō Umezu.
Yonai remained Navy Minister in the cabinets of Prime Minister HIH Higashikuni Naruhiko and Prime Minister Kijūrō Shidehara from August 1945, during which time he presided over the final dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
He played a major role during the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in working with the major defendants, such as Hideki Tōjō, to coordinate their testimonies so that Emperor Hirohito would be spared from indictment. According to his interpreter Suichi Mizota, in March 1946 Bonner Fellers asked him to make Tōjō bear all responsibility for the Greater East Asia War After the war, Yonai devoted rest of his life to help to rebuild devastated Japan.
Yonai suffered from high blood pressure most of his life, but he died of pneumonia in 1948 at the age of 68. His grave is located at the temple of Enko-ji in his hometown of Morioka.
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