Otozō Yamada

Biography

Otozō Yamada was born in Nagano Prefecture on 6 November 1881, the third son of Ichikawa Katashi, an accountant in the Imperial Japanese Army. As a child, he was adopted by the Yamada family. He graduated from the 14th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1903, alongside future generals Motoo Furushō and Toshizō Nishio. Promoted to lieutenant in February 1905, he taught as an instructor at the Army Academy, then became a captain in September 1912. He graduated from the 24th class of the Army Staff College in November, with classmates including Kenji Doihara, Kiyoshi Katsuki, Hisao Tani, and Yanagawa Heisuke. As a cavalry officer, his rise was steady. He was promoted to major in June 1918 and appointed an instructor at the Army Cavalry School, then lieutenant-colonel in August 1922. In August 1925, he became colonel and commander of the IJA 26th Cavalry Regiment. In 1926, he served as Chief of Staff of the Chosen Army, and from 1927 to 1930 he worked in the communications section of the 3rd Bureau of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff. Yamada was promoted to major general in August 1930 and made commandant of the Army Cavalry School. From 1931 to 1932, he commanded the IJA 4th Cavalry Brigade, then held administrative posts including commandant of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy until 1937. He received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 2nd class in February 1934 and was promoted to lieutenant general in August 1934. With the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Yamada commanded the IJA 12th Division in Manchukuo, an elite unit with a disproportionately large amount of firepower and heavy equipment. He became commander of the IJA 3rd Army in 1938, then the Central China Expeditionary Army from 1938 to 1939. Promoted to full general in August 1940, he was recalled to Japan as Inspector-General of Military Training from 1940 to 1944 and served on the Supreme War Council. In May 1943, he received the honorific title of Third Court Rank. In 1944, after Prime Minister Hideki Tojo's resignation, Yamada fell from political favor and was reassigned in July to Manchukuo as the final commander of the Kwantung Army, also serving as Japanese ambassador to Manchukuo and Governor-General of the Kwantung Leased Territory. He advised Imperial General Headquarters that holding the border with the Soviet Union was impossible with the forces allocated, as the Kwantung Army had been hollowed out by redeployments to the Pacific. With no aid forthcoming, he organized poorly trained conscripts and volunteers into eight new infantry divisions and seven new infantry brigades, withdrawing from border areas to protect the strategic core. When the Soviet Army invaded Manchuria on 9 August 1945, many of his makeshift forces were no more than 15% combat ready and were quickly overrun. At Japan's surrender, Yamada was taken as a prisoner of war to Khabarovsk in the Soviet Union. He was a defendant in the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials and sentenced to 25 years in a Gulag labor camp for war crimes. During his trial, he admitted to authorizing the use of 'Ishii bombs'—fragile porcelain grenades containing typhus and bubonic plague bacteria developed by Unit 731 for bacteriological warfare. He was also found to have presided over and encouraged biochemical weapon experimentation on involuntary human subjects, resulting in the torture and murder of thousands. In 1950, he was transferred to NKVD special camp No. 48, where a secret Soviet biological weapons facility was established. In December 1956, he was released with the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration normalizing diplomatic relations, repatriated to Japan, and died in 1965.