Imamura Hōsaku (Japanese: 今村方策, January 4, 1900 – April 24, 1949) was a Japanese military officer in the

Kwantung Army The Kwantung Army (Japanese language, Japanese: 関東軍, ''Kantō-gun'') was a Armies of the Imperial Japanese Army, general army of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1919 to 1945. The Kwantung Army was formed in 1906 as a security force for th ...

who was most notable for staying on in China after the

surrender of Japan The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was Hirohito surrender broadcast, announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally Japanese Instrument of Surrender, signed on 2 September 1945, End of World War II in Asia, ending ...

on August 15, 1945. He and many of his fellow Japanese soldiers became mercenaries in the employ of the pro-

Nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...

warlord of

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

Yan Xishan Yan Xishan (; 8 October 1883 – 22 July 1960; also romanized as Yen Hsi-shan) was a Chinese warlord who served in the government of the Republic of China from June 1949 to March 1950 as its last premier in mainland China and first premi ...

, after the resumption of the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led Nationalist government, government of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Armed conflict continued intermitt ...

. Imamura fought against the Communist forces until his death in battle in the closing weeks of the civil war.

Personal background

Imamura was born on January 4, 1900, in

Sendai, Miyagi is the capital city of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,098,335 in 539,698 households, making it the twelfth most populated city in Japan. The modern city was founded in 1600 by th ...

Prefecture. His father was a judge. He graduated from the

Imperial Japanese Army Academy The was the principal officer's training school for the Imperial Japanese Army. The programme consisted of a junior course for graduates of local army cadet schools and for those who had completed four years of middle school, and a senior course f ...

in 1913. Imamura reached the rank of lieutenant-general in the Kwantung Army. His older brother was

Imamura Hitoshi was a Japanese general who served in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, and was subsequently convicted of war crimes. Finding his punishment to be too light, Imamura built a replica of his prison in his garden and confined himself ...

, a general in the Japanese Army who was Deputy Chief of Staff in the Kwantung Army in the 1930s and later served as the commander of the

Japanese Sixteenth Army The was an army of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. History The Japanese 16th Army was formed on November 5, 1941, under the Southern Expeditionary Army Group to coordinate the infantry divisions and other Japanese ground forces ...

, which invaded the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

The Chinese Civil War

Imamura served at the rank of general in Yan Xishan's Nationalist army, and defended

Taiyuan Taiyuan; Mandarin pronunciation: (Jin Chinese, Taiyuan Jin: /tʰai˦˥ ye˩˩/) is the capital of Shanxi, China. Taiyuan is the political, economic, cultural and international exchange center of Shanxi Province. It is an industrial base foc ...

, the capital of Shanxi. In April, 1949, the Communists launched a final attack against Taiyuan's last defenders that included over 1,300 pieces of artillery and a force three times larger than the Nationalist defenders. Yan Xishan himself (along with most of the provincial treasury) was airlifted out of Taiyuan in March 1949 to ask Chiang Kai-shek for more supplies. He left his son-in-law, Wang Jingguo, and Imamura in charge of his forces. Shortly after Yan was airlifted out of Taiyuan, Nationalist planes stopped dropping food and supplies for the defenders due to fears of being shot down by the advancing

Communists Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, d ...

. The Communists launched a major assault on April 20, 1949, and succeeded in taking all positions surrounding Taiyuan by April 22. The Communists appealed to the defenders to surrender, a plea which was rejected by Wang and Imamura. On the morning of April 22, 1949, the PLA bombarded Taiyuan with 1,300 pieces of artillery and breached the city's walls, initiating bloody street-to-street fighting for control of the city. At 10:00 am, April 22, the Taiyuan Campaign ended with the Communists in complete control of Shanxi. Total Nationalist casualties amounted to all 145,000 defenders, many of whom were taken as POWs. Imamura and many of his fellow Japanese volunteers committed suicide rather than surrender. Wang was captured alive and was last seen being led through the streets at the end of a rope.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Imamura, Hosaku 1900 births 1949 deaths 1949 suicides National Revolutionary Army generals Imperial Japanese Army personnel of World War II Japanese Army officers Japanese anti-communists Japanese military personnel who died by suicide Members of the Kwantung Army Mercenaries killed in action People of the Chinese Civil War