Generals Photos

[Matteus]

For those of you who are interested in biographical and photographic records of Imperial Japanese flag and general officers, the U.S. National Archives has a very, very, extensive collection of both kinds of material.

Hello Wellgunde,
thanks i used to be there (virtually) but had problems to find anything. Could you give me a hint or link?
they have too much stuff over there, it seems.

@VJK: Thanks!


meanwhile i found an interesting group photo here: http://www.geocities.jp/torikai007/war/1944/imphal.html
and another name confusion. The description says:

JAPANESE FIFTEENTH ARMY COMMANDER AND STAFF. Seen left to right, front row, are Lt. Gen. Genzo Yanagida, Commander, 33d Division, General Tanaka, Commander, 18th Division, General Mutaguchi, Commander, Fifteenth Army, Lt. Gen. Sukezo Matsuyama, Commander, 56th Division, and Lt. Gen. Kotoku Sato, Commander, 31st Division.

Now Matsuyama: Is his first name Yuzo or Sukezo? http://generals.dk/general/Matsuyama/Yuzo/Japan.html



The person with the tropical helmet in 2nd row is btw. Obata.

+ another Un-ID'd person here: http://bbs.artron.net/thread-1910503-1-1.html


kind regards,
Matteus

[Wellgunde]

Attn: Matteus

A search of NARA’s online catalog of “Japanese army officers” returns the following: http://research.archives.gov/search?exp ... source=all
Unfortunately, this search returns materials pre and post World War II.

Very little of this material is online. There are three major categories:
1. online holdings (462 results);
2. description only (2,435 results; and
3. archives.gov (mostly blog and press releases from NARA

Selecting description only, brings you here: http://research.archives.gov/search?exp ... scriptions

There are two publications which are essential with regards to Japanese Army Officers.

The first is Allied Translator and Intrepreter Section (ATIS) Publication No. 2. This publication contains is a translation of the master IJA officer register and contains a list of every IJA officer on active duty in 1943. It lists the officer, his assignment, and date of assignment. Two supplements of corrections, additions, and deletions were issued updating the publication to early 1944. Recovery of the original document was considered one of the great intelligence coups of the war, second perhaps only to the ULTRA comint effort. Capture of this document allowed the U.S. to reconstruct the entire Japanese order of battle. I have attached a scan of the title page of the original. ATIS-2 is a huge work; I think it is somewhere around 650 pages.

The second important collection is the Japanese Personnel History Cards which include all known information on Japanese officers recovered throughout the war. They are basically biographies. They may (I have not yet seen them) include photographs.

If you are one of the people to whom this topic is of paramount interest then you must visit NARA (or find someone to visit for you). NARA is where the mother lode is.

I believe JACAR has extensive IJA promotion, transfer, and assignment lists but I have not had time to investigate this source. They are of course in Japanese.

I have suggested to NARA that they place ATIS-2 on-line. If others were to write or email NARA in the same vein we might have more success.

Wellgunde

[VJK]

Hi Matteus,

The unidentified General at http://bbs.artron.net/thread-1910503-1-1.html is Banzai Kazuyoshi. This raises a problem. He doesn't appear to be the same person as shown in http://www.generals.dk/general/Banzai/Ichiro, which we have hitherto accepted as the definitive pic of Banzai. Which one is correct?

Kind regards,

VJK

[Matteus]

@Wellgunde: Sorry i won't travel to the US

you see we do some low-level research, just putting images on names, that's it.


@VJK:

No real idea, my problem is that i rely on translation machines and generals.dk + wiki (+ a bit of experience).

so these two people are not the same.

erm, i made a google search with the Kanji letters for Banzai from generals.dk https://www.google.de/search?q=%E5%9D%8 ... 00&bih=732


and this person also shows up: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9D%82% ... B%E9%83%8E

if i copy the image (it has latin letters) i get Banzai_Rihachiro.jpeg. i think this is our man. (i just imagine that the symbols/letters for Rihachiro and Ichiro are rather similar. my phonetics course at uni is a while back, though).

also: http://tupian.baike.com/a1_07_49_012000 ... =so_tupian


it's more or less guessing, though. maybe even his brother: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9D%82% ... 0%E8%89%AF

kind regards,
Matteus


EDIT: the original source of the generals.dk pic is btw this forum: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=101314


EDIT2: Is the name Banzai Ichiro actually correct? i found this source http://books.google.de/books?id=3US4D1p ... hi&f=false
referring to Sakanishi Kazuyoshi as military attaché. Who is (as per wiki) a relative of Sakanishi Rihachiro (the old person). sorry my lacking language skills prevent me from solving the riddle definately.


EDIT 3: sorry for the confused posting. the young person is the one who signed the Tripartite pact, no matter how he is really called. i found him here: http://www.bildarchivaustria.at/Pages/S ... p_ItemID=1

[VJK]

Hi Matteus,

Banzai Rihachiro (坂西 利八郎) is the adoptive father of Banzai Kazuyoshi (坂西 一良). The latter has a number of possible translations (surname Banzai or Sakanishi, name Kazuyoshi or Ichiro), but if we accept Banzai Rihachiro as being correct (more sites have him as Banzai than Sakanishi), then it would make sense that his adopted son is also Banzai. Googling "Banzai" and "Military Attache" the majority of sites have him as Ichiro. Also, as Steen states on his generals.dk site, the name spelling follows that of Richard Fuller's Shokan : Hirohito's Samurai .
Now we "only" have the problem of the conflicting pictures! Since Banzai Ichiro was definately Military Attache to Germany, it would make sense that he is the person in the pics at the Military Convention signing ceremony on 18 Jan 1942 (not the Tripartite Pact - that was signed on 27 Sep 1940, when Banzai was not yet Military Attache). So we return to the question of who is the mystery General who started this discussion? Perhaps it is the hitherto unseen Seki Kameji, who was the previous Commander of the 20th Army before Banzai.

Kind regards,

VJK

[Matteus]

Hi VJK,

i do not think the images are conflicting. I buy the ID of Banzai Ichiro/Kazuyoshi. The older man is from a strange source, without any text or description and Banzai Rihachiro is all i can "offer", so i do not know if we can solve this. It could be anybody? No date given, no other description, no source. So it's impossible to identify, i think.

As a last Hurray i upload both images in one to look at, but pessimistic. I'd doubt Seki as well, since he was born in 1886. Our man looks older? - I mean he's more Rundstedt than Manstein, to put it german.


kind regards,
Matteus


EDIT: Nose and eyebrows could match, when i look at it

[VJK]

Hi Matteus,

Just to try and put things straight (if that is possible):
Banzai Ichiro was the son of Ineda Kiyoaki, a medical officer who died in 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War. His brother was the later Lt. General Ineda Masazumi. Banzai Rihachiro adopted Ichiro and obviously gave him his surname.
The elderly gentleman in civil clothing is Banzai Rihachiro, who retired from the Army as a Lt. General in 1927 and served as a member of the House of Lords until 1946.
The Lt. General signing the Convention is Banzai Ichiro.
The mystery General is cited as Commander of the 20th Army, Banzai Ichiro. I don’t know what basis that site used to come to that conclusion.

Kind regards,

VJK

[Matteus]

Hi VJK,

yes i missed the description in this forum, but i clearly understood the rest. I only think following this person is kind of pointless ATM, since we have close to nothing for comparison. Thats it. Let us make a mental note and put it on the shelf and wait. I do not have any other idea than Banzai Rihachiro, and this was already made in desperation.


kind regards,
Matteus

[Matteus]

some more.

unidentified: http://imperialjapanesehistory.tumblr.c ... -with-many
some from here: http://www.photo-war.com/eng/archives/a ... htm?page=1

kind regards,
Matteus

[Matteus]

some more including somebody i failed to ID: Imperial Guard Commander, Lt. General S Kagetsu.

source: http://dazui6225.tumblr.com/post/761251 ... rial-guard

Maruyama Masao: http://nipponnews.photoshelter.com/sear ... ACT=search

kind regards,
Matteus

[VJK]

Hi Matteus,

Your mystery man "Kagetsu" is Katsuki Kiyoshi.

Kind regards,

VJK

[Matteus]

Hi VJK,

many thanks for the help, i should have realized myself!

i searched ebay a bit. Hayashi and three other generals, one i think is Sasaki Minoru. Others unknown.


Kind regards,
Matteus

[Matteus]

2 more. CO's of the 28th Division.

Nomi Toshio
Kushibuchi Senichi

source: http://www.geocities.jp/fujimoto_yasuhi ... n/st13.htm


kind regards,
Matteus

[VJK]

5 Lt. Generals:

Endo Saburo: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%81%A0% ... %E4%BA%BA)
Fukuda Kesao: cannot now find the source
Hamamoto Kisaburo: cannot now find the source
Horii Tomitaro: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A0%80% ... A%E9%83%8E
Isa Kazuo: cannot now find the source

Kind regards,

VJK

[Steen Ammentorp]

Hi Matteus,

Excellent thread! And very useful in order to ID and to get a face on the generals – once of course when we get past the problems with the names. The problem is – as our Japanese co-members has pointed several times on this forum – that the kanjis has several readings making impossible to estab-lish the correct name just from how the name is written with kanji.

In regards to the names on Generals.dk I has – as VJK writes – tried to follow names as given in Richard Fullers: ‘Shokan Hirohito’s Samurai : Leaders of the Japanese Armed Forces, 1926-1945’ and his later ‘Japanese Generals 1926-1945’ (last one also cite my site as a source so is becomes somewhat circular when trying to get the name right). This is the basis for the names used in the Japanese section along with information provided by VJK – and then of course cross-reference with numerous non-Japanese sources in order to establish the name.

However, in many cases the name listed on Generals.dk is I must admit a guess – a qualified one I hope – but a guess nevertheless. Therefore, I do apologies for any mistakes.

I am currently in the process of revising the names of the Japanese generals as more and more Japanese online sources (among others the Sakurataro database and wiki) provides beside the name of the general written with kanjis also how it is written in Hiragana/katakana the phonetic alphabets, which can be transcribed into the Latin alphabet, thus giving only ONE reading of the name.

So far I have been through nearly 900 of the about 2000 Japanese generals listed on my site. Sadly I must admit that I have found quite a few names were my guess, good as it may have been, was wrong . I am working hard on getting through all of the names and have the database corrected. I hope to have an update soon.

Until then

Regarding BANZAI Ichiryo – please note that I have made a typo by omitting the y in Ichiryo on my site – sorry . Then all Japanese sites that I have encountered write his name like this ばんざい いちりょう in hiragana – which reads BANZAI Ichiryo and not BANZAI Kazuyoshi or SAKANISHI Ichiro, both listed separately in Fuller’s Shokan but only once in his later book under BANZAI Ichiryo.

This however does not bring us closer to how the unidentified general is, though I do not think that Banzai Rihachiro either. I was seen a number of photos of him none on which he wears glasses.

Edit: I wrote katakana when I meant hiragana.