Kimura, Heitaró

Kimura, Heitaró

Career beginnings
He was born in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo and grew up in Hiroshima Prefecture. He started his military school from a young age and in 1908 he graduated from the Imperial Army Military Academy. In 1916 he graduated from the Military War College as an artilleryman.
He took part in the Japanese Siberian intervention from 1918 to 1919 and fought against the Red Army. He is then appointed as a military attaché in Berlin.
In the second half of 1928 he was assigned to the Artillery Inspectorate and subsequently as an instructor of the field artillery school.
He was selected as a member of the Japanese delegation to the Conference on Disarmament, which took place in London from 1929 to 1931.
After his return to Japan, he was entrusted with the command of the 22nd Artillery Regiment.
In 1932 he returned to the School of Field Artillery where he worked as an instructor, and he worked in this position until 1934, when he was an instructor at the School of Coastal Artillery.
In 1935, Kimura first moved close to Japanese politics, when he was subsequently appointed head of the control section at the Economic Mobilization Office of the Ministry of War. The following year, he became the head of the arsenal's office.
In 1936 he was awarded the rank of Major General and 1939 Lieutenant General. In the same year, he is given command 32. division in China and held this post until 1940. From 1940 to 1941, Kimura served as Chief of Staff of the Guangdong Army in Manchuria.
In 1941, he returned to the War Department as vice-minister, assisting the Minister of War Tojo Hideki, in planning a strategy for the Second Sino-Japanese War and subsequently for the Pacific War.
From 1943 to 1944, he was a member of the Supreme War Council, where he has a significant influence on politics and other war strategy.


Turnover in the war
In late 1944, as the war turned against Japan after a crushing defeat in Imphal, Kimura was commissioned to command the Burmese army. During this period, Japanese forces are pushed to retreat on all fronts and the Allies have a clear advantage, especially in the air. Reinforcements, support for ammunition and armaments are insufficient. The Imperial General Staff believed that Kimura and his forces would be able to make do with it logistically.
The Japanese military is unable to defend Burma, and Kimura moves beyond the Irrawaddy River to attack the Allies as their supply lines become thin. Unfortunately for him, the Allies had enough material and the main weight of the offensive focused on positions in Meiktila and Mandalay. From that moment on, Kimura was only able to delay action and fighting. He sought to maintain his forces rather than give the order to fight for the capital Rangoon to the last man.


The end of the war and its end
1945 he was promoted to the rank of General and devoted himself to the organization of his forces until the surrender of Japan.
Following Japan's capitulation, Kimura is arrested by Allied forces and charged with the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for committing war crimes. The tribunal indicted his role in planning a strategy for war with China and Southeast Asia. His indictment also mentioned his lax approach in the possibility of preventing atrocities committed against prisoners of war in Burma. Although the Burma Death Railway was built between 1942 and 1943, and Kimura did not come to Burma until 1944, he was accused of being responsible for the deaths of prisoners and civilians during the construction and operation of this railway.
In 1948, he was found guilty of charges 1, 27, 29, 31, 32, 54 and 55. He was sentenced to death and executed by hanging on December 23, 1948 in [ url=/topic/view/103671] Tokyo at Sugamo Prison.

Source:
en.wikipedia.org
http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/
www.generals.dk