Shunroku Hata

Shunroku Hata (July 26, 1879 – May 10, 1962) was a field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. He was appointed as commanding general of the Central China Expeditionary Army in February 1938, to replace General Matsui Iwane. Hata returned to China as commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Army in March 1941 and was the main commander at the time of the Changjiao Massacre. He was awarded the rank of field marshal on June 2, 1944. Hata was arrested by the American occupation authorities after the end of the war, and charged with war crimes. In 1948, as a result of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, he was sentenced to life imprisonment under the charges of conspiracy, waging aggressive war, and disregarding his duty to prevent atrocities. He was paroled in 1955, and died later in 1962.

As the rising sun melts thinly frozen ice, so the Japanese Army is overcoming Chinese troops.

Quotes

• We are against dependence on a change in the international situation for the solution of the China Incident.
  • Quoted in "Tokyo Record" - Page 149 - by Otto David Tolischus - 1943

• I retained no records and I am not a good writer anyhow. So the best approach is for historians like you to extract the facts directly from people like me.
  • Quoted in "Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, 1939" - by Alvin D. Coox - Page 1184 - 1990

• Asia, in cooperation with Europe, is about to take simultaneous action towards realization of a New World Order.
  • Quoted in "The Secret History of the War" - Page 342 - 1945

• The kind of slaughter and violence that we have seen in this war, was in my experience very rare during the Russo-Japanese war. In modern war, the whole people are mobilized. Hence the majority of the troops correspond to the people as a whole. An army in which scandals and atrocities occur in great numbers, must surely reflect a decline in public morality?
  • Quoted in "Singapore, 1941-1942" - Page 269 - by Louis Allen - History - 1993

• As the rising sun melts thinly frozen ice, so the Japanese Army is overcoming Chinese troops.
  • 1939. Quoted in "Objective: Limited" - "Time Magazine" article - December 20, 1943

• I will take responsibility for all operations.
  • Quoted in "The Nebraska State Journal" - Newspaper - December 4, 1945

• We should not miss the present opportunity or we shall be blamed by posterity.
  • Quoted in "Enter Japan" - "Time Magazine" article - July 8, 1940