Hideki Tojo was born in Tokyo, Japan in 30th December 1884. He joined the Japanese Army and his military service included periods in Switzerland and Germany. Tojo was the Prime Minister of Japan when the attack on Pearl Harbor took place plunging the Far East into war which was to end with the destruction of Hiroshima in August 1945. For his part of leading Japan into WWII, Tojo was executed for as a war criminal. Tojo had a similar upbringing to other Japanese boys in the late 1800s. As the third son of his father, Hidenori Tojo a lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army , pressure to succeed in the military should have been relatively low. Unfortunately for Hideki, his two elder brothers had passed away before his birth and so the importance of his success was paramount to him. Tojo had a shaky start to his military career, graduating from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1905, ranked 42nd out of 50 cadets. However with age came experience and knowledge and in 1915 he was promoted to Captain after completing Army Staff College with top grades. After this, Tojo was based in Germany as a military attache for some time and in 1921, returned to Japan to become and instructor at his previous school. It was here that Tojo met his new friends that would further the Toseiha, a political group that attempted to balance out the extremist views of the Kodoha. A graduate of the Imperial Military Academy and the Military Staff College, Tojo served briefly as military attache in Japan's embassy in Berlin after WWI. He was an esteemed administrator and skillful field commander and became noted as a stern disciplinarian. In the 1930s, Hideki Tojo fought in the Sino-Japanese war, leading Japanese forces in occupied Manchuria. He returned to Tokyo in 1940 and held ministerial posts, where he urged an alliance with Germany and Italy against the Allied forces. Tojo became Japan's Prime Minister in 1941 and within two months ordered a surprise attack on U.S. naval forces in Hawaii. (The subsequent attack on Pearl Harbor was planned by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.) Tojo served as the political and military leader of Japan until 1944, when it was clear the direction of the war had changed for the worse. He was forced to resign, which he did on 18 July 1944. After the war he attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest, but he was found by American soldiers and his life was saved. He was tried by a post-war military tribunal, which found Tojo guilty of war crimes. He was executed by hanging on 23 December 1948.
Hideki Tojo as Prime Minister of Japan, Nov 1941
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Hideki Tojo with wife Katsuko and granddaughter Yuko, 1941
Prime Minister Tojo and his cabinet ministers, circa mid-Oct 1941
Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe and his second cabinet at the Kantei, Tokyo, Japan, 22 Jul 1940
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