Kesago Nakajima

Infobox Military Person
name= Kesago Nakajima
lived= 15 June 1881 - 28 October, 1945
placeofbirth=Oita prefecture, Japan
placeofdeath=


caption=General Kesago Nakajima
nickname=
allegiance=Empire of Japan
branch=
serviceyears=1903 -1939
rank=General
commands=IJA 16th Division, IJA 4th Army
unit=
battles= Russo-Japanese War
Second Sino-Japanese War
family=
laterwork=nihongo|Kesago Nakajima |中島 今朝吾| Nakajima Kesago|extra= 15 June 1881 - 28 October, 1945 was a lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and has been implicated in the Nanjing massacre of December 1937.

Biography

A native of Oita prefecture, Nakajima attended military preparatory schools as a youth, and graduated from the 15th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1903. He served in combat in the Russo-Japanese War. After the war, he attended the Army War College (Japan), and graduated from the 25th class in 1913. From July 1918 to May 1923, he was stationed in France as a military attaché. He was promoted to major general in April 1932 and appointed commander of the Maizuru Army District, responsible for the defenses of Honshu’s coast along the Sea of Japan. [Ammenthorp, The Generals of World War I]

Nakajima served commandant of the Narashino Chemical Warfare School from 1933 to 1936. In March 1936, he was promoted to lieutenant general and was appointed a Provost Marshal. With the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Nakajima was appointed commander of the IJA 16th Division, and participated in the Second Shanghai Incident and operations in Hebei, China. Under the elderly General Iwane Matsui, Nakajima was named Operational Commander in the Battle of Nanjing in late-1937 was thus the senior officer (aside from nominal commander in chief Prince Asaka) at the time of the Nanjing massacre. His wartime diary, published in 1985, has proved to be an important source of evidence for the events of the Nanjing massacre.

Nakaijma was subsequently at the Battle of Wuhan before being transferred to take command of the Japanese Fourth Army, in Manchukuo from 1938 to 1939.

Recalled to Japan in 1939, Nakajima retired in September 1939 and died in October 1945 of illness.

References

Books

*cite book
last = Bix
first = Herbert B
year = 2001
title = Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
publisher = Harper Perennial
location =
id = ISBN 0-06-093130-2
*cite book
last = Dorn
first = Frank
coauthors =
year = 1974
title = The Sino-Japanese War, 1937-41: From Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor
publisher = MacMillan.
location =
id = ISBN: 0025322001

External links

*cite web
last = Ammenthorp
first = Steen
url = http://www.generals.dk/general/Nakajima/Kesago/Japan.html
title = Kesago Nakajima
work = The Generals of World War II

Notes