tainly one of the better Confederate leaders of
his grade. His memory was perpetuated by
the creation of Hoke County, North Carolina,
in 1911.
See also
Bragg, Braxton; Davis, Jefferson; Johnston, Joseph E.;
Lee, Robert E.
Bibliography
Ballard, Michael B. “The 1864 Siege of Plymouth: A
Good Time to Pray.” Civil War Times Illustrated25,
no. 2 (1986): 16–25; Barefoot, Daniel W. General
Robert F. Hoke: Lee’s Modest Warrior.Winston-
Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1996; Barrett, John G. The
Civil War in North Carolina.Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1963; Bradley, Mark L. Last
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June, 1864.Newark: University of Delaware Press,
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Siege of Petersburg.Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
1981; Trudeau, Noah A. The Last Citadel: Peters-
burg, Virginia, June 1864–April 1864. Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993.HOMMA, MASAHARU
Homma, Masaharu
(November 27, 1888–April 3, 1946)
Japanese General
T
he cultured, intellectual Homma was
the most Westernized senior Japanese
leader of World War II. He conquered
the Philippines in 1942, although he had been
assigned insufficient forces in an attempt to
disgrace him. After the war Homma gained
lasting infamy as the officer held responsi-
ble—guilty or not—for the Bataan Death
March.
Masaharu Homma was born in Niagata pre-
fecture on November 27, 1888, the son of an
affluent landowner. After graduating from the
Imperial Military Academy in 1907, he served
competently for several years as a line officer.
In 1915, Homma was selected to pass through
the Army Staff College and, being fluent in En-
glish, subsequently joined the British Expedi-
tionary Force three years later as an observer.
By 1922, he had risen to major and gained an
appointment as a resident officer in British
India. Homma advanced to lieutenant colonel
in 1926 and taught several years at the Army
Staff College as an authority on English and
American armed forces. Despite his reputa-
tion for being decisively Western-oriented, he
fulfilled all his assignments with distinction,
and in 1927 he became a military aide to
Prince Chichibu, younger brother of Emperor
Hirohito.
By 1930, Homma was a full colonel and Ja-
panese military attaché in London. In this ca-
pacity he accompanied the Japanese delega-
tion to the Geneva Disarmament Conference
of 1932, convened in the hopes of averting
large-scale warfare between nations. There-
after, he was billeted as chief of the press
section with the Army Ministry, a regimental
commander, and a major general. He re-
ceived his first combat command in 1938 as
head of an infantry division during the Sino-
Japanese War. This came about despite his
denunciation of the conflict and secret at-