thermore, when Roosevelt declared that sanc-
tions would remain in place until Japan evac-
uated the Chinese mainland, Tojo realized his
only alternatives were surrender or war. In
concert with Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, he
approved an attack against naval installations
at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to neutralize the
American fleet. Major offensive actions in
Burma, Malaysia, and the Philippines were
also planned.
On December 7, 1941, the Pacific War com-
menced with a devastating aerial strike upon
Pearl Harbor by carrier forces under Adm.
Chuichi Nagumo. This was followed up by
lightning advances across the Pacific. British
and American forces crumbled under the on-
slaught, and by May 1942 the major outposts
of Singapore and Corregidor had fallen to
Gens. Tomoyuki Yamashitaand Masaharu
Homma. These seemingly easy conquests
boosted Tojo’s prestige at home and lent
greater acceptance to his views on the legiti-
macy of force. By June 1942, however, the de-
cisive American victory at Midway had
stopped Japanese expansion in its tracks.
That fall U.S. forces were successfully bat-
tling Japanese army and naval forces for con-
trol of Guadalcanal, and a successive string of
defeats ensued. Nonetheless, Tojo remained
cheerily optimistic about the war effort and
secured for himself additional posts of mili-
tary procurement minister and chief of staff.
He coordinated the war effort with surprising
efficiency, but to no avail. The July 1944
American conquest of Saipan meant that U.S.
long-range heavy bombers could now reach
the Japanese homeland. Consequently, Prince
Konoe demanded and obtained Tojo’s resigna-
tion as prime minister. Thereafter, he con-
tented himself with military procurement
matters and conducted his affairs with char-
acteristic energy and dispatch.
The final months of World War II proved
anticlimactic for Tojo, and he maintained a
low profile after Japan’s surrender in Septem-
ber 1945. When occupation authorities visited
his residence with an arrest warrant, he tried
and failed to kill himself. Tojo was subse-
quently put on trial by an international war
crimes tribunal and found guilty of high
crimes against humanity. Sentenced to death,
the former militant was contrite and accepted
responsibility for war to absolve the emperor
of any blame. The diminutive, bespectacled,
and closely cropped “Razor” went to the gal-
lows on December 23, 1948. One of his final
acts was reciting the Buddhist rosary as an
act of repentance.Bibliography
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