SNA (Tokyo) — Imperial Army officer Kuniaki Koiso became prime minister well after Japan’s position in the Pacific War had already become hopeless. It took him months to reach this understanding personally, and when he ultimately came to realize that his own ability to command the situation was also close to zero, he stepped down.

Transcript

On July 22, 1944, Kuniaki Koiso became Prime Minister of Japan.

He was another Imperial Army officer and was serving as Governor-General of Korea at the time of his appointment. Former Prime Minister Mitsumasa Yonai was brought in to command the Imperial Navy and also to serve as a balance by those who distrusted Koiso.

When Koiso was fully briefed about the situation of the Pacific War, he let slip a comment that he had no idea Japan was losing so decisively.

Koiso’s overall views were similar to those of his predecessor, Hideki Tojo. He generally hoped that massive casualties might be inflicted upon U.S. forces, causing them to negotiate an end to the war.

But Koiso’s personal authority was much weaker than Tojo’s had been, and he had almost no one on his side. Even the senior officers of the Imperial Army showed him little deference, provided him with few details about their war plans, and speculated among themselves that his term as prime minister would probably last about two months before he was pushed out.

As a result, every scheme Koiso devised to reform the military command and to end the damaging rivalry between the Army and Navy came to nothing. A Supreme War Guidance Council was created, but it was effectively just a new name, not a new decision-making structure.

On September 7, 1944, he issued the Koiso Statement, indicating that Imperial Japan would grant Indonesia its independence in the near future. It also allowed independence leaders to fly their own flags. This was intended to give substance to Japan’s claim that it aimed for the liberation of Asia from Western colonialism.

In late October, US General Douglas MacArthur made good on his promise to return to the Philippines, landing his forces and launching the reconquest of the archipelago. In the Battle of Leyte Gulf what remained of the Imperial Japanese Navy was utterly destroyed. Even the appearance of the first kamikaze attacks did little to turn the tide, and Koiso’s own attempts to coordinate the defense were a humiliating failure.

In the following month, the US Air Force began more sustained bombing attacks against military and industrial targets on the main islands. While Japanese air defenses remained intact, the war had truly come home, and the sense of impending defeat became more tangible.

The situation became much worse on March 10, 1945, when US General Curtis LeMay unleashed a firebombing of Tokyo with a force of 279 bomber aircraft. This was a terror attack aimed directly at the civilian population of Japan—an indisputable war crime of the first order—which was justified as an attempt to damage Japanese morale and bring the war to an end.

Amidst the devastation, Koiso had run out of both military and diplomatic ideas to rescue the nation, and no one was taking him seriously. Even his own cabinet ministers blocked his final scheme to try to arrange a peace agreement with China.

When US forces landed at Okinawa at the beginning of April, he was effectively cut out of all military decision-making.

Understanding the hopelessness of his position, Kuniaki Koiso resigned as Prime Minister on April 7, 1945. He had served for 260 days.

After the war, Koiso was convicted by the occupation forces as a Class A War Criminal and handed a life sentence.

He died of cancer in Sugamo Prison in November 1950.

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