Japanese Navy Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue: A Controversial Figure, from the “Left-Wing Trio” to the Bombing of Chongqing
Shigeyoshi Inoue (いのうえ しげよし, December 9, 1889 – December 15, 1975) was the last Fleet Admiral promoted in the Japanese Imperial Aggression War. He executed a strategy of indiscriminate bombing aimed at mass casualties among civilians and spent his post-war life teaching English.
- In $1937$, Mitsumasa Yonai served as Navy Minister, Isoroku Yamamoto as Vice Minister, and Inoue as Chief of the Navy Ministry’s Military Affairs Bureau. Because of their opposition to hostilities with the U.S. and U.K. and opposition to joining the Axis Powers, they were known as the “Left-Wing Trio of the Navy Ministry.”
- However, under the administration of the pro-war faction, Isoroku Yamamoto planned the attack on Pearl Harbor.
- Inoue, meanwhile, was responsible for the Bombing of Chongqing. His primary goal was to undermine the stability of Chiang Kai-shek’s regime through a strategy of terrorizing the population via indiscriminate bombing and mass slaughter of civilians. This campaign later became known as the Bombing of Chongqing, utilizing over $20,000$ bombs, including bacterial weapons. Statistics show that over $12,000$ civilians died in the bombing, and $15,000$ civilians suffered injuries of varying severity.
- In $1943$, Yamamoto was assassinated by the U.S., and Japan quickly began losing the war, leading to the creation of the “Kamikaze Special Attack” tactic, which was advertised as voluntary but for most was: deception, anesthesia, seduction, and forced coercion.
- Yonai quickly recommended Inoue to the Emperor for promotion to Fleet Admiral and President of the Naval Staff College to “prevent Naval Staff College students from joining the Kamikaze Special Attack Unit.”
- However, the pro-war military leaders continued to conscript regular university students to serve as needless suicide members.
After Japan’s surrender, both Inoue and Yonai were acquitted at the Allied military trials due to their past pro-British and pro-American stances.
In his post-war life, Inoue did not utilize his old connections to be active in political or business circles, instead spending his entire life earning a living by teaching English.
When reporters asked him why he did this, he replied: “I am merely a survivor soldier. The military’s single-minded course in the past brought immeasurable suffering to the common people, and I am deeply ashamed of this. Now, English is an indispensable tool for our next generation to establish a foothold in the world. What I am doing is, in fact, atonement… atonement…”
Nevertheless, the invaded people criticized Shigeyoshi Inoue, noting that while he expressed atonement for the Japanese youth sent to their deaths, he never expressed the slightest apology for the mass slaughter of Chinese civilians carried out by the Japanese military under his command.