Rensuke Isogai (3 September 1886 – 6 June 1967) was Governor of Hong Kong from 20 February 1942 to 24 December 1944 under the Empire of Japan, succeeding Takashi Sakai and preceding Hisakazu Tanaka.
Biography[]
Rensuke Isogai was born on 3 September 1886 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. He attended the Imperial Japanese Army Academy with Seishiro Itagaki and Kenji Doihara, the class of 1904, and in 1937 he was given command of the IJA 10th Division during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Shortly before the Nomonhan Incident, he served as Chief-of-Staff of the Kwantung Army, but in 1939 he was recalled to Japan and forced into retirement. Isogai was later sent to serve as Governor of Hong Kong during its Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1944 during World War II, introducing Sunday horseracing to the people of Hong Kong, lightening the mood of the younger Hong Kongers. He also made the facade of the Government House in Hong Kong with Japanese architecture, and his life imprisonment sentence after the war was dropped in 1952, and he was allowed to return to Japan. He died in 1967.