Shigenori Kuroda (25 October 1887 – 30 April 1964) was a General in the Imperial Japanese Army who served as the Japanese Governor-General of the Philippines from 28 May 1943 to 26 September 1944, succeeding Shizuichi Tanaka and preceding Tomoyuki Yamashita, both of whom were in his class in 1916 at the Army War College.
Biography[]
Shigenori Kuroda was born on 25 October 1887 in Fukuoka, Japan, and he graduated from the Army War College in 1916 in the same class as Shizuichi Tanaka and Tomoyuki Yamashita, his future predecessor and successor, respectively, as Governor-General of the Philippines. Kuroda was a military observer in Europe during World War I, and he served as a military attache to both the United Kingdom and its British Raj dominion in India during the Interwar Years. In 1937, he was promoted to Major-General and made Deputy Inspector General for Military Training in 1941, serving under Otozo Yamada. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, he commanded the Southern Expeditionary Army Group, and he was later sent to govern the Philippines from 1943 to 1944. Kuroda's ideas for defending the Philippines against the United States in late 1944 were rejected, leading to Yamashita replacing him. He was arrested in 1946 and sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes, but he was released in 1952, dying later that year.