Takuma Nishimura (1 September 1899 – 11 June 1951) was a Lieutenant-General of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.
Biography[]
Takuma Nishimura was born on 1 September 1899 in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. He helped in the court-martiallng of the officers involved in the murder of Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi, and in 1940 he became a Major-General in the Imperial Japanese Army, leading the Indochina Expeditionary Army in the invasion of French Indochina in 1940. In 1941, Nishimura led Japanese troops in the Malaya campaign, and he killed 155 Australian and Indian troops in the Parit Sulong Massacre of 23 January 1942. At odds with his commander Tomoyuki Yamashita, he was relieved of his command in Singapore later in 1942, but not before he took part in the Sook Ching Massacre. From February 1944 to September 1945, he was Governor of Sumatra, and he surrendered at the end of world War II. Nishimura was tried and executed for war crimes by Australia in 1951, hanged for his role in the Parit Sulong massacre.