Yasuji Okamura (15 May 1884 – 2 September 1966) was commander-in-chief of the North China Area Army from 1941 to 1944, succeeding Hayao Tada and preceding Naozaburo Okabe and Commander-in-Chief of the China Expeditionary Army from 1944 to 1945, succeeding Shunroku Hata.
Biography[]
Yasuji Okamura was born on 15 May 1884 in Tokyo, Japan and graduated in 1904 from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy with future war criminals Seishiro Itagaki, Kenji Doihara, and Rikichi Ando. He served in the Russo-Japanese War, and in 1932-1933 he was Vice Chief-of-Staff of the Shanghai Expeditionary Army and imported comfort women from Nagasaki Prefecture to please his IJA troops. In 1941, he was given command of the North China Area Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and was given command of the China Expeditionary Army in 1944. Instead of being tried for war crimes after the end of World War II, he was kept in China as an advisor of Chiang Kai-shek before returning home in 1949. He died in 1966.