Jōtarō Watanabe

Jōtarō Watanabe
Jōtarō Watanabe
	General
Commands held	7th Division; Taiwan Army; Inspector General of Military Training
Battles/wars	Russo-Japanese War

Jōtarō Watanabe (渡辺錠太郎, Watanabe Jōtarō, April 16, 1874 – February 26, 1936) was a general in the early

February 26 Incident

.

Biography

Early career

Watanabe was a native of

Komaki, Aichi, as the eldest of a tobacco merchant, Wada Takeemon. His father went bankrupt, and Watanabe was forced to quit middle school and was adopted by a farmer named Watanabe Shobei, taking his surname at the age of 19. At the age of 20 he was accepted as an officer cadet and graduated from the 8th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy

in June 1897.

On graduation, he was assigned to the IJA 19th Infantry Regiment and was promoted to lieutenant in November 1899. He entered the 17th class of the Army Staff College in December 1900. On graduation at the head of his class in December 1903, he was promoted to captain, and made a squad leader in the IJA 36th Infantry Regiment, which he accompanied to Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

At the end of the war, he was reassigned to the

Imperial Japanese Army General Staff. In November 1910, Field Marshal Yamagata again requested that Watanabe be appointed as his aide, and Watanabe served Yamagata again until February 1915. In the interim, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel

in June 1913.

In February 1915, after the start of

mechanized warfare

.

As general

In August 1920, Watanabe was promoted to

Imperial Japanese Army Air Force, and from June 1930 was the commander of the Taiwan Army

.

In August 1931, Watanabe was recalled to Tokyo and promoted to full general and military councilor with oversight over Army aviation. In July 1935, he was promoted to one of the most prestigious posts within the Imperial Japanese Army, that of

February 26 Incident, machine-gunning him to death in front of his wife and daughter. His grave is at Tama Cemetery in Tokyo. His daughter, Kazuko, was a classmate of future Empress Michiko

, and later became a Catholic nun.

Watanabe was posthumously awarded the Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers and given the honorific title of Junior Second Court Rank.^[2]