Kesago Nakajima

Kesago Nakajima
Kesago Nakajima
	General
Commands held	IJA 16th Division, IJA 4th Army
Battles/wars	Russo-Japanese War; Second Sino-Japanese War;

Kesago Nakajima (中島今朝吾, Nakajima Kesago, 15 June 1881 – 28 October 1945) was a lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Japanese forces under Nakajima's command committed the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.

Biography

A native of

Oita prefecture, Nakajima attended military preparatory schools as a youth, and graduated from the 15th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1903. He served in combat in the Russo-Japanese War. After the war, he attended the Army War College (Japan), and graduated from the 25th class in 1913. From July 1918 to May 1923, he was stationed in France as a military attaché. He was promoted to major general in April 1932 and was appointed commander of the Maizuru Army District, responsible for the defenses of Honshū’s coast along the Sea of Japan.^[1]

Nakajima served as commandant of the

Nanjing massacre. His wartime diary, published in 1985, has proved to be an important source of evidence for the events of the Nanjing massacre.^{[citation needed}

]

Nakaijma was subsequently at the

Japanese Fourth Army in Manchukuo

from 1938 to 1939.

Recalled to Japan in 1939, Nakajima retired in September 1939 and died in October 1945 of illness.