Shigetarō Shimada

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Shigetarō Shimada (嶋田 繁太郎, Shimada Shigetarō, 24 September 1883 – 7 June 1976) was an admiral in the

A native of Tokyo, Shimada graduated from the 32nd class of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1904. He was ranked 27th out of 192 cadets. One of his classmates was the famous admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.

Shimada served his midshipman duty aboard the submarine tender Karasaki, and the cruiser Izumi, participating in the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War.

Career

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After his commissioning as an ensign on 31 August 1905, he was assigned to the cruisers Niitaka and Otowa, and was promoted to sub-lieutenant on 28 September 1907. After his promotion to lieutenant on 11 October 1909, he served on the battlecruiser Tsukuba and battleship Settsu.

After graduating with highest honors from the

Returning to Japan after the war, Shimada held various staff positions in the 1920s as a staff officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff. He was promoted to commander on 1 December 1920 and assigned as executive officer of the battleship Hyūga in 1922, an instructor at the Naval War College in 1923 and commander of the 7th Submarine Division in 1926.

He was promoted to captain on 1 December 1924, and his first command was the cruiser Tama in 1928, followed by the battleship Hiei later the same year.

Shimada was promoted to

Returning to the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff as a senior staff officer in June 1932, he served as Chief of the Third Department, Naval Intelligence, where he started espionage operations against the US,^[3] and later served concurrently as Chief of the First Department from November 1932 to October 1933 when he assumed total command. Becoming Vice Chief of the Naval General Staff in December 1933, Shimada was promoted to vice admiral on 15 November 1934.

During the late-1930s Shimada's positions included commandant of the

Shimada's power grab, however, gained him many enemies^[who?] in the Navy General Staff and the Emperor's court. Shimada's opponents continuously pressured Emperor Hirohito to dismiss him, citing that the navy was losing battle after battle under Shimada's direction. Hirohito finally made his displeasure with Shimada known to Tōjō in July 1944, shortly after the fall of Saipan. Tōjō immediately asked for Shimada's resignation, and replaced him as Navy Minister with Mitsumasa Yonai on 17 July and as Chief of the General Navy Staff on 2 August.

Although appointed to the Supreme War Council, Shimada retired from active duty on 20 January 1945 remaining in an advisory capacity for the remainder of the war.

Later life and death

After the war, Shimada was arrested by the

References

Bibliography

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• Costello, John (1965). The Pacific War. Harper Perennial.
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• Nishida, Hiroshi. "Imperial Japanese Navy". Retrieved 17 August 2022.
• Parrish, Thomas (2001). S. L. A. Marshall (ed.). The Simon and Schuster Encyclopedia of World War II. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN.
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