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This Day in History
Feb 10
World War II
Japanese sub bombards Midway, 1942
On this day, a Japanese submarine launches a brutal attack on Midway, a coral atoll used as a U.S. Navy base. It was the fourth bombing of the atoll by…
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Koiso Kuniaki
(born April 1, 1880, Utsunomiya, Japan—died Nov. 3, 1950, Tokyo) Japanese army general and prime minister during the final phase of World War II.
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Higashikuni Naruhiko
(born February 3, 1887, Kyoto, Japan—died January 20, 1990, Tokyo) Japanese imperial prince and army commander who was Japan's first prime minister after the country's surrender in World War II (August 17–October 6, 1945).
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Yamagata Aritomo
(born Aug. 3, 1838, Hagi, Japan—died Feb. 1, 1922, Tokyo) Japanese soldier and statesman who exerted a strong influence in Japan's emergence as a formidable military power at the beginning of the 20th century.
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Homma Masaharu
(born Nov. 27, 1887, Sado, Japan—died April 3, 1946, Los Baños, Luzon, Phil.) Japanese army general and commander of the Japanese invasion force of the Philippine Islands in World War II.
(Born Jan. 18, 1868, Osaka, Japan—died April 17, 1948, Chiyo) the last premier (April–August 1945) of Japan during World War II, who was forced to surrender to the Allies.
A veteran of the Sino-Japanese (1894–95) and Russo-Japanese (1904–05) wars, Suzuki was promoted to the rank of admiral in 1923 and became chief of the Naval General Staff two years later. He was appointed grand chamberlain ( jijucho) in 1929, but he resigned this post after narrowly surviving the young officers' revolt in 1936.
Suzuki became prime minister upon the resignation of Koiso Kuniaki on April 5, 1945, four days after U.S. forces had landed on Okinawa. Though adamant and unyielding in public, Suzuki secretly asked the Soviets to help negotiate peace between the United States and Japan and was rebuffed by them. In early August the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. On August 14 Suzuki's cabinet decided to accept the Allies' call for unconditional surrender. He resigned shortly after the surrender.
Copyright © 1994-2011 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. For more information visit Britannica.com.
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