Hisaichi Terauchi
Japanese general (1879-1946)
Count Hisaichi Terauchi (寺内 寿一, Terauchi Hisaichi; 8 August 1879 – 12 June 1946) was a Gensui (or field marshal) in the Imperial Japanese Army, commander of the Southern Expeditionary Army Group during World War II.
Biography
Early military career
Terauchi was born in Tokyo Prefecture, and was the eldest son of Gensui Count Terauchi Masatake, the first Governor-General of Korea and the 9th Prime Minister of Japan. When he was four, his father was transferred to France, and he was sent to live with his maternal aunt in Yamaguchi. Due to his family's close connections with former Chōshū Domain, he was officially registered as a resident of Yamaguchi Prefecture around that time. After his father returned from an overseas assignment, the family moved back to Tokyo. He graduated from the 11th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1899, and served as a junior officer in the Russo-Japanese War with the Guards 2nd Infantry Battalion.
After the war, Terauchi returned to the Army Staff College and graduated from the 21st class in 1909. In July 1912, he was sent as a military attaché to Austria-Hungary and in July 1914 to Germany. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in November 1916 and attached to the IJA 2nd Infantry Regiment in September 1917. He worked as several administrative posts within the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff from September 1918.
In early November 1919, he succeeded in the hereditary title of hakushaku (count) under the kazoku peerage system upon the death of his father, and was raised in military rank to colonel.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hisaichi Terauchi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.