Torashiro Kawabe

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Torashiro Kawabe (1890-1960) was a Japanese general and served as Deputy Chief of Army General Staff within the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War. He was also the younger brother of General Masakazu Kawabe.

Born in Toyama prefecture, Kawabe entered the Imperial Japanese Army Academy graduating in 1912. After completing his studies at the Artillery and Engineers School in 1915, and later the Army War College in 1921, he eventually served in the Operations Division of the Army General Staff from 1922 to 1925.

Assigned as resident staff officer in Latvia (present day Riga) in 1926, Kawabe studied Soviet affairs for two years before his return to Japan. Kawabe, now a Major, became an instructor in tactics at the Army War College between 1928 and 1929, before being reassigned to the Army General Staff.

After three years, Kawabe was stationed in Moscow as a military attache until 1934 when he was sent to the Kwantung (Guangdong) Army as a staff officer and chief of its intelligence section, where he would earn promotion to Colonel. While serving with the Kwantung Army, Kawabe became involved in the Japanese government's efforts, through a proxy of local warlord Li Shou-hsin, to gain control of Chahar Provence in northeast Inner Mongolia.

Serving briefly as regimental commander of the Imperial Guards Division, Kawabe would be appointed to the General Staff as a member of the War Leadership Council and, following the Marco Polo Bridge incident, was one of the few senior officers who supported General Kanji Ishihara in restricting Japan's involvement in China.

Becoming a Major General in 1938, Kawabe was a military attache in Berlin for two years before being recalled to Japan shortly before Japan's entry into World War II. Although holding a series of Army Air Force commands in Manchuria and the Japanese home islands, Kawabe saw little action during the war until his appointment as vice chief of the General Staff in April 1945, in which he would head the Japanese delegate for negotiations with General Douglas MacArthur coomand in Manilla regarding Japan's surrender.