Masanobu Tsuji
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Tsuji Masanobu (辻政信, 11 October 1902–20 July 1961?) was a tactician of the Imperial Japanese Army and a politician. Tsuji was born in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan.
In his early years he was educated in the Army Cadet School and Army Cadet Academy. During his time as an army officer, he played the role of a bold man without regard to his profile as an elite. Those days, people like him were favoured by the younger generation in Japan, thus he commanded the loyalty of his men. On the other hand, he was not considered a good tactician because he expanded operations in Nomonhan which was already mostly defeated and also he had a tendency to exceed his authority.
In the Pacific war his operations were mainly in Malaya, Burma, and Guadalcanal. He scheduled his invasions on the Malay Peninsula so that they would fall on military holidays. He was brutal and there are many eyewitnesses of his cannibalizing of Allied prisoners. He is alleged to have been involved in the Bataan Death March.
In Bangkok at the time of Japan's defeat, Tsuji went into hiding in and around Thailand for fear of being brought up on war crimes charges. When it was clear he wouldn't be tried, he returned to Japan to write of his years in hiding in a book titled Senko Sanzenri (潜行三千里, lit. Lurking 3000 li) that became a best seller. This made him famous and later he became both a representative and member of the Diet. But in 1961 he suddenly disappeared in Plain of Jars, Laos.
He was named by William Stevenson in The Revolutionary King as a suspect in the alleged murder of the King of Thailand, Ananda Mahidol.
