Hideki Tojo
Climbing the ranks of Japan’s military, Hideki Tojo eventually became Army Minister, masterminding Japan’s ill-fated alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during WWII. His fingerprints were also on Japan’s intensified aggression against China and French Indochina. In 1941, Emperor Hirohito crowned him Prime Minister, putting him in charge of the infamous Pearl Harbor surprise attack. Tojo’s dark legacy includes the Bataan Death March of U.S. POWs, the enslavement of “comfort women,” and numerous massacres in Japanese-occupied territories.
In the aftermath of Japan’s 1945 surrender, General Douglas MacArthur commanded the capture of forty suspected war criminals, including Tojo. Five audacious American GIs were assigned this perilous task. As they encircled his residence, Tojo attempted suicide, only to botch it. He was sentenced to death and hanged in December 1948. In an ironic twist, during his captivity, his American military dentist covertly inscribed “Remember Pearl Harbor” in Morse code on Tojo’s dentures.