Chinese fought against Japan for 14 years, and the Chinese army killed many Japanese generals, including the famous Norihide Abe, who was known as the "flower of the famous generals" of the Japanese army, and was the first Japanese lieutenant general to be killed, but he was only a brigade commander.
Today I would like to introduce the first Japanese division commander to be killed by the Chinese army, this person is higher in rank than Abe Norihide, he is the japanese division commander Naoji Sakai, this person is not very famous, but in Japan it is called a famous door, and his ancestors are tokugawa Ieyasu's courtiers.
Sakai Naoji was born in a family of warriors, whose ancestors were famous generals in the middle and late Sengoku period of Japan, Sakai Naoji studied at the Japanese Army University in his early years, and then all the way to the rocket, in 1937, the Japanese army invaded China in an all-round way, Sakai Naoji to China to participate in the war.
At that time, The Japanese generals generals generally believed that China was backward, and fighting in China was an opportunity to make a name for himself, as Sakai Naoji thought, he was the captain of the 4th Infantry Wing of the Japanese Army at the beginning of his arrival in China, and in 1938, because of his meritorious combat, he was promoted to major general of the Japanese army.
In the same year, Sakai Naoji served as the brigade commander of the 19th Brigade of the 16th Division of the Japanese Army, and he successively engaged in wars of aggression against China in Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places, committing countless evils.
Under the sweep of Sakai Naoji, the Chinese military and civilians suffered huge losses, and many innocent people became the ghosts of the Japanese army, taking a sweep by Naoji Sakai as an example, when Sakai Naoji was beastly, ordered a humiliating competition, and also awarded the first, second and third prizes.
It was with the encouragement of Naoji Sakai that the Japanese army carried out a crazy massacre of Chinese, which was a "battle achievement" for Naoji Sakai, and in 1941, Naoji Sakai was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed as the commander of the 15th Division of the Japanese Army, and his rank was very high.
On May 15, 1942, the Battle of Zhejiang and Gansu broke out, Sakai Naoji was sent to the battlefield, he led his troops from Xiaoshan to attack Quzhou, the goal of which was to destroy the air base provided by China to the Us army, the Chinese defenders reconnaissance learned that the Japanese army was coming to attack, and they made preparations.
At that time, the 8th Battalion of independent engineers of the 21st Army of the Chinese Army was ordered to lay mines on the road of the Japanese attack to block the Japanese army, and the soldiers of the 8th Battalion rushed to the east bank of Lanxi To lay the ground before the Japanese army, laying more than a dozen mines on the necessary road.
On May 27, Sakai Naoji led his troops to Lanxi, due to military emergency, Sakai Naoji repeatedly urged the troops to advance quickly, in the early morning of the 28th, his subordinates continued to report the situation of stepping on mines, at first Sakai Naoji did not pay attention, until the losses were heavy, he ordered the troops to stop advancing, and the sappers cleared the mines.
Sappers cleared mines and affected the speed of the march, and it was not until the sappers reported that the mines had been cleared that Sakai naoji ordered the advance, and for safety reasons, he ordered the sappers and troops to go to the front, while he and the Guards walked behind on horseback, just in case.
The Japanese soldiers who walked in the front passed through the minefield of 1500 meters, but Sakai Naoji's horse stepped on a mine, and immediately the horse and the people were blown away, and Sakai Naoji's left leg was blown apart, and the military doctor was in the field force more than a dozen miles away.
When the military doctor arrived, ten minutes had passed, and the military doctor had no problem checking Naoji Sakai's heart, but he did not expect that Naoji Sakai had actually died, it turned out that he had lost too much blood and died, and no one expected that the commander of the Japanese division was actually killed by the Chinese army.
At that time, in order not to affect the morale of the troops, the Japanese military department concealed the news of Naoji Sakai's death until September 27, saying that it was "the first time since the founding of the Army", and as for the real cause of death, it was not announced until 1975, 33 years after Naoji Sakai was killed.
Reference: "The Chinese Dispatch Army in the Seventeenth and Eighth Years of Showa"