July 26, 1879 - Shunroku Hata
Hata commanded Japanese forces in China during a period marked by widespread atrocities against civilian populations, and his oversight of the China Expeditionary Army brought him before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, where he was convicted of war crimes. His case illustrates how command responsibility — the legal and moral accountability of senior officers for crimes committed by troops under their authority — became a central question in postwar prosecutions. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, later paroled in 1954, and lived out his days as the last surviving Japanese field marshal.
From Wikipedia
Shunroku Hata (畑俊六, Hata Shunroku; July 26, 1879 – May 10, 1962) was a field marshal (gensui) in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. He was the last surviving Japanese military officer with a marshal's rank. Hata was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1948, but was paroled in 1955.
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