- Yasuyo Yamasaki
Infobox Military Person
name= Yasuyo Yamasaki
lived=October 17 ,1891 -May 29 ,1943
placeofbirth=
placeofdeath=Attu ,United States
caption=
nickname=
allegiance=Imperial Japanese Army
serviceyears=
rank=Colonel
commands=
unit=
battles=World War II
*Battle of Attu
awards=
laterwork=Colonel Yasuyo Yamasaki (often spelled as "Yamazaki")(山崎保代) (October 17 ,1891 -May 29 ,1943 ) commanded the Japanese forces on Attu during theBattle of the Aleutian Islands .Yamasaki was a professional Army officer, promoted to colonel in March 1940. Later that year he assumed command of the 130th Infantry Regiment.
In February 1943 Yamasaki became commanding officer of the 2nd District Force of the North Sea Defense Force, the capacity in which he went to the Aleutians. He arrived on Attu in April 1943 by submarine. His orders were to hold the island without outside help.
The 2,650 defenders under Yamasaki did not contest the landings but rather dug in on high ground away from the shore. The battle produced some of the bloodiest fighting in the Pacific theatre, similar to the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
On
May 29 , the last of the Japanese forces suddenly attacked near Massacre Bay in one of the largestbanzai charge s of the pacific campaign. The charge was led by Yamasaki himself, who was killed later in the day, sword in hand, assaulting Engineer Hill. His attack penetrated American lines far enough to encounter shocked rear-echelon units of the American force. After furious, brutal, close-quarter, and often hand-to-hand, combat the Japanese force was killed almost to the last man: only 28 prisoners were taken, none of them an officer. American burial teams counted 2,351 Japanese dead, but it was presumed that hundreds more had been buried by bombardments over the course of the battle.References
*Garfield, Brian "The Thousand Mile War",
Aurum Press , 1995 ISBN 1-84513-019-7
*cite web
last = Chen
first = C. Peter
year = 2004 - 2006
url = http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=168
title = Yamazaki, Yasuyo
work = World War II Database
accessdate = 2006-05-17External links
[http://imperialarmy.hp.infoseek.co.jp/general/colonel04/yamazaki.html RèÛã ] at imperialarmy.hp.infoseek.co.jp
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