Tatsuji Suga

Tatsuji Suga
Lieutenant Colonel Tatsuji Suga
Born	September 22, 1885 Hiroshima, Japan
Died	September 16, 1945(1945-09-16) (aged 59) Borneo
Allegiance	Empire of Japan
Service/branch	Imperial Japanese Army
Years of service	? -1945
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel
Commands held	Prison Camps
Battles/wars	World War I Second Sino-Japanese War Pacific War

Lieutenant-Colonel Tatsuji Suga (菅辰次, Suga Tatsuji^?) (22 September 1885 – 16 September 1945) of the Imperial Japanese Army was the commander of all prisoner-of-war (POW) and civilian internment camps in Borneo, during World War II. Suga committed suicide five days after being taken prisoner by Australian forces in September 1945.

Suga was born in Hiroshima, the first son in his family. Although the family held Buddhist beliefs, his younger brother Giichi converted to Christianity and became a Protestant missionary: he worked at churches in Mnchuria, Vancouver Island, Chicago and became the headmaster of YMCA in Tokyo. As a youngster, Suga attended the services at the Alliance Church of Hiroshima which was started by a Danish priest. Hudson Southwell, an Australian missionary interned in Borneo, later wrote: "During our time in the internment camp, Colonel Suga had often come into the church services in the women's section and sat near the back. Once he told Winsome [Southwell's wife] directly, 'I'm a Christian.' This was a startling admission for a Japanese officer to make to a prisoner during wartime.")

Suga graduated from Meido Middle School in Hiroshima and then the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in Tokyo, as a Second Lieutenant. At around this time he married a woman with the given name Teru; they were to have two sons and four daughters. Suga was an affectionate father and ensured that all of his children went to university, at a time when only five per cent of Japanese went beyond the fifth or sixth grade. He was an expert horseman and a keen practitioner of kendo.