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Seiichi Kita
Seiichi Kita
	Kita in 1937
Native name	喜多誠一
Born	20 December 1886; Shiga Prefecture, Japan
Died	7 August 1947 (aged 60); Khabarovsk, Soviet Union
Allegiance	Empire of Japan
Service / branch	Imperial Japanese Army
Years of service	1907–1945
Rank	General
Commands	37th Infantry Regiment; 14th Division; 6th Army; 12th Army; 1st Area Army;
Battles / wars	World War II Pacific War; ;

Seiichi Kita (喜多誠一, Kita Seiichi, December 20, 1886 – August 7, 1947) was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, who commanded the Japanese First Area Army from September 1944 until the end of World War II. He died as a prisoner in the Soviet Union.

Life

Kita Seiichi became an infantry officer in 1907 and was military attaché to England in 1927. He served in several staff positions in China, until March 9, 1940, when he became commander of the IJA 14th Division, based in Northern China.

In the late 1930s he was placed in command of the Japanese special intelligence services operating in north China, which had the role of managing contact with local Chinese collaborators. As part of this, he tried to recruit such figures as former warlords Cao Kun and Wu Peifu to head the collaborationist regime the Japanese established in the region. It was on Major General Kita's suggestions that the puppet Provisional Government of the Republic of China was eventually established in December 1937. Thus he became known as the foremost Japanese "puppeteer" in north China.

On October 15, 1941, he was appointed Commander of the 6th Army based in Hailar until March 1, 1943, when he took over the command of the 12th Army. In February 1944, he was recalled to Japan and was attached to the General Staff. On September 26, 1944, he became Commander of the First Area Army, with which he fought unsuccessfully against the Red Army, when the Soviet Union invaded Manchukuo at the end of the war. Together with his surviving soldiers, he became prisoner of war in Siberia. He was never repatriated and is thought to have died in a prison camp in 1947 or 1952.

References

generals.dk
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia
Boyle, John H. (1972). China and Japan at War, 1937-1945; The Politics of Collaboration. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804708002.