Kumao Imoto

Kumao Imoto (1903-2000) (井本熊男) was a Japanese military officer.

Imoto logged fatal experiments with cyanide gas as a weapon in 1942.

Lt. Col Imoto delivered the evacuation orders to the Japanese Seventeenth Army in Guadalcanal in the Pacific theatre of the Second World War (Operation Ke). The withdrawal was largely successful.

He was the senior surviving staff officer in Hiroshima after the dropping of the atom bomb, and acted as chief of staff to Field Marshal Hata during the immediate aftermath, though wounded.

He wrote The Great East Asian War, written as an Operations Diary (Dai Toa Senso Sakusen Nisshi) published in 1979.