which arrived safely. However, the IJA 51st Division, including Adachi and his senior staff, came under Allied air attack while en route from Rabaul to Lae, in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. All eight transport ships and four destroyers were sunk with the loss of 3,664 men, and only 2,427 men of the division were rescued. With the defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Solomon Islands campaign, and with landings of US forces led by Douglas MacArthur at Aitape and Hollandia from 22 to 27 April 1944, isolated the vast majority of Adachi's forces. His forces, suffering from malaria, heat exhaustion and malnutrition were rendered ineffective for the remainder of the war, despite Adachi's efforts to achieve some form of self-sufficiency by planting crops and giving priority in rations to the sick. As ammunition began to run low, many of Adachi's commanders resorted to banzai charges against the Allied beachhead at Aitape rather than surrender. By the end of the war in September 1945, most of his forces had been annihilated. Of Adachi's original 140,000 men, barely 13,000 were still alive when the war ended. He surrendered to the Australian 6th Division at Cape Wom, by Wewak, New Guinea. Postwar At the end of the war, Adachi was taken into custody by the Australian government and charged with war crimes in connection with mistreatment and arbitrary execution of prisoners of war. Although not personally involved in any of the atrocities mentioned, Adachi insisted on absorbing command responsibility for the actions of his subordinates during the military tribunal. On 12 July 1947 he was sentenced to imprisonment for life. On 10 September that year he killed himself in his quarters with a paring knife in the prisoners' compound at Rabaul, having first written a number of letters. In one of these, addressed to those officers and men of the Eighteenth Army who were then in the compound, he said: Notes References External links Lieutenant General Adachi Hatazo, Australia–Japan Research Project Japanese generals 1890 births 1947 suicides Imperial Japanese Army generals of World War II South Seas Mandate in World War II Japanese military personnel who committed suicide Japanese people convicted of war crimes Japanese prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Seppuku from Meiji period to present Suicides by sharp instrument in the Solomon Islands People who committed suicide in prison custody Japanese people who died in prison custody Prisoners