Kumao Imoto (井本熊男; 1903 in Yamaguchi Prefecture – 2000) was a Japanese military officer and a Lieutenant General of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force.
[1] He delivered the evacuation orders to the Japanese Seventeenth Army in Guadalcanal in the Pacific theatre of the Second World War (Operation Ke).
After World War II, Imoto joined a group headed by Takushiro Hattori that aspired to become the new general staff of the fledging Japan Self-Defense Force.
Imoto later reached the rank of Lieutenant General in the Ground Self-Defense Force.
[2] Imoto's book The Great East Asian War, written as an Operations Diary (Dai Toa Senso Sakusen Nisshi) was published in 1979.