Editing Mitsumasa Yonai (section)

==Subsequent political activity==
Yonai served as the [[Deputy Prime Minister]] and concurrently as the Navy Minister again under the [[Koiso Cabinet|cabinet]] of Prime Minister [[Kuniaki Koiso]] from July 22, 1944, during which time he returned to the active duty roster from the reserve list. By this time, [[Saipan]] had fallen to the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]].

Yonai remained Navy Minister under the [[Kantarō Suzuki Cabinet|administration]] of Prime Minister [[Kantarō Suzuki]]. In the last few weeks before Japan's surrender, he sided with Prime Minister Suzuki and [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan|Foreign Minister]] [[Shigenori Tōgō]] in support of acceptance of the [[Potsdam Declaration]] and [[surrender of Japan]] in opposition to Army Minister [[Korechika Anami]], Chief of Naval General Staff Admiral [[Soemu Toyoda]] and Chief of the Army General Staff General [[Yoshijirō Umezu]].

Yonai remained Navy Minister in the [[Higashikuni Cabinet|cabinet]] of Prime Minister [[Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni]] and [[Shidehara Cabinet|cabinet]] of Prime Minister [[Kijūrō Shidehara]] from August 1945, during which time he presided over the final dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

He played a major role during the [[International Military Tribunal for the Far East]] in working with the major defendants, such as former Prime Minister [[Hideki Tōjō]], to coordinate their testimonies so that Emperor [[Hirohito]] would be spared from indictment. According to his interpreter Suichi Mizota, in March 1946 [[Bonner Fellers]] asked him to make Tōjō bear all responsibility for the [[Greater East Asia War]].<ref>Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the making of modern Japan, Perennial, 2001, p.584.</ref> After the war, Yonai devoted the rest of his life to help to rebuild Japan.

Yonai suffered from [[high blood pressure]] most of his life, but died of [[pneumonia]] on 20 April 1948 at the age of 68. His grave is located at the temple of Enko-ji in his hometown of Morioka.