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General Tomoyuki YamashitaBy Nathaniel R. Helms | World War II | 4 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post By February 6, facing mounting casualties, MacArthur purged himself of his grand delusion and ordered his soldiers to use their artillery. He still forbade tactical bombing. Once the earlier prohibitions against using heavy artillery on important buildings was rescinded, the Sixth Army began applying its full might against the Japanese. As fighting raged from building to building and strongpoint to strongpoint, the battle slowly consumed the city. Subscribe Today
Later, Yamashita protested that the naval troops and service units still in Manila were not supposed to be there. During his court-martial, Yamashita testified that even before MacArthur had invested Manila he had given orders for his troops to pull back into the mountains to the north and east. The bulk of the Japanese forces complied, he said, though some army service troops and almost the entire contingent of Iwabuchi’s naval force stayed behind. The U.S. Army’s own reconstruction of the battle several years later somewhat supported Yamashita’s view. In fact many of the service troops in Manila were simply trapped there by MacArthur’s relentless attacks. But others, particularly Iwabuchi’s naval troops, had refused to leave. It was those die-hards who faced Krueger’s troops. By February 23, the Sixth Army had forced most of Manila’s defenders into the Intramuros, the 150-acre ‘walled city,’ a three-square-mile area near Manila Bay, where many government buildings stood. The retreating Japanese left thousands of murdered and mutilated Filipino civilians in their wake. Holed up with them were 4,000 more civilians who could not escape. When the Americans began the task of reducing Iwabuchi’s final stronghold, the slaughter was terrific. Still denied air power by MacArthur, the soldiers resorted to massive doses of artillery to give them the edge. Inside the walls of the old Spanish city, Japanese soldiers and sailors went on a vindictive rampage, burning and looting indiscriminately. When the last shot had been fired, Intramuros was razed to the ground, as were the stout government buildings where the Japanese had sought final refuge. Included in the destruction was MacArthur’s six-room penthouse above the Manila Hotel. The carnage MacArthur witnessed was incredible. Almost all of Iwabuchi’s 16,000 troops, including their commander, were dead. More than 1,000 American soldiers were also killed, and another 5,500 were wounded. But the greatest toll was taken on Manila’s defenseless population. More than 100,000 souls, including most of those trapped in Intramuros, had been wiped out. Thousands more were wounded or missing. The fall of Manila did not end the Philippine campaign. Yamashita was still to the north of Manila with the bulk of his remaining army, and there were many bitter campaigns ahead. For the remainder of the war, Yamashita’s soldiers fought a series of fierce delaying actions along Luzon’s Cordillera Mountains. It was not until the last day of the war that Yamashita stopped fighting. And then, on September 2, with nowhere else to go, Yamashita surrendered. ‘If I kill myself,’ the general explained,’someone else will have to take the blame.’ The blame was not long in coming. On October 8, 1945, five weeks after Japan unconditionally surrendered, Yamashita was arraigned before a military commission in Manila and charged with war crimes. MacArthur had drawn up the charges, appointed the military commission, and set the rules for the trial. Yamashita was charged with failing to ‘discharge his duty as commander to control the operations of the members of his command’ between October 2, 1944, and September 2, 1945. In the same specification Yamashita was accused of ‘permitting them to commit brutal atrocities and other high crimes against the people of the United States and its allies and dependencies.’ The prescribed punishment was death. Yamashita’s defense was simple. He claimed he was not there. During his trial at the high commissioner’s residence in Manila, Yamashita testified that he had ordered his troops to leave Manila to the Allies. But because of the stranglehold MacArthur had placed around his garrisons in Manila, he was unable to make sure the orders were carried out. Yamashita denied any involvement in the atrocities that took place in Manila. ‘I positively and categorically reaffirm that they were against my wishes and in direct contradiction to all my expressed orders,’ he told the court-martial panel. ‘They occurred at a time and place of which I had no knowledge whatsoever.’ It was to no avail. MacArthur had already made up his mind. Yamashita was defended by a battery of competent trial attorneys. His case was even appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. During the first week of January 1946, the high court listened to arguments from both sides. The defense claimed that Yamashita could not have received a fair trial under the mandates dictated by MacArthur. The prosecution argued that the destruction of Manila by Japanese troops under Yamashita’s command was all the evidence needed to convict him. In a 72 decision, the high court ruled Yamashita’s conviction and death sentence were just and fitting. The two dissenting justices called it ‘a legalized lynching.’ MacArthur would hear none of it. On February 11, 1946, he wrote: ‘This officer, of proven field merit, entrusted with high command involving authority adequate to responsibility, has failed this irrevocable standard; has failed his duty to his troops, to his country, to his enemy, to mankind; has failed utterly his soldier faith. The results are beyond challenge.’ On February 21, 1946, Lt. Gen. W.D. Styer, commander of the Western Pacific forces, ordered Colonel John H. Fonvielle, commanding officer of the Philippine Detention and Rehabilitation Center near Manila, to carry out MacArthur’s order. Two days later, Yamashita dropped through the gallows floor, unrepentant to the end. ‘Before my God I have told the truth,’ he announced through an interpreter when the sentence of execution was read. ‘I do not believe that I have sinned. I think that I–my soul–will live forever.’ Yamashita swung below the gallows for 25 minutes, swaying to and fro in the early morning breeze. Raroad, the executioner, remembered how the lights suddenly went out–because someone had thrown a circuit breaker–and how the taut rope stood out ‘evilly, connecting the crossbeam and the platform. ‘Yamashita, general in the Imperial Japanese Army and its commander of the Philippine Islands, had been hanged by the neck until dead.’
This article was written by Nathaniel R. Helms and originally appeared in the February 1996 issue of World War II magazine. For more great articles subscribe to World War II magazine today! Pages: 1 2Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, World War II
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4 Comments to “General Tomoyuki Yamashita”
Lt-Gen Yamashita did not have a fair trial.
I do not condone Japan for attacking South East Asia, nor the atrocities which their troops , both officers and men, had committed against innocent civilians in those vanquished countries. As final conquerors and victors, the Americans had the perogative of bringing to justice any enemysoldiers or civilians who had commited war crimes against humanity.
However, the manner in which the vanquished Japanese generals, especially Yamashita, were put to trial was questionable. Firstly it was the speed – with so many charges read against him the defence team was given only 3 weeks to put up his defence. Secondly, a lot of evidence against him were borne by both “hearsay” (if he had been tried under today’s laws and away from a combat zone I believed he would have a fairer trial) and circumstantial evidences. Thirdly, General MacArthur had already made up his mind on the guilt of Yamashita before the trial as most of the terms of references for his trial seem to suggest.
Some pertinent points raise by Yamashita in his defence were cast aside by most of the tribunal judges except for Justice Murphy and one other dissenting judge, both of whom were correct to point out that Yamashita’s guilty was questionable, i.e. reasonable doubts existed. How guilty can a commander be if after issuing orders for his forces to retreat (pull out of Manila) and such orders being not acted upon by dissenting unit commanders who chose to stay behind and exacting their last act of vengeance on the filipino population trapped in the city before the advancing American army advanced? Yamashita was not at the theatre of war at that time as he had already moved his main force to another hillside location in preparation of defending against the impending American forces.
Cut off from the remaining units in Manila, which included naval troops under the command of a Japanese admiral whose disobedience in carrying out his orders have been on record, some credibily on this defence should have been given. Yamashita was not that all notorious and merciless killing machine that General MacArthur portrayed him to be. While it can be said that he was ruthless in battles, it must also be said that he had honour and integrity also.
When the frontline Japanese troops advanced in Singapore and after advancing towards Alexandra Hospital they masacred most of the patients (wounded allied soldiers and civilians alike) as well as hospital staff. It was recorded that the following day, upon hearing of the massacre, Yamashita (who was commander of the Japanese forces in Malaya) went to the hospital and apologised to the remaining surviving patients who were there – he did this both vocally as well as formally by saluting them. I can attest to this record as being true because my father was a patient there (he being bayoneted by Japanese soldiers a couple of days earlier but survived. My dad even mentioned (which was not reported anywhere) that some of the japanese soldiers who came on the second day even offered cigarettes to the patients.
These are some of the testimonies which could have saved Yamashita from a death sentence had they been presented at the trial because they would show the defendant to be not totally devoid of human feelings. But the speed of the trial and a right wing hawkish prosecution team made sure that he would not have this privilege.
Granted, as an overall commander he would have to bear all responsibilities for the actions of the troops under him. This Yamashita did not deny. In fact he made it very clear that he would take all responsibilities. Which was the reason why he did not commit hara kiri (samurai’s code of honourable suicide) because if he did “some one else would have to take the blame”. He was referring to the Emperor of Japan.
So, if the tribunal held the view that he should be accountable for the crimes of his men (though not necessarily in their presence) then the same should be held for the Emperor in whose name the war was fought. The Americans were having double standards there.
I think Yamashita was guilt was indirect (his mitigating factor being not in physical control or command of those renegade Japanese troops stationed at Manilaat that time) in the same manner as the Emperor whose guilt was just as equal. But one was sentenced to hang while the other was allowed to continue to rule and absolved from all blame.
I think rightfully, Yamashita should have got a life sentence.
By Whose Justice on Mar 9, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Further to my earlier comments, it should also be noted that the Americans dropped 2 atomic bombs on Japan. These were weapons of mass destruction – they were weapons against humanity.
They were dropped on 2 heavily populated cities. These were not strategic bombs or dropped strategically, say on military or other targets. They were dropped onto heavily populated areas. Just how many Japanese civilians died and how many others suffered a fate worse than hell no one can accurately say, but the figure is astounding by any measure.
The man who made the decision to drop them was as guilty as any Japanese officers who gave orders to massacre filipino or any other South East Asian civilians. Two such bombs wiped off twice as much the total number of people the Japanese troops massacred. The Americans can claim they atomic bombs were used in order to bring peace.
But the facts speak for themselves – 2 series of massacre and crimes against humanity were commited. One was done in the name of war and the other in the name of peace. By whatever name it was called – a massacre is still a massacre. This sought of American justification seemed to rule even decades after WW2.
During the My Lai massacre (the Vietnam War) one US army general was quoted as saying (as a matter of army policy at that time and referring to mass destruction of people and property pertaining to targeted villages) that “… in order to save them (the villages) we had to destroy them.” This was their justification.
So after the 2 atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the My Lai (and other villages) Massacre, which American general or President was ever brought to trial for crimes against humanity?
By Whose Justice ? on Mar 9, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Yamashita got what he deserved. Only his exit was humane. Quit whining & get real.
By Peter on Jul 1, 2009 at 5:33 am
General Tomoyuki Yamashita did not “get what he deserved” in any measure whatsoever. If you read the accounts of his show “trial” written by his American Army defence lawyers you will quickly discover that it (the trial) was a complete sham from start to finish.
General Yamashita was convicted and executed solely at the insistence of British authorities and General Douglas MacArthur. The British were attempting to wipe out the bitter memory of the greatest defeat in the history of the Empire, MacArthur who ignorantly imagined himself to be a great soldier, simply wanted to exterminate the glory of one who actually was. And killing the dirty yellow “nips” after the war wasn’t particularly difficult.
The Malayan Campaign which ended when the British surrendered the fortress of Singapore and 130,000 troops to the 30,000 exhausted, starving men of the 25th Imperial Japanese Army, who were at that moment not only out of food and medicine but also out of both rifle and artillery rounds was one of the greatest military accomplishments in the war annals of human history.
Yamashita’s victory was an extraordinary feat, perhaps the greatest victory of any general in the entirety of WW II and it broke the back of European colonialism in Asia forever.
Long Live the Tiger of Malaya!
Banzai!
By Don Colibri on Jul 9, 2009 at 1:28 am