Background
Tomoyuki Yamashita was born on November 8, 1885, in Osugi, a village in what is now part of Ōtoyo, Kōchi, Japan. He was the son of a medical doctor, Sakichi. His mother, Yuu, came from a wealthy family.
In November 1905 Yamashita graduated from the 18th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. The Imperial Japanese Army Academy was the principal officer's training school for the Imperial Japanese Army.
1 Chome-1-9 Kitaaoyama, Minato City, Tokyo 107-0061, Japan
Tomoyuki Yamashita attended the 28th class of the Army War College, graduating sixth in his class in 1916. The college graduated 60 classes before it was abolished following the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II. Its building in Tokyo, constructed in 1891, was demolished after the war. Here is pictured the former location of the Army War College in Kita-Aoyama, Minato, Tokyo (now Aoyama Junior High School)
1941
Lieutenant Yamashita Tomoyuki (Japan, right) after a wreath laying ceremony at the cenotaph at the street Unter den Linden in Berlin shaking hands with town major Paul von Hase.
1942
Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita and British Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival discussed surrender terms at the Ford Motors Factory, Bukit Timah Road, Singapore, February 15, 1942.
1942
Tomoyuki Yamashita receives a courtesy visit by sultans of Malay penninsula on April 11, 1942 in Singapore. (Photo by The Asahi Shimbun)
1942
Tomoyuki Yamashita photographed in a German Junkers Ju 52 airplane.
1944
General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the Commander of Japanese forces and conqueror of Malaya. (Photo by Keystone)
1945
General Yamashita and his staff surrender on September 2, 1945
1945
General Yamashita in Manila
1945
(L-R) U.S. armed forces officers, Major-General Robert S. Beightler, Major-General Leo Donovan, Brigadier-General Robert S. McBride, Jr., Colonel Ernest A. Barlow, and Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita meet to accept the Japanese surrender at Kiangan, Northern Luzon, in the Philippines, World War II.
1940
Tomoyuki Yamashita at his home in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by The Asahi Shimbun)
1941
Lieutenant Yamashita Tomoyuki (Japan, right) after a wreath laying ceremony at the cenotaph at the street Unter den Linden in Berlin shaking hands with town major Paul von Hase.
1942
Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita and British Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival discussed surrender terms at the Ford Motors Factory, Bukit Timah Road, Singapore, February 15, 1942.
1942
Tomoyuki Yamashita receives a courtesy visit by sultans of Malay penninsula on April 11, 1942 in Singapore. (Photo by The Asahi Shimbun)
1942
Tomoyuki Yamashita photographed in a German Junkers Ju 52 airplane.
1944
General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the Commander of Japanese forces and conqueror of Malaya. (Photo by Keystone)
1945
John Dorle, Harry Clarke, Milton Sandberg, Tomoyuki Yamashita, Hamamoto, and Akira Muto during a break from court, October 1945.
1945
General Yamashita and his staff surrender on September 2, 1945
1945
Yamashita (second from right) at his trial in Manila, November 1945
1945
Yamashita during post-war trials, probably in a hallway outside the courtroom, circa October 1945
1945
Clarke, Hamamoto, Yamashita, Hendricks, and Guy, at Yamashita's arraignment, Manila, Philippines, October 8, 1945
1945
Yamashita imprisoned at Manila, circa October - November 1945
1945
General Yamashita in Manila
1945
General Tomoyuki Yamashita is fitted with a microphone, prior to his trial for war crimes commencing in Manila. (Photo by Hulton Archive)
1945
(L-R) U.S. armed forces officers, Major-General Robert S. Beightler, Major-General Leo Donovan, Brigadier-General Robert S. McBride, Jr., Colonel Ernest A. Barlow, and Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita meet to accept the Japanese surrender at Kiangan, Northern Luzon, in the Philippines, World War II.
In November 1905 Yamashita graduated from the 18th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. The Imperial Japanese Army Academy was the principal officer's training school for the Imperial Japanese Army.
1 Chome-1-9 Kitaaoyama, Minato City, Tokyo 107-0061, Japan
Tomoyuki Yamashita attended the 28th class of the Army War College, graduating sixth in his class in 1916. The college graduated 60 classes before it was abolished following the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II. Its building in Tokyo, constructed in 1891, was demolished after the war. Here is pictured the former location of the Army War College in Kita-Aoyama, Minato, Tokyo (now Aoyama Junior High School)
Tomoyuki Yamashita
奉文 山下
Tomoyuki Yamashita was born on November 8, 1885, in Osugi, a village in what is now part of Ōtoyo, Kōchi, Japan. He was the son of a medical doctor, Sakichi. His mother, Yuu, came from a wealthy family.
Yamashita's father wasn't keen on having his son follow him into the medical profession. Instead, he enrolled Yamashita in the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. Yamashita was an excellent student and graduated in 1905 at the top of his class. He was also only one year behind Hideki Tojo, the future Prime Minister and general of Japan for much of World War II. The two would become rivals later in life. Yamashita also attended the Army War College, graduating sixth in his class in 1916.
Yamashita joined the infantry in 1905 and rapidly moved up the ranks. In December 1908 he was promoted to lieutenant and fought against the German Empire in World War I in Shandong, China in 1914. In May 1916 he was promoted to captain. In 1919 he became a Military Attache in Switzerland and Germany. In February 1922, he was promoted to major. Yamashita served at the Tokyo Imperial Headquarters from 1922 to 1926, where he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and served as a Military Attache in Vienna, Austria until 1930. He was then promoted to the rank of colonel. In 1930 Col. Yamashita was given command of the elite 3rd Imperial Infantry Regiment.
By 1932, when only 47, he became section chief of military affairs in the War Ministry and was earmarked as an eventual war minister or even premier. He was one of the generals admired by a fanatical group of radical young officers, called the Imperial Way faction, who carried out an abortive coup d'etat on February 26, 1936. Although Yamashita, then a major general, refused to go along with the plot, he came under such a cloud of suspicion that he almost retired but instead took an assignment in Korea. In November 1937 Yamashita was promoted to lieutenant-general.
From 1938 to 1940 Yamashita commanded the 4th Infantry Division in fighting in northern China, until he was recalled to Tokyo. There he was promoted to full general and became part of Hideki Tojo's war cabinet after militarists took control in Japan and signed the Triple Alliance Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Meanwhile, Gen. Tojo, whose control faction had benefited from the Imperial Way faction's demise, again began to fear Yamashita's revived popularity and finally got him transferred to an isolated Manchurian outpost in 1941. But when Japan entered the war against the Allies, Yamashita was placed in charge of the 25th Army. An able strategist, he trained Japanese soldiers in the technique of jungle warfare and helped conceive the military plan for the Japanese invasion of the Thai and Malay peninsulas in 1941 - 1942.
His troops moved rapidly down the Malayan peninsula, defeating British and Commonwealth forces in several pitched battles. In the course of a 10-week campaign, Yamashita's 25th Army overran all of Malaya and obtained the surrender of the huge British naval base at Singapore on February 15, 1942. The British commander, Lt. Gen. Percival, surrendered to him, and Yamashita was made a full general.
Jealous of Yamashita's fame, Tojo was mortally afraid and highly distrustful of victorious, popular army commanders, seeing them as potential threats to his powers and possible instigators of a coup to remove him and take power themselves. He quickly transferred Yamashita to the quiet Manchurian border. It was not until September of 1944, after the downfall of Tojo and his cabinet, that the new liberal militarist cabinet rescued Yamashita from his enforced exile in China and gave him command of the 14th Army on Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines, to prepare against an impending United States invasion.
Yamashita devised a clever defensive plan for Luzon by dividing the 14th Army into three defense groups. The first and largest group, the Shobo, numbered 152,000 troops under his direct command and defended the northern part of Luzon. The second group, the Kembu, consisted of 30,000 soldiers under the command of Gen. Tsukada and defended Baatan and part of the central region. The third, the Shimbu, was composed of about 80,000 men under the command of Gen. Yokoyama and defended southern Luzon.
On January 6, 1945, the invasion began as 200,000 troops of the US Sixth Army landed at Lingayen Bay and slowly worked their way inland against hard resistance from Yamashita's forces. Although the city of Manila was captured after a brutal battle that lasted a month, and the southern part of Luzon was in US hands by May, Yamashita stubbornly fought on by waging a protracted guerrilla war against the Americans from the northern mountains of Sierra Madre and the Cordillera Central mountains. It was not until September 1945, after learning of the surrender of Japan, that Yamashita surrendered with about 50,000 of his remaining men in Luzon.
By direction of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Yamashita was almost immediately put on trial as the one responsible for the last-minute wild massacres by Japanese troops in Manila. 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. He 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. In a 7¬2 decision, the high court ruled Yamashita's conviction and death sentence were just and fitting. Yamashita was hanged on February 23, 1946.
Yamashita Tomoyuki was a Japanese general known for his successful attacks on Malaya and Singapore during World War II. He rose rapidly through the ranks of the Imperial Army, eventually becoming the highest-ranking general of its air force and proved himself to be the most formidable commander in Japan's history.
Gen. Yamashita is remembered in Japan as a military leader whose personal career was victimized by that very factionalism in the military that had so much to do with dragging Japan into the euphoria of war and the humiliation and suffering of defeat. His honorary pen name was Hobun. The ruling against Yamashita - holding the commander responsible for subordinates' war crimes as long as the commander did not attempt to discover and stop them from occurring - came to be known as the Yamashita standard.
Quotations:
"I pray for the Emperor's long life and prosperity forever." [Tomoyuki Yamashita's last words on the day of his execution]
"I were carrying out my duty, as Japanese high commander of Japanese Army in the Philippine Islands, to control my army with my best during wartime. Until now I am believing that I have tried to my best throughout my army."
"As I said in the Manila Supreme Court that I have done with all my capacity, so I don't ashame in front of God for what I have done when I have die. But if you say to me 'you do not have any ability to command the Japanese Army' I should say nothing for it, because it is my own nature. Now, our war criminal trial going on in Manila Supreme Court, so I wish to be justify under your kindness and right."
"I know that all your American and American military affairs always has tolerant and rightful judgment. When I have been investigated in Manila court I have had a good treatment, kindful attitude from your good natured officers who all the time protect me. I never forget for what they have done for me even if I had died. I don't blame my executioner. I'll pray God bless them."
"My attack on Singapore was a bluff, a bluff that worked... I was very frightened that all the time the British would discover our numerical weakness and lack of supplies and force me into disastrous street fighting."
Even before the death sentence was passed, Yamashita had a sense what was coming. To show his appreciation for all his attorneys had done for someone who only months ago was considered an enemy, Yamashita gave each of his attorneys each items that meant much to him as a military officer. Clarke was given a tea service that Yamashita carried though Manchuria, China, Malaya, Japan, and the Philippines, as well as Yamashita's ribbons; Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Feldhaus received Yamashita's general staff fourragere cord and one of his three-star insignias; Lieutenant Colonel Walter Hendricks received the cordovan saber belt and the other three-star insignia; Captain Frank Reel and Captain Milton Sandberg received his sets of brush pens; finally, Guy, a cavalry officer, received Yamashita's gold ceremonial spurs.
Physical Characteristics: Tomoyuki Yamashita was unusually tall, balding, and overweight.
Yamashita married Hisako Nagayama, daughter of retired Gen. Nagayama, in 1916. They did not have children.
(December 30, 1884 - December 23, 1948)
Hideki Tojo was a Japanese politician and general of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association for most of World War II.
