They should have executed the entire Japanese Army that was in Luzon, Horrible what they did!
General MacArthur made sure some of the Japanese generals had swift trials and speedy executions. They cut some corners off the legalities, to say the least.
I will hire a driver and make that drive and say a prayer for them along the way.
Triple hearsay comes to mind. I don’t have a real problem with hanging Homma, but Yamashita got railroaded. He had ordered Manila be left as an open city, but a Jap Admiral disobeyed orders, and Japanese Marines [mostly] were the troops that committed the atrocitiesand fought the U.S troops. Yamashita was up a gully in northern Luzon without a radio when it happened.
While his execution may have been warranted because of the conduct of some of his troops in Malaya [the Imperial Guards division beheaded a bunch of Aussie prisoners], his only real crime in the Phillipines was delaying the triumphal march of that historical imperative, Douglas MacArthur.
Very few Japanese war criminals were executed. A few ranking officers but not most of those who did the actual torturing and killer.
The Japanese were as cruel to our men and the Filipino soldiers and civilians as they were to the soldiers and civilians of China, and for fewer reasons than that Nazis were to Jews, Gypsies, Russians, and Poles, among others.
Their cruelty also included massive cruelty for amusement. I know that the Nazis did it, but some of the regular Wermacht (Army) did not participate in it and Gen. Oberlander refused to do it at all.
I agree. All the Japanese who perpetrated war crimes in the Philippines should have been executed, much like the British did - trial, conviction, shot. McArthur was a fool to let the Japanese war criminals get away the way they did.