The case of General Tomoyuki Yamashita established the principles that commanders are responsible for their troops’ actions and that captured soldiers are not protected by the U.S. Constitution even after hostilities end.
General Tomoyuki Yamashita, nicknamed the Tiger of Malaya, had a distinguished career before World War II that became even more distinguished during the war. The most brilliant of his achievements was a ten-week campaign down the Malay Peninsula that led to the fall of Britain’s “invincible” fortifications at Singapore on February 15, 1942. Despite Yamashita’s success and immense popularity in Japan after this event, General Hideki Tōjō
In October, 1944, new rulers in Tokyo sent Yamashita to command the Fourteenth Army Group in the Philippines. By that time, the Japanese situation in the Philippines was desperate. Ten days after Yamashita arrived, American troops landed at Leyte, and Yamashita had little choice but to retreat to the mountains of Luzon. Allied naval victories and air supremacy cut off Japanese supplies and communications, placing the Japanese in a hopeless situation. Upon hearing a radio broadcast from Japan announcing defeat, Yamashita ordered his troops to surrender unconditionally and surrendered himself on September 3, 1945. General Douglas MacArthur, in Tokyo, appointed a commission of five U.S. Army generals to try Yamashita for war crimes as quickly as possible.
On October 29, 1945, Yamashita’s trial opened. The charge against him was that troops under his command had committed atrocities. These were of three kinds. In the first category were atrocities committed in Manila during February of 1945, just before the Americans took the city. The troops in Manila were naval forces placed under Yamashita’s tactical command in January, 1945; they remained under the administrative command of the navy. Although Yamashita ordered them to abandon the city twice, the admiral in Manila chose to obey a naval order to stay and destroy the harbor facilities. This decision doomed the troops, and they knew it. About twenty thousand soldiers ran berserk, raping and pillaging until American artillery destroyed central Manila at point-blank range.
A second group of atrocities occurred outside Manila, mainly in the district commanded by Colonel Masatoshi Fujishige
The defense wanted to remind the commission of the case of American brigadier general Jacob H. Smith
A third category of offenses was the mistreatment of prisoners of war in violation of the Third Geneva Convention
In general, the defense contended that Yamashita knew nothing of these incidents and could have done nothing about them had he known. By the time he took command, communications were so bad that he was isolated from the troops he nominally commanded. His lawyers argued that he was being tried for who he was rather for than anything he did. There was no proof that he ordered any atrocities or knew of them. The prosecution argued that he must have heard about some atrocities, because there had been so many.
Conduct of the trial by General Russel Reynolds bore only faint resemblance to normal courtroom proceedings. The commission, none of whose members were lawyers, ignored rules of evidence and law by allowing hearsay testimony, unsupported affidavits by absent witnesses—despite an act of Congress prohibiting them—and propaganda films to be submitted as evidence. They cut short defense cross-examination for the sake of speed and threatened the defense attorneys with retribution for slowing down the proceedings with objections.
It was not much of a surprise to anyone when the commission found Yamashita guilty on December 7, 1945, and sentenced him to hang. The defense lawyers feared that MacArthur would order Yamashita’s execution before the U.S. Supreme Court could agree to hear the case. MacArthur did refuse a suggestion to delay the execution and announced his intention to proceed on the grounds that the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction over him, but the secretary of war ordered him to delay the execution.
Yamashita’s appeal noted that the Commonwealth of the Philippines was not an occupied territory like Germany or Japan, and that he should be tried in civilian courts. His attorneys also said that the unusual circumstances of war had passed with the surrender of Japan, making military courts unnecessary. Their strongest argument was probably that the trial had been conducted in an improper manner.
Unlike the Nuremberg Trials, the Yamashita trial was not in the hands of an international tribunal. It was the sole responsibility of the United States, and U.S. law applied. Eight justices of the Supreme Court heard the case and gave their opinions on February 4, 1946. Six of them declared in the majority opinion that the military commission did have the right to try Yamashita, because the war was not technically over until a treaty was signed. They dismissed the case against the irregularities in procedure by saying that it was up to the military authorities to review the case and make any corrections. Justice Frank Murphy
President Harry S. Truman denied an appeal by the defense attorneys. Yamashita was hanged on February 23, 1946.
Even at the time of Yamashita’s trial and execution, many people saw the dangers of the precedent being set. In his dissenting minority opinion, Justice Murphy warned that future U.S. leaders and soldiers might suffer the consequences of the United States’ actions in this case. Justice Rutledge ended his dissenting opinion with a quotation from Thomas Paine: “He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.”
The fate of no U.S. leader has yet been sealed by the Yamashita decision, but it has caused considerable embarrassment for some. During the war in Vietnam, several opponents of U.S. policy suggested that the various atrocities committed by U.S. troops were the responsibility of their commanders, up to and including the commander in chief. Bertrand Russell and Ralph Schoenman conducted the International War Crimes Tribunal
These hearings in Stockholm came to nothing, because the proceedings were biased, but accusers based their contention that President Lyndon B. Johnson was responsible for atrocities in Vietnam on the Yamashita precedent. One historian of these events wrote, “While collective guilt, like the notion of original sin, may have a place in theology, it is not part of Anglo-American jurisprudence. Here guilt is always personal, and if all are guilty then in effect nobody is guilty.” The Yamashita case introduced another principle into American jurisprudence: Someone, preferably the highest-ranking person, must pay even if all are guilty.
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Connaughton, Richard M. MacArthur and Defeat in the Philippines. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2001. The author argues that MacArthur’s mistakes led to defeat in the Philippines. Illustrated and includes bibliography. -
Lael, Richard L. The Yamashita Precedent: War Crimes and Command Responsibility. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1982. Short, useful account of the case, with details of the arguments that went on between the Supreme Court justices before their decision. Contends that MacArthur and other leaders were not “black-hearted villains” but merely “made questionable decisions.” Fully documented, with a bibliography and index. -
Perret, Geoffrey. Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur. New York: Random House, 1996. A comprehensive, definitive one-volume biography of MacArthur. -
Potter, John Deane. The Life and Death of a Japanese General. New York: New American Library, 1962. Popularized account of Yamashita’s trial. Presents him as a victim. -
Reel, A. Frank. The Case of General Yamashita. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949. Reel was one of Yamashita’s defense lawyers. This is one of the more useful books on the topic, as it gives a firsthand account of the trial. The organization is confused, however, and the book is written in an anecdotal style. No reference features or illustrations, but a valuable appendix containing the Supreme Court decision and dissenting opinions in full. -
Swinson, Arthur. Four Samurai: A Quartet of Japanese Army Commanders in the Second World War. London: Hutchinson, 1968. Brief accounts of Yamashita and three other Japanese generals of World War II. The author makes some attempt to use Japanese sources but offers little information about Yamashita that is not available in the other sources listed here. -
Taylor, Lawrence. A Trial of Generals: Homma, Yamashita, MacArthur. South Bend, Ind.: Icarus Press, 1981. Despite the title, there is little in this book about MacArthur’s involvement with the case. Lael’s book is much better for an account of the events and their significance by a nonparticipant. Index, bibliography, and photographs. -
Yamashita, Tomoyuki. Before the Military Commission Convened by the Commanding General, United States Army Forces, Western Pacific: United States of America vs. Tomoyuki Yamashita. 34 vols. Manila, 1945. The proceedings of the trial and, therefore, the ultimate source for information on the trial itself. Its size makes it difficult to use for any but the most interested and determined reader.
World War II: Pacific Theater
Japan Begins Attacks on Southeast Asia
Thai-Burma Railway Is Completed with Forced Labor
Japan Orders Kamikaze Attacks
Nazi War Criminals Are Tried at Nuremberg
British and Australian Tribunals Impose Death Sentences for War Crimes
Jaspers Examines Germany’s Collective Responsibility for War Crimes
United Nations Adopts Convention on Genocide
Treaty of Peace with Japan Is Signed in San Francisco
Eichmann Is Tried for War Crimes
Statutes of Limitations Are Rendered Inapplicable to War Crimes