| Original caption: “Yamashita trial – Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita, flanked by his counsel, at his trial at Manila.” Imperial Japanese Army General Tomoyuki Yamashita (November 8, 1885 – February 23, 1946), Commanding Officer, 14th Army, was photographed as his trial started. The same day, his motion to dismiss charges was denied. From left to right: civilian interpreter Masakatsu Hamamoto (September 16, 1905 – November 1996); unknown guard; Captain Milton Sandberg (March 13, 1916 – May 19, 1995), Judge Advocate General’s Department, 1 of Yamashita’s American counsel; Yamashita; and Captain Adolf F. Reel (June 30, 1907 – April 4, 2000), Judge Advocate General’s Department, another of Yamashita’s American counsel. United States Army Colonel Harry E. Clarke (August 29, 1897 – June 8, 1957), Judge Advocate General’s Department, led Yamashita’s American defense team. The team included Lieutenant Colonel Walter C. Hendrix (January 14, 1884 – March 20, 1957), Judge Advocate General’s Department; Lieutenant Colonel James G. Feldhaus (January 7, 1906 – February 19, 1991), Judge Advocate General’s Department; Major George F. Guy (May 4, 1904 – April 25, 1980), Cavalry; and Reel and Sandberg. The prosecution was led by Major Robert M. Kerr (June 6, 1904 – December 11, 1988), Infantry. Philippine Army Major Glicerio Opinion (???? – ????) was seconded to the Judge Advocate General’s Department as Special Assistant Prosecutor to interview the Filipino witnesses. The prosecution team included Captain Manning D. Webster (October 5, 1906 – December 26, 1985), Assistant Prosecutor; Captain Willian N. Calyer (February 1, 1909 – June 21, 1960), Judge Advocate General’s Department, Assistant Prosecutor; Captain Delmas C. Hill (October 9, 1906 – December 2, 1989), Judge Advocate General’s Department, Assistant Prosecutor; and Captain Jack M. Pace (May 18, 1914 – July 11, 1987), Infantry, Assistant Prosecutor. Trial Assistants were United States Navy Reserve Lieutenant George E. Mountz (January 30, 1908 – October 3, 1951) and Lieutenant William S. Yard (July 4, 1912 – June 15, 1961), Judge Advocate General’s Department. A 41-year-old Oregonian and graduate of the University of Michigan law school, Kerr prided himself on the fact that he was not a member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps but was an infantryman, a “mere soldier,” he liked to say. 4 captains, all of whom had served as district attorneys in civilian life, assisted Kerr. Lastly, Major Opinion rounded out the prosecution, the only Filipino on the team. In comments to the reporters on the eve of the arraignment, Kerr announced that he would seek the death penalty for Yamashita. Over the course of the trial, he said he would introduce as many as 1,000 exhibits, including captured Japanese orders, diaries, and victim statements. The crimes committed by the general’s troops, he said, occurred not just in Manila but throughout the archipelago. “I’m amazed myself at the universal pattern of atrocities—of what the Philippine people went through,” he said. “If we gave them all, this trial would go on for months.” The military tribunal, that would finally condemn Yamashita to death, consisted of Major General Russel B. Reynolds (December 24, 1894 – December 7, 1970), Presiding Officer; Major General Clarence L. Sturdevant (August 1, 1885 – March 31, 1958); Major General James A. Lester (October 13, 1891 – March 10, 1958); Brigadier General William G. Walker (June 28, 1890 – December 31, 1974); Brigadier General Egbert F. Bullene (January 25, 1895 – May 21, 1958). Military staff cars rolled up outside New Bilibid Prison, some 25 miles south of Manila, on October 5, 1945, carrying the American lawyers chosen to represent General Yamashita in his upcoming war crimes trial. Few had wanted the assignment. The war had been over barely a month, and tensions remained high. The ruins of Manila served as a daily reminder of the horror that had unfolded in the Philippine capital 8 months earlier. Furthermore, representing a defendant described by the Washington Post as “one of the most hated of all the Japanese” shined an unwanted spotlight on the families of the lawyers back home in America. “I feel sure he will do his best since defending Yamashita is his duty,” Mary Hendrix told the Atlanta Constitution. “This is one case I am hoping my husband will lose.” A trigonometry teacher at Altoona High School in Pennsylvania went so far as to single out Colonel Clarke’s niece Thelma 1 day in class. “How do you feel,” he asked, “about your uncle being a traitor?” The public hostility was not lost on the lawyers whose job was to fight for the life of a man who, only weeks earlier, had been their sworn enemy. But the rancor ran deeper. As the senior Imperial Japanese Army commander in the Philippines, Yamashita served as the face of the barbaric military that had raped and murdered tens of thousands and destroyed the Pearl of the Orient. Even his lawyers were not immune from such feelings. Colonel Feldhaus personally viewed Yamashita as a savage. “Our feelings towards our unwanted client were at first somewhat antagonistic,” he wrote. “I personally was quite bitter about having been appointed counsel on his case.” Major Guy felt the same. “We had all seen the ravages and destruction in Manila itself and many of us had seen similar sights out in the provinces and in other cities in the Philippines,” he wrote. “We all knew that Yamashita was entitled to a defense, but we all wondered, ‘Why does it have to be us?’” Yamashita requested that his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Akira Mutō (December 15, 1892 – December 23, 1948), and Major General Naokata Utunomiya (January 9, 1898 – June 26, 1997) be allowed to join his staff. The prosecution objected because both were arraigned on war crimes charges. The Tribunal allowed them to participate in the interest of having a fair trial. Masakatsu Hamamoto, Harvard University Class of 1927, was a Prisoner of War and Yamashita’s preferred interpreter. He sat next to Yamashita, in a violation of court rules, for the entire trial, whispering the proceedings to him. “This was a tour de force of stupendous proportions that had the effect of shortening the proceedings by many weeks, for, without Hamamoto, the court interpreters would have had to translate the entire trial for the accused.” Hamamoto, however, was not allowed to interpret Yamashita’s testimony into English for the court. In preparation for the trial, guards had moved Yamashita from New Bilibid Prison to a special cell on the 2nd floor of the residence, which, before the war, had served as the bedroom of American high commissioner Francis Sayre’s 2 stepsons. The trial that kicked off this Monday morning promised to be a logistical nightmare, requiring an army of translators to cover languages ranging from Japanese and Spanish to Chinese dialects of Mandarin, Amoy, and Cantonese, as well as Tagalog, Visayan, and other obscure Filipino dialects. The 123 specific charges against Yamashita, according to a tally compiled by Yank magazine, accounted for 62,278 tortured and murdered civilians, 144 slain American officers and enlisted men, and 488 raped women and children. Even Great Britain, which had endured the brutal German bombings known as the Blitz, counted only 61,000 dead civilians throughout the entire war. The prosecution hurried to present its own case, torn between the directive to prove all 123 alleged atrocities and the judges’ eagerness to wrap up the trial as soon as possible, to the extent that the commission worked a half-day on Thanksgiving. On average, half a dozen charges were covered each day, reducing massacres that at times killed hundreds to just a few pages of testimony. For those who had survived the Battle of Manila, the atrocities were well known—the Red Cross, German Club, De La Salle, and Saint Paul’s College, among scores more. Other witnesses recounted the massacres in the provinces, including an estimated 25,000 killed in Batangas. Yamashita’s lawyers faced the challenge of how to confront witnesses who were often victims of such ghastly crimes. In some instances, the lawyers chose not to cross-examine them. In other cases, the defense questioned the type of uniforms the perpetrators wore, trying to distinguish whether troops belonged to the Japanese army or navy. Another avenue lawyers probed was whether the victims had ties to the Filipino guerrillas, which, if so, might have given the Japanese a motive. But the most significant challenge the defense faced centered on the incredibly loose rules of evidence. In addition to putting victims on the stand, prosecutors often submitted additional witness statements gathered during the post-battle investigations. Unlike a witness on the stand, defense lawyers could not cross-examine or challenge such statements. The same proved true with captured Japanese records, some of which consisted of little more than fragments of diaries plucked from the pockets of dead enemy soldiers. How could the defense verify the information in them? Another challenge for the defense was the allowance of hearsay testimony, which is when a witness relates what someone else told them. Such evidence is usually forbidden in American courtrooms. “Hearsay evidence was admitted. Not merely first-degree hearsay from an identified source, but rumor and gossip from unidentified sources,” Reel wrote. Yamashita’s defense likewise zeroed in on what the attorneys viewed as a significant hole in the prosecution’s case. Victim after victim testified to the horrific rapes, murders, and mutilations Japanese troops had committed. Still, none of the prosecution’s more than 200 witnesses were able to link Yamashita directly to those crimes. “There was not one word or one shred of credible evidence to show that General Yamashita ever ordered the commission of even one of the acts with which he was charged,” defense lawyer George Guy later wrote, “or that he ever had any knowledge of the commission of any of these acts, either before they took place, or after their commission.” MacArthur, who was in Japan overseeing the occupation, monitored the progress of his former adversary’s trial. He grew alarmed at reports that lawyers wanted more time to prepare Yamashita’s defense. “Commander in Chief disturbed by reports of possible recess in Yamashita case,” his staff cabled. “Doubts need of Defense for more time and desires proceedings completed at the earliest practicable date.” The prosecution rested its case after 19 days, turning the trial over to Yamashita’s lawyers. The defense called a string of witnesses, ranging from family friends and fellow officers to a member of the Japanese parliament, all of whom painted Yamashita as a moral officer who opposed his nation’s military aggression. Some of these witnesses, however, had no firsthand knowledge of what he was like as a commander in the field. Some of the testimony was clearly false, including witnesses who argued that the food ration for internees at Santo Tomas was comparable to what Japanese troops received. Lt. Gen. Shiyoku Kou, who was in charge of internment and prisoner of war camps, told commissioners that when he visited the camp in late 1944, internees all appeared healthy, eating fruits, vegetables, and even meat at a time when internees, in fact, survived on dog food, pigeons, and rats. Shizuo Ohashi, a civilian employee who worked at Santo Tomas from 1942 through the camp’s liberation, echoed Kou. “There were no deaths from starvation,” he told commissioners, “but there have been deaths of men over sixty years of age who died from natural causes.” The 3 days Yamashita spent on the stand—his testimony stretched more than 15 hours—resonated with many of the spectators and journalists who covered the proceedings. “When the defense rested, the task of the trial commission no longer seemed simple,” wrote Time magazine. “Yamashita’s spirited defense had suddenly emphasized the lack of precedent for war crimes trials, the vagueness of the charges—violations of the rules of war. The commission had other problems. What was Yamashita—a consummate liar or a victim of circumstance? What was to be his fate? The rope or the firing squad? Prison? Freedom? Manila waited for the answer.” At 0830 Hours on the morning of December 5, spectators jammed the courtroom of the High Commissioner’s Residence, all anxious to hear final arguments in the case of United States v. Tomoyuki Yamashita. There was little doubt that the defense’s numerous procedural objections throughout the trial, coupled with the critical press accounts, weighed heavily upon the 5 jurists. That was evident in the statement President Judge Reynolds read aloud behind closed doors to the prosecution and defense. “It is directed that the final arguments be restricted entirely to the charge and bill of particulars, and the material which the Commission has accepted as evidence or probative material,” Reynolds told the lawyers. “That is to say: the final argument will not be utilized as a means of re-arguing any ruling, decision, or policy of the Commission, implied or otherwise. Further, there will be no discussion or criticism, implied or otherwise, as to the propriety of General Styer or General MacArthur’s action in convening the commission or the regulations issued for its guidance.” After 32 days and hundreds of witnesses, the trial boiled down to the question of whether a commander could be held responsible for the actions of his troops. The defense went 1st this Wednesday morning. 4 of Yamashita’s lawyers each tackled a part of his story, from the general’s military background and the conditions he inherited in the Philippines to his struggles against Filipino guerrillas and the superior forces of America. “The prosecution contends that there was a plan in the Manila atrocities. We do not see any,” Milton Sandberg declared. “We see only wild, unaccountable looting, murder, and rape. If there be an explanation of the Manila story, we believe it lies in this: Trapped in the doomed city, knowing that they had only a few days at best to live, the Japanese went berserk, unloosed their pent-up fears and passions in one last orgy of abandon.” Did the prosecution believe, Sandberg pressed, that Yamashita ordered all of the rapes and massacres? “If General Yamashita is not charged with ordering the Manila atrocities, what is the charge?” the lawyer continued. “Is he charged with having failed to punish the twenty thousand dead Japanese left in the city after the battle?” Outside of orders to destroy factories, warehouses, and matériel—legitimate wartime targets—the defense argued most of the destruction in Manila resulted from the 29-day battle. Sandberg pointed out that American artillerymen fired 155 mm howitzers at point-blank range until buildings collapsed. “The battle of the south side of Manila was a house-to-house, room-to-room battle, and it was a battle of Japanese small arms against American artillery, mortar fire, and flame throwers,” Sandberg said. “If the Japanese had wanted to destroy the city, why did they not do so in January, after the American landing of Lingayen? Why did they not put to the torch the vast populous sections of Manila, Quiapo, Santa Cruz, Sampaloc, San Juan, Santa Mesa—all highly inflammable, yet left virtually untouched and unharmed?” Frank Reel argued that many of the atrocities were directed against Filipino guerrillas. “To us the guerrillas were patriots and heroes, and rightly so; but to the Japanese forces they were war criminals,” Reel argued. “They were the most dangerous form of war criminal: treacherous, ruthless, and effective.” But Yamashita’s challenges went beyond battling guerrillas. The general suffered from poor communications—cut landlines and spotty wireless—as well as a fragmented command and scattered forces. “We don’t say that these atrocities did not occur,” Reel said. “We tried through this trial to show that General Yamashita had no connection with them.” Prosecutor Kerr, in his closing statements, countered that the slaughter and destruction were far too organized and widespread to have been just a few battle-crazed troops. He added that witness after witness testified to the participation of officers in atrocities. “They were led; they were commanded; they were acting as military units in a military operation,” Kerr said. “These were not wild, drunken orgies by individual soldiers on their own! Not at all!” The prosecutor likewise challenged the defense’s assertion that guerrillas goaded the Japanese to commit such crimes. How then did that explain the butchery of thousands of women and children—even babies in the arms of mothers? “The whole length of the Philippines was blanketed with one horrible atrocity after another over a period of seven months,” he argued. “Tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children were massacred under the most horrible, heartrending conditions, or subjected to the most inhuman tortures and indignities.” The prosecutor likewise zeroed in on the assertion that the general was a strict disciplinarian. “If we accept that, it makes it all the more unlikely that his subordinates would have violated, as obviously they did in these many, many ways—flagrantly violated—not only the regulations of the Japanese army but the regulations and the principles of mankind, unless they had felt and had known that their conduct was approved and permitted by the accused.” A theme Kerr wove throughout his nearly 3-hour closing was that Yamashita had a responsibility, as a commander, to control the actions of all his forces, just as a sea captain is liable for the fate of his ship. “It was his duty to know what was being done by his troops, under his orders, under his commands,” Kerr argued. “He failed in his mission in the Philippines; not merely to hold the Philippines for the Japanese, but he failed in his mission here to protect the Philippine people who were in his custody.” In closing, Kerr argued that if the commissioners found Yamashita guilty of failure to perform his duty, then the Tiger of Malaya should be executed. “Anything less than the death sentence would be a mockery!” he concluded. “In view of the aggravated nature of the crimes, in view of the measure of the crimes, we recommend that the sentence in the case of death be carried out by hanging.” The 5 judges filed into the courtroom and took their seats behind the bench amid the whir of motion picture cameras and exploding flashbulbs. For a case as high-profile as this, the judges, in their final meeting, had made an unusual pact. “We agreed with one another never to discuss publicly or in public writing anything about the trial of General Yamashita,” Presiding Judge Reynolds wrote decades later in a private letter. “We decided this course of action because we believed the very voluminous record would be sufficient for future research, and should stand on its own feet.” “The Commission is in session,” Reynolds announced. The presiding judge, reading from prepared remarks, outlined the charges against Yamashita, noting that the atrocities took place throughout the entirety of his time in command. “The crimes extended throughout the Philippine Archipelago, although by far the most incredible acts occurred on Luzon,” Reynolds said. “It is noteworthy that the Accused did not attempt to deny that the crimes were committed.” Over the course of the trial, Reynolds stated, the commission had heard testimony from 286 witnesses in 11 languages, a parade of doctors, lawyers, teachers, and nurses, most of whom had described what happened to them and their loved ones. That testimony was complemented by 423 exhibits, ranging from captured enemy orders and photographs to statements from victims. “Many of the witnesses displayed incredible scars of wounds which they testified were inflicted by Japanese from whom they made spectacular escapes followed by remarkable physical recovery,” he said. “For the most part, we have been impressed by the candor, honesty, and sincerity of the witnesses whose testimony is contained in 4055 pages in the record of the trial.” Reynolds acknowledged the hard-fought arguments on both sides, stating that the prosecution had shown that the crimes were so extensive and widespread that such violence must have been either ordered or permitted. He likewise said the defense had successfully portrayed the incredible challenges Yamashita inherited when he took command in the Philippines, from shortages of food, fuel, and equipment to the struggle against an overpowering enemy. Reynolds added that Yamashita and his senior staff all maintained that any such atrocities ran contrary to the general’s policies and orders. “Taken at full face value,” the judge said, “the testimony indicates that Japanese senior commanders operate in a vacuum, almost in another world with respect to their troops, compared with standards American Generals take for granted.” Spectators hung on every word. “An unearthly silence came over the courtroom as the General continued to read,” Mountz wrote in a letter. “I know personally the perspiration began to drop off me as the suspense continued to mount.” Reynolds prepared to wrap up his comments, pointing out that Yamashita was an experienced commander and, as such, understood the authority and responsibility entrusted to him. “It is absurd,” he said, “to consider a commander a murderer or rapist because one of his soldiers commits a murder or rape. Nonetheless, where murder and rape and vicious, revengeful actions are widespread offenses, and there is no effective attempt by a commander to discover and control the criminal acts, such a commander may be held responsible, even criminally liable, for the lawless acts of his troops.” Reynolds said that the commission concluded that the atrocities committed by Yamashita’s troops were not sporadic but rather were methodically supervised by Japanese officers. During that time, he had failed to control his forces. “Accordingly, upon secret ballot, two-thirds or more of the members concurring, the Commission finds you guilty as charged and sentences you to death by hanging.” Everyone in the courtroom focused on Yamashita as the interpreter whispered the decision to him. “I feel that he must have known what was coming,” recalled George Guy, 1 of his lawyers. “When the final words were translated, there was scarcely a change of expression on his quiet and solemn face.” Others observed the same. “Not a muscle moved in his broad face as he took in the import of the verdict,” wrote the reporter for the Manila Times. “The silence in the courtroom was disturbed only by the whir of movie cameras taking a record of the momentous event.” The general made a curt bow to the commission members before Lieutenant Colonel Aubrey Saint Kenworthy (October 19, 1892 – November 21, 1963), who commanded the Military Police tasked with guarding the prisoners, motioned for him to follow him out at 1415 Hours. “As the convicted war criminal started leaving the courtroom, the tension broke, and people started filing out,” the reporter with the Courier wrote. “There were no smiles; there were no grimaces.” | |
| Image Filename | wwii1482.jpg |
| Image Size | 900.83 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2334 x 2904 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | October 29, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | Manila |
| State or Province | Luzon |
| Country | Philippines |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NRE-338-FTL(EF)-3161(13) |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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