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Execution of Tomoyuki Yamashita -“The Tiger of Malaya“ Responsible for Massacres in Singapore & Philippines - WW2. Tomoyuki Yamashita, the second son of a local doctor, was born on the 8 November 1885 in a village named Osugi located on the island of Shikoku. In November 1905, at the age of 20, Yamashita graduated from the 18th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. He was ranked 16th out of 920 cadets. After the February 26 Incident of 1936, which was an attempted coup d'état in the Empire of Japan organized by a group of young Imperial Japanese Army officers with the goal of purging the government and military leadership of their factional rivals and ideological opponents, Yamashita fell into disfavor with Emperor Hirohito due to his appeal for leniency toward rebel officers involved in the attempted coup. He was eventually relegated to a post in Korea and one year later in November 1937 he was promoted to lieutenant-general. At this time Japan was in war with China. Japanese territorial expansion in East Asia began in 1931 with the invasion of Manchuria and continued in 1937 with a brutal attack on China. Yamashita insisted that Japan should end the conflict with China and keep peaceful relations with the United States and Great Britain, but he was ignored and subsequently assigned to an unimportant post. Between 1938 and 1940, Yamashita was assigned to command the infantry Division which saw some action in northern China against insurgents fighting the occupying Japanese armies. The Second World War began on the 1st of September, 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. On September 27, 1940, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, thus entering the military alliance known as the “Axis.“ On 6 November 1941 Yamashita was put in command of the Twenty-Fifth Army with which on 8 December he launched an invasion of Malaya from bases in French Indochina. The Malayan campaign concluded with the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942, in which Yamashita's 30,000 front-line soldiers captured 80,000 British, Indian and Australian troops, the largest surrender of British-led personnel in history. After this victory, Yamashita became known as the “Tiger of Malaya“. The campaign and the subsequent Japanese occupation of Singapore included war crimes committed against captive Allied personnel and civilians. On 17 July 1942, he was again reassigned from Singapore to far-away Manchukuo which was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Manchuria from 1932 until 1945, having been given a post in commanding the First Area Army, and was effectively sidelined for a major part of the Pacific War. It is thought that general Hideki Tojo, by then the Prime Minister, was responsible for his banishment, taking advantage of Yamashita's gaffe during a speech made to Singaporean civilian leaders in early 1942, when he referred to the local populace as “citizens of the Empire of Japan“. This was considered embarrassing for the Japanese government, who officially did not consider the residents of occupied territories to have the rights or privileges of Japanese citizenship. Despite this, in February 1943 Yamashita was promoted to full general. Some have suggested that he may have been sent there to prepare for an attack on the Soviet Union in the event that Stalingrad fell to Germany. However this never never happened. On 26 September 1944, when the war situation was critical for Japan, Yamashita was rescued from his enforced exile in China by the new Japanese government after the downfall of Hideki Tōjō and his cabinet, and he assumed the command of the Fourteenth Area Army to defend the occupied Philippines on 10 October. Yamashita commanded approximately 262,000 troops in three defensive groups. He tried to rebuild his army but was forced to retreat from Manila - the capital of the Philippines - to the mountains. Yamashita ordered all troops, except those given the task of ensuring security, out of the city. While evacuating most of his soldiers, Yamashita, who also served as the governor-general and military governor of the Philippines, did not declare Manila an open city.... Join World History channel and get access to benefits: Disclaimer: All opinions and comments below are from members of the public and do not reflect the views of World History channel. We do not accept promoting violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on attributes such as: race, nationality, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation. World History has right to review the comments and delete them if they are deemed inappropriate. ► CLICK the SUBSCRIBE button for more interesting clips: #ww2 #worldwar2videos #worldhistory
