Tomoyuki Yamashita
Japanese World War II general
Died when: 60 years 107 days (723 months)Star Sign: Scorpio
Tomoyuki Yamashita (山下 奉文, Yamashita Tomoyuki, 8 November 1885 – 23 February 1946; also called Tomobumi Yamashita) was a Japanese officer and convicted war criminal, who was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.
Yamashita led Japanese forces during the invasion of Malaya and Battle of Singapore, with his accomplishment of conquering Malaya and Singapore in 70 days earning him the sobriquet "The Tiger of Malaya" and led to the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill calling the ignominious fall of Singapore to Japan the "worst disaster" and "largest capitulation" in British military history.Yamashita was assigned to defend the Philippines from the advancing Allied forces later in the war, and while unable to prevent the Allied advance, he was able to hold on to part of Luzon until after the formal Surrender of Japan in August 1945.
After the war, Yamashita was tried for war crimes committed by troops under his command during the Japanese defense of the occupied Philippines in 1944.
Yamashita denied ordering those war crimes and denied having knowledge that they even occurred.Conflicting evidence was presented during the trial concerning whether Yamashita had implicitly affirmed commission of these crimes in his orders and whether he knew of the crimes being committed.
The court eventually found Yamashita guilty and he was executed in 1946.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.
