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General Yamishita
 Tomoyuki Yamishita was born in the small village of Osugi Muraon on the Japanese island of Shikoku on 8th November 1888. His schooling did not show any hope of his carrying on his fathers work as a doctor, after considering his sons career prospects, the army was picked mainly because of Tomoyuki’s good health and stamina. In 1908 he passed the entrance exam and entered the Military Academy at Hiroshima.
The infantry was now his home and he obtained a place at the Staff College where in 1916 he married the daughter of General Nagayama, after graduating in sixth position at the college he had a tour of duty with the General Staff. and made a name for himself. Within three years Yamishita was promoted from captain to lieutenant-colonel. In 1919 he was appointed as military attaché to Switzerland returning to Japan in 1926 as a major-general to instruct at the Staff College then on to Vienna.
His marriage did not produce any children, and when not on duty enjoyed fishing and listening to music, he never learnt to drive a car. Yamishita was a very religious man and also a believer in the Samurai code.
By the end of the 1920’s he got involved with General Araki and the Imperial Way, this was a movement for military government and against the rich manufacturers who dictated the direction Japan was taking.
While Yamishita was commanding the 3rd Regiment, Tojo was commanding the 1st and making this a centre for a rival military movement called the Control Faction, Yamishita and Tojo disliked each other immensely. After the 1936 Japanese elections the moderates had won the majority and orders were given which placed the 1st and 3rd Regiments in Manchuria.
The military dislike of the moderates led to a military manifesto which Yamishita knew about at the beginning, this was to put the control of Japan in the hands of the military by removing the opposition forcibly. On the 26th February 1936 several members of the government were assassinated. Yamishita was asked to mediate between the fractions, he relayed the emperors wish that the rebels lay down their arms and when asked by the rebels what action they should take he told them to commit honourable suicide. He was very clever in getting certain actions carried out without being implemented in them, but the emperor had seen through the plot and had Yamishita’s name taken from the promotion lists and sent him to Korea.
He slowly gained back his status with the emperor and in 1940 was asked to take over from Tojo as Inspector-General Army Aviation when Tojo became War Minister. Tojo still disliked Yamishita and soon had him sent on a six month tour of Germany and Italy to look at the latest weapons. On Yamishita’s return he was posted to Commander of Kwantung in Manchuria.
Tojo increased his power as War Minister till in October 1941 he was asked to form a cabinet, he then began to get Japan ready for the coming war.
In November 1941 Yamishita was asked to a meeting at the Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo where he was given the appointment of commanding the Twenty-fifth Army in the invasion of Malaya and Singapore. He saw the coming war as a necessity and later wrote:
‘The cause of this war is fundamentally economic. Fifty years ago Japan was more or less self-sufficient - the people could live off the land. Since then the population has almost doubled, so that Japan had to rely on outside sources for food supply and other economic requirements. In order to buy or import her commodities she had to pay ultimately in commodities. This effort on her part was prevented for one reason or another by other countries. Japan made attempts to solve the misunderstandings through peaceful methods, but when all her efforts were thwarted or negated she felt it necessary to engage in open warfare.’
Yamishita made good use of the information from Tsuji on jungle warfare, his confidence was high and concern about supplying the twenty-fifth army, made him decide to take only three divisions instead of the five given him saying that a fourth was to be held only as standby. The three divisions were Lieutenant-General Renya Mutaguchi commanding the 18th Div, Lieutenant-General Takuro Matsui commanding the 5th Division and the Imperial Guard commanded by Lieutenant-General Nishimura, the 5th was the most experienced and had seen action in China. Support for the troops would be given by the 3rd Tank Brigade and two regiments of heavy field artillery. Air cover was to consist of 3rd Air Division with a total of 459 planes. Vice-Admiral Ozawa was in command of the 159 planes supplied by the navy and would protect the convoys at sea till the landings took place.
In the second week of November Yamishita flew to his headquarters in Samah on the island of Hainon, there he worked quickly to get his new staff to work as a team, ready for the attack on Malaya.
Yamishita´s key to the Malayan campaign was to neutralise the Allies air force by controlling the airfields of Thailand and Northern Malaya.
Prologue to the fall of Malaya and Singapore:
After the Malayan Campaign, on February 1943, Yamashita was promoted to general and sent to command the Japanese ground forces in the Philippines. Japan was by now losing the Pacific War and Yamashita prepared himself to die for Japan. On his arrival he moved his headquarters to Manila but when the US Army began landings on Mindro it was a bit close for comfort, only 150 miles south of Manila, so he moved his defences to Luzon.
After the Allies landed in Luzon, Yamashita freed the 4,000 prisoner of war and retreated to Baguio. In April he moved 50 miles farther inland at Bangbang. When Japan surrended he was organizing the formation of guerrilla units to fight behind the enemy lines, a simular tactic he had used in Malaya.
Yamashita was captured on 2nd September 1945. he was charged with violating the "laws of war". The Japanese Army had committed terrible atrocities in the Far East but there was no evidence that they acted under his orders. However, Tomoyuki Yamashita was found guilty and hanged on 23rd February 1946.
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