Philippine War Crimes Commission

Last updated
Philippine War Crimes Commission
Agency overview
Formed1945
Dissolved1949
Headquarters Manila, Philippines
Parent agency Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers

The Philippine War Crimes Commission (Filipino: Komisyon ng mga Krimen sa Digmaan ng Pilipinas) was a commission created in late 1945 by General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers to investigate the war crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy during the invasion, occupation, and liberation of the Philippines. The investigation by the Commission led to the extradition, prosecution, and conviction of Class A, Class B, and Class C defendants in Manila, Tokyo, and other cities in East and Southeast Asia through the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Background

A scar on the face and ear of a young Filipino boy, the result of mutilation inflicted by Japanese soldiers Japanese atrocities. Philippines, China, Burma, Japan - NARA - 292599.jpg
A scar on the face and ear of a young Filipino boy, the result of mutilation inflicted by Japanese soldiers

During the invasion of the Philippines in December 1941, the Japanese Fourteenth Area Army headed by Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma, and the Imperial Japanese Navy's 3rd Fleet swept through the Filipino main island of Luzon. The United States Army Forces in the Far East headed by General Douglas MacArthur was ordered to fall back to Bataan and Corregidor Island under the War Plan Orange. The American and Filipino defenders put up a stubborn resistance against Japanese forces in the Battle of Bataan, and delayed the timetable of the Japanese expansion into Southeast Asia and Australia. However, after five months of resistance with limited supplies, food, ammunition and medicine, the forces in Bataan commanded by Major General Edward P. King surrendered on April 9, 1945 to General Homma in the largest capitulation of the United States Army. [4] 80,000 Americans and Filipinos surrendered to Japanese forces, and the Japanese committed them to the Bataan Death March, where an estimate of 15,000 died from heat, exhaustion, abuse or summary execution. [5] The following day, units of the Japanese Army committed the Pantingan River Massacre, where 600 officers of the Philippine Army's 91st Infantry Division were summarily executed with the use of swords. Of the prisoners who survived the march and reached the POW camp at Camp O'Donnell, malnutrition, disease, mistreatment and abuse resulted in the deaths of an additional 20,000 prisoners of war.

A column of American and Filipino prisoners of war carrying their fallen comrades during the Bataan Death March, March 1942 Photograph of American Prisoners Using Improvised Litters to Carry Comrades, 05-1942 - NARA - 535564.jpg
A column of American and Filipino prisoners of war carrying their fallen comrades during the Bataan Death March, March 1942

The Filipino POWs were released August 1942, while the American POWs were distributed in other POW Camps around the country and were pressed into forced labor, building airfields, railroads, bases and other civil works. Some POWs were later transported on hell ships and brought to China, Taiwan, or the home islands of Japan to be used as human shields and forced labor.

During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, a number of atrocities were recorded against local government officials such as the execution of former Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos and the Mayor of Daet Wenceslao Vinzons. [6] There were also a number of former military officers who were executed such as Brigadier General Vicente Lim, and the former Philippine Constabulary Intelligence Division Chief, Lieutenant Colonel Alejo Valdes, brother of the Philippine Army's Chief-of-Staff Basilio Valdes. Diplomats such as the Chinese Embassy staff were massacred and buried in the Manila Chinese Cemetery. Civilians were also not spared as the Japanese military police, the Kempeitai, subjected them to torture or summary executions without trial for suspicion of being a supporter of anti-Japanese guerilla forces, or disagreements with pro-Japanese Filipino organizations, such as the Makapili. The Japanese military also systematically forced young Filipino women and girls into sexual slavery as "comfort women". Of the four Japanese military governors of the Philippines, three were tried and convicted of war crimes. General Shizuichi Tanaka, who was the military governor of the Philippines between June 1942 and May 1943, committed suicide near the end of the war and could not be tried.

A Filipino woman and child killed in the Manila Massacre, 1945 Japanese atrocities. Philippines, China, Burma, Japan - NARA - 292598.jpg
A Filipino woman and child killed in the Manila Massacre, 1945

In 1944, during the Philippines campaign, Japanese forces under the overall command of General Tomoyuki Yamashita also perpetrated attacks and massacres against the civilian population. [7] During the battle for Manila, the Filipino capital city, Japanese soldiers committed atrocities against Filipino civilians in the Manila massacre, the total number of civilians who were killed was at least 100,000. The commander of the Japanese marines and units that committed the massacre was Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi. Although Admiral Iwabuchi's marines had committed the atrocity, Yamashita was convicted as a war criminal for the Manila massacre even though Yamashita had earlier ordered Iwabuchi to evacuate Manila as he had. Iwabuchi himself escaped justice and committed suicide in the face of imminent defeat near the end of the battle.

The day after the surrender of Japan, the head of the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, Col. Sidney Mashbir, confronted Katsuo Okazaki of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and presented him evidence gathered by the PWCC of the massacres that occurred in the Philippines. [3]

Former war-crimes prosecutor and author Allan Ryan argues that there was no evidence that Yamashita committed crimes in Manila, ordered others to do so, was in a position to prevent them, or even suspected they were about to happen. [8] 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. The problem with Ryan's argument which only focused on the Manila massacre was it completely ignored the numerous war crimes and atrocities committed by Yamashita's Army soldiers outside of Manila that no Navy sailors and marines committed, making them Yamashita's responsibility. Yamashita was held responsible for numerous war crimes that the prosecution claimed was a systematic campaign to torture and kill Filipino civilians and Allied POWs as shown in the Palawan Massacre of 139 U.S. POWs, wanton executions of guerrillas, soldiers, and civilians without due process like the execution of Philippine Army general Vicente Lim, and the massacre of 25,000 civilians in Batangas Province. These crimes that were committed outside of the Manila massacre were done by the Japanese Army, not the Navy. It was argued that Yamashita was in full command of the Japanese Army's secret military police, the Kempeitai, which committed numerous war crimes on POWs and civilian internees and he simply nodded his head without protest when asked by his Kempeitai subordinates to execute people without due process or trials because there were too many prisoners to do proper trials. [9]

World War II in the Philippines resulted in the deaths of approximately 530,000 to 1,000,000 Filipinos, mostly civilians. [10] [11] [12] [13]

Activities

The Commission was headed by former Justice and future Solicitor General Manuel Lim, who also became one of the Assistant Prosecutor during the trials of generals Masaharu Homma and Tomoyuki Yamashita. [5] Lim enlisted the help of SCAP War Crimes Investigation Section and brought in more than 100 military and legal personnel in this effort. Lim investigated more than 300 individuals and 600 cases, interviewing thousands of witnesses. [6] The Commission should not be confused with the Commonwealth of the Philippines' National War Crimes Office in Manila, established by President Sergio Osmena in 1945. Around 1948, the convicts who had not been executed were all transferred to Filipino custody. They were released under an amnesty by Elpidio Quirino in 1953. [14]

Notable defendants prosecuted

Overall, the Commission handled the prosecution of more than 169 defendants, of whom 133 were found guilty. 25 were given the death sentence, and 16 received life imprisonment.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Piccigallo, Philip (1980). The Japanese on trial : Allied war crimes operations in the East, 1945-1951. University of Texas Press. p. 192. ISBN   0292739710.
  2. ↑ McNamara, Katherine. "The Dangerous Unknown Of Our Untested Innocence". www.archipelago.org. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
  3. 1 2 Drea, Edward. "Researching Japanese War Crimes Records" (PDF). National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved 2 June 2023.
  4. ↑ Woody, Christopher. "It's been 77 years since one of World War II's worst atrocities — the Bataan Death March". Business Insider. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
  5. 1 2 "United States of America vs Masaharu Homma". ICC Legal Tools Database. International Criminal Court. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
  6. 1 2 "The execution of Jose Abad Santos". The Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. Office of the President. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
  7. ↑ "Tomoyuki Yamashita". TRIAL International. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
  8. ↑ Ryan, Allan A. (October 2012). Yamashita's Ghost – War Crimes, MacArthur's Justice, and Command Accountability. Lawrence, KS, USA: University Press of Kansas. ISBN   978-0-7006-1881-1.
  9. ↑ https://battleofmanila.org/Whitney/cw_01.htm . Retrieved 16 August 2023
  10. ↑ Werner Gruhl, Imperial Japan's World War Two, 1931–1945 Transaction 2007 ISBN   978-0-7658-0352-8 p. 143-144
  11. ↑ Anne Sharp Wells (28 September 2009). The A to Z of World War II: The War Against Japan. Scarecrow Press. p. 16. ISBN   978-0-8108-7026-0.
  12. ↑ "Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II". New Orleans, United States: The National WWII Museum. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  13. ↑ "AJR-27 War crimes: Japanese military during World War II". California Legislative Information. State of California. 26 August 1999. Retrieved 23 July 2019. WHEREAS, At the February 1945 "Battle of Manila," 100,000 men, women, and children were killed by Japanese armed forces in inhumane ways, adding to a total death toll that may have exceeded one million Filipinos during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, which began in December 1941 and ended in August 1945;
  14. ↑ "SEQUELS: Forgiving Neighbor". Time. 1953-07-27. ISSN   0040-781X . Retrieved 2022-09-15.
  15. ↑ "Page 1". imtfe.law.virginia.edu. 16 January 2016. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  16. ↑ "All Hands". books.google.com. 1946. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  17. ↑ "US Army War Crimes Investigation Results about Massacres in Lipa in 1945". www.batangashistory.date. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  18. ↑ "Page 1". imtfe.law.virginia.edu. 16 January 2016. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  19. ↑ "Yokohama War Crimes Trials" . Retrieved 23 May 2022.[ title missing ]
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