THE Philippines had four Japanese military governors during the Second World War. They were Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma (Dec. 22, 1941 – June 9, 1942), Lt. Gen. Shizuichi Tanaka (June 9, 1942 – May 28, 1943), Lt. Gen. Shigenori Kuroda (May 28, 1943 – Sept. 26, 1944), and Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita (Sept. 26, 1944 – Sept. 2, 1945). They were all products of the now defunct Army War College, the military school that promoted Japanese militarism during the prewar days.
The four military governors spoke fluent English mainly because of their foreign posts, where they served as Japan’s military attaches in various countries. Their diplomatic posts exposed them to different cultures, enhancing their education in Western liberalism. Their exposure to Western liberal thoughts somehow balanced their intensive training in Japanese militarism, which was no different from the Prussian military traditions.
Curiously, the four military governors were educated in English literature, including the classics. Except for Tanaka, who was reputed to be close to then Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, the three other military governors could not be regarded as ideologues, who defended Japan’s ideological reason for waging war with the United States and its conquest of East Asia.
The first to come to the Philippines was Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma, regarded as the most Western educated and “gentleman” among the four. Homma had several foreign posts and this explained his fluency in English and even in French. He was sent as observer of the British Expeditionary Forces in 1918 in France and saw trench warfare there. He was named Japan’s military attache in Great Britain and India in the 1930s. When war broke between Japan and China in 1937, Homma fought in China, but he opposed the widespread brutality committed by Japanese soldiers against Chinese civilians. Shortly before the Second World War, he was named commander of the Army of Taiwan, which, at that time, was Japan’s colony.
He was called the “poet general” because of his Western liberal education. He appeared more like a scholar than a military man. Homma commanded the 14th Japanese Army that invaded the Philippines. Historians, Japanese and Filipino, claimed he was too liberal or lenient as a military governor. He nurtured the notion that he could provide directions for a “civilized” Philippines. Homma succeeded to get the voluntary cooperation of Filipino leaders like Jorge Vargas, President Manuel Quezon’s executive secretary, and Jose P. Laurel, a Supreme Court magistrate, to lessen the impact of Japanese Occupation.
Homma was reputed as a lover of the literary works of English playwright William Shakespeare. Even during the military campaign in the Philippines, he carried a book on Shakespeare, which he regularly read. He read the works of noted English writers like George Bernard Shaw, Charles Dickens, among others. Contrary to his public image as a brutal military governor, Homma, according to historians, was a cultured military official, who lost control of his subordinates, a large number of whom were Korean and Taiwanese conscripts, whom he brought to the Philippines as part of the Japanese 14th Army and were given Japanese names.
His superiors viewed Homma as “too soft” for his failure to take the Philippines immediately unlike in other parts of East Asia.It took him five month to take over Bataan and Corregidor. They recalled him to Japan after staying only five months here. Besides, they distrusted him because he was a bitter critic of then Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and his military faction, Kudoha. At that time, Homma favored Japan’s alliance with Great Britain and the U.S., not Nazi Germany. After the war, the U.S. arrested him in Japan, brought to Manila for trial because of his complicity in the Death March and its mass executions. The military court subsequently sentenced him to death by firing squad. He calmly accepted his fate and was executed in Los Banos, Laguna on April 3, 1946.
Although Homma died under the principle of command responsibility, military historians later found out that Homma did not personally order the Death March and the mass executions. A military tribunal found out that his subordinates, mainly his chief of staff Maj. Gen. Yoshihide Hayashi and Col Masanobu Tsuji, disobeyed his orders and ordered the Death March and mass executions. It could be a failure of communications because Homma had his command post at the Manila Hotel, while his subordinates were in Bataan. It was the height of irony that a learned man was held responsible for the Death March, but Homma did not complain about the application of the principle command responsibility on him. He failed to control his men.
Lt. Gen. Shizuichi Tanaka assumed Homma’s post in mid-1942. He proved to be Homma’s exact opposite. Tanaka ruled with an iron fist, launched a pacification campaign to prevent the rise of guerilla units, and ordered the execution of Filipino leaders, who opposed Japanese rule. Among the executed was Jose Abad Santos, the Supreme Court chief magistrate, who refused to submit to the Japanese rule. Tanaka was said to have cultivated Dr. Jose P. Laurel, another Supreme Court magistrate, as president of the soon to emerge as the Japanese sponsored Philippine Republic. His choice of Laurel at Vargas’s expense stemmed largely from Laurel’s opposition to U.S. colonialism.
Known as the “bulldog general,” Tanaka, who supported Tojo, started the Kalipunan ng Bagong Pilipino (Kalibapi) as the single political party of Filipino leaders supporting the Japanese rule. He established the Bureau of Constabulary to wipe out banditry that worsened during those days. This body was the precursor of Malayang Katipunan ng mga Pilipino (Makapili), the pro-Japanese auxiliary group that became notorious for having spied on the activities of Filipino guerillas. Tanaka was recalled to Japan because he failed to stop the rise of Filipino guerillas, the number of which rose to about 50,000 nationwide.
Tanaka later figured prominently in stopping the “August 15 Incident,” where young Japanese military leaders and some 500 Palace troopers staged a failed Palace coup to protest and stop Emperor Hirohito’s announcement of Japan’s surrender after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The coup took place 12 hours before Hirohito’s radio announcement of surrender. The young military leaders wanted to continue the war. Tanaka ordered the Palace troops to stop their coup and return to the barracks. They followed Tanaka, who supported the Emperor. Days after the failed coup and Japan’s surrender in 1945, Tanaka committed suicide as his expression of guilt over the war.
Lt. Gen. Shigenori Kuroda, who earned the sobriquet as the “fun-loving general” because of his hedonistic and decadent lifestyle, took over after Tanaka’s year-long stint here. But he was regarded as possibly the weakest of the four Japanese military governors. He was neglectful, corrupt, and incompetent as well. Filipino and Japanese scholars Kuroda was reputed to be a gambler and womanizer, who established a reputation for holding parties and drinking sessions. He lived at the post Forbes Park, but played golf almost daily at the Wack Wack Golf Club. He was said to be more concerned with his golf handicap than his duties.
Kuroda’s tenure, according to scholars, was considered as most corrupt as he allowed Japanese officers to run mopolies on the black market trade of basic commodities like rice, sugar, coconut, and textiles. Kuroda printed paper notes, the so-called “Mickey Mouse” money, without backup triggering hyperinflation. Kuroda’s paper notes were almost useless. Kuroda had several Filipino girlfriends, including a movie actress, whom he kept at his Forbes Part residence. It was under his term that Japan “gave” the Philippines its independence and installed Laurel as president of the Japan-sponsored Philippine government..
Kuroda’s term was largely uneventful because he did not prepare Japan’s defense against the return of Gen. Douglas McArthur’s forces. He was recalled shortly before the 1944 return of McArthur. Historians regarded Kuroda as “kind-hearted” to the Filipinos, but he did not care much as the Japanese military governor. After the war, a U.S. military tribunal tried Kuroda. It gave him a life sentence. He was pardoned and released in 1952 and died in the same year.
Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, “the tiger of Malaya,” followed Kuroda. He was ordered by his superiors to pursue a “scorched earth” policy, but Yamashita did not defend Manila. Instead, he ordered his all troops to retreat to the mountains of Cordillera for protracted defense. His order saved at least 100,000 lives on two sides. In the Cordilleras, Yamashita forces had a mouse and cat battle with the advancing Japanese forces. He brought with him pro-Japanese Filipino leaders like Gen. Artemio Ricarte and writer Benigno Ramos of Ganap Party, which was absorbed to form the Makapili.
Strangely, it was Japanese Navy commander Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi, who disobeyed and stayed in Manila with 5,000 Marines. They were the ones who committed the Manila Massacre in Feb. 1945, where more than 100,000 Filipino civilians were killed. Before and during the air, Japan’s Army and Navy did not see eye to eye on the conduct of the war. Because Yamashita was in the Cordilleras, he could not have controlled Iwabuchi, whose forces committed many atrocities in the Battle of Manila.
Yamashita retreated to Baguio City, but he failed to contact Iwabuch because he failed to get a radio connection. He later retreated to Ifugao, starving but fought until his surrender in August, 1945 after the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan. Yamashita was tried in Manila in the October-December, 1945 trial for war crimes and he was convicted under the principle of command responsibility. He was hanged on Feb 23, 1946 in Los Baños. The much discussed “Yamashita treasure” is part of the Filipino war folklore.
POSTSCRIPT: THE CONCEPT OF GREATER EAST ASIA CO-PROSPERITY SPHERE
UNLIKE Nazism, which was developed by no less than Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany’s dictator, the concept of Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was developed more of a political slogan than an ideological basis to justify Japan’s war with the United States and East Asian countries. Hence, the Japanese concept was not a well thought concept unlike Nazism, which enthralled Nazi Germany for many years.
The Japanese concept was more of an afterthought that was developed as late as 1940, when the tension between Japan and the U.S. was more pronounced. Even the four Japanese military governors sent here were not as vocal as advocates of this concept. They neither explained nor defended this concept.
What the Japanese military governors learned at the Army War College was for Japan to dominate East Asia to survive. They learned the militarist, ultranationalist, total war, and Emperor-centered ideology in the War College but not the concept of Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere for the simple reason that it came late.
Then Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe declared in 1938 the need for “new order in East Asia” because Japan’s conquest of China did not result in what Japan expected. On July 26, 1940, then Foreign Minister Yosue Matsuoka spoke on radio and coined the phrase “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”
It sought to establish a bloc composed of Japan, Manchuria, China, French Indochina (Vietnam), Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), British Malaya (Malaysia), the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand to free these countries from the “Anglo-American exploitation,” according to Matsuoka. The Konoe Cabinet adopted this concept on Aug. 28, 1940 as its foreign policy in the “Basic National Policy Outline.”
On paper, this concept meant that Japan was the industrial leader, while East Asian nations were sources of materials and resources. It also meant Japan’s version of the U.S. Monroe Doctrine – “Asia for Asians.” The Japanese military establishment liked it because it served as its cover to obtain the badly needed resources for its future war efforts. It did not click because East Asian countries were not participants but mere passive sources of resources.
