The 7th of December, 1941. 7:55 AM. The first of two
waves of Japanese naval aircraft launched from six aircraft carriers attack Pearl Harbor,
catching the US forces completely by surprise.
While the attack costs only 29 Japanese planes,
two thousand four hundred US
sailors and soldiers are killed and 1,200 are wounded.
Over half of the military aircraft are damaged or destroyed, almost all of which were grounded
at the time. One day later on the
8th of December, the Japanese launch the invasion of the Philippines and the US and the Philippine
Armies finally surrender in May 1942. More than 2 years later in October 1944,
American forces begin retaking the Philippines from Japanese troops which conducted a campaign
of slaughter, torture and other atrocities against the Filipino civilian population as well
as prisoners of war. One of the Japanese officers responsible for these atrocities is Akira Mutō.
Akira Mutō was born on 15 December 1892 in
Hakusui – a village located on the Japanese island of Kyushu.
Akira’s family was wealthy and he was considered capricious and arrogant when he was a child.
In 1920, Mutō graduated from the 32nd class of the Army War College which accepted only
previous graduates of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy from which Mutō had graduaded in 1913.
Supported by influential pro-German ministers and army officers, the Army War College was
modeled after the Prussian War College, with German officers hired to provide training.
Learning tended to be by rote memorization, with little encouragement for creative
thinking or discussion among the students. Much of the empire's elite including prime
ministers during the period of Japanese militarism were graduates of the college and each year,
the six graduates with the best marks were each awarded with an Army Sword by the Emperor.
Mutō graduated in second place among the students in this term.
From 1923–1926 he was assigned as a military attaché to Germany. Under
the military education of German militarism, Mutō became an officer
advocating the expansion of the war of aggression against China.
On his return to Japan, he served in various
administrative and staff positions within the Imperial Army General Staff Office.
Japanese territorial expansion in East Asia began in 1931 with the invasion
of Manchuria. On September 18 of the same year the Japanese planted a small explosive
device next to the tracks owned by Japan's South Manchuria Railroad near the city of
Mukden. The explosion that followed became known as the Mukden incident.
Though damage to the railway was minimal, it provided an excuse for the Japanese for the speedy
and unauthorized capture of Mukden, now Shenyang, and to seize all the cities along the railroad.
Since the invasion of Manchuria, there were various "incidents", or armed clashes of a
limited nature between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China, but all had subsided.
However, this changed on the night of July 7, 1937, when a small Japanese force on maneuvers
near the Marco Polo Bridge demanded entry to the tiny walled town of Wanping in order to search
for one of their soldiers. However, the Chinese garrison in the town refused the Japanese entry;
a shot was heard, and the two sides began firing. The Chinese government, under strong anti-Japanese
pressure, refused to make any concessions in the negotiation of the dispute and the
Japanese also maintained their position. As a result, the conflict continued to grow,
with larger forces committed by both sides and fighting spread to other parts of China.
At the time of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Akira Mutō was a chief of
the military intelligence section of the Japanese Army and he not only advocated a
policy on being tough on China but he was one of the planners behind the incident
which sparked the Second Sino-Japanese War also known as the War of Resistance against Japanese
Aggression which lasted from 1937 to 1945. Promoted to Vice Chief of Staff of the Japanese
Central China Area Army, Mutō was in China for many of the initial campaigns of the conflict
including the Battle of Shanghai which lasted from August 13, 1937, to November 26, of the same year
and was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the entire war. The Battle of Shanghai was
later described as "Stalingrad on the Yangtze", and is often regarded as the battle where
World War II started. After over three months of extensive fighting on land, in the air and at sea,
the battle, which involved nearly one million troops, concluded with a victory for Japan.
It was Akira Muto who proposed to send troops to land in Hangzhou
Bay and after his proposal was accepted, the Japanese plan to capture Shanghai succeeded.
China lost a significant portion of its best troops, while failing to elicit any
international intervention. However, the resistance of Chinese forces over three
months of battle shocked the Japanese, who had been indoctrinated with notions of cultural
and martial superiority, and largely demoralized the Imperial Japanese Army,
who believed they could take Shanghai within days and China within months.
After the Battle of Shanghai, Akira Mutō proposed to immediately attack the capital
city of China, Nanjing, which lay 300 kilometers west of Shanghai.
The Japanese military arrived outside the city gates of Nanjing on December 9, 1937.
With the reports of Japanese brutality,
three quarters of the population had fled Nanjing before the Japanese arrived.
At noon on December 9, the Japanese military dropped leaflets into the city, urging the city
of Nanjing to surrender within 24 hours, promising "no mercy" if the offer was refused. No response
was received from the Chinese by the deadline on December 10 and the General Iwane Matsui,
commanding officer of Japanese Central China Area Army, waited another hour before issuing
the command to take Nanjing by force. On December 12, under heavy artillery fire
and aerial bombardment, General Tang Sheng-chi, the commander of the Nanjing Garrison during the
city's siege who had earlier announced the city would not surrender and would fight to the death,
ordered his men to retreat. What followed was nothing short of chaos;
some Chinese soldiers stripped civilians of their clothing in a desperate attempt to blend in,
and many others were shot by the Chinese supervisory unit as they tried to flee.
On 13 December, the 6th and the 116th Divisions of the Japanese
Army were the first to enter the city, facing little military resistance.
At that time, Akira Muto, as the Vice Chief of Staff of the Japanese Central China Area Army, was
responsible for the Japanese camping arrangements in the Nanjing area. Muto announced that there
were not enough camping sites outside Nanjing, and Japanese officers and soldiers could choose
camping sites at will in Nanjing. With this order, it was like opening the cage of wild beasts.
From December 13, 1937, the Japanese Army engaged in random murder, wartime rape, looting, arson,
and other war crimes. They hunted down and killed suspected Chinese soldiers and summarily arrested
thousands of young Chinese men. Many innocent men were misidentified and killed in the process.
Thousands were taken to the Yangtze River,
where they were machine-gunned to death. Many Chinese soldiers were blown up with landmines,
then doused with petrol and set on fire; and those who survived were killed with
bayonets. Japanese soldiers also beheaded a number of Chinese prisoners of war.
The Japanese also massacred families living outside the Safety Zone,
and raped tens of thousands of women.
The number of Chinese women raped by Japanese soldiers ranged from 20,000 to 80,000, including
some children and the elderly. A large number of rapes were done systematically by the Japanese
soldiers as they went from door to door, searching for girls, with many women being captured and
gang-raped. Immediately after the women were then often killed through explicit mutilation.
A former Japanese soldier named Shiro Azuma spoke candidly about the process of rape and
murder in Nanjing: “ It would be all right if we only raped them. I shouldn't say all
right. But we always stabbed and killed them. Because dead bodies don't talk.”
After being raped by the Japanese soldiers, the victims were often photographed.
There were also accounts of Japanese troops coercing families to commit incestuous acts.
Sons were coerced in to rape their mothers, fathers were forced to rape their daughters,
and brothers were forced to rape their sisters. Instead of punishing the Japanese
troops who were responsible for wholesale rape, The Japanese expeditionary Force
in Central China issued an order to set up comfort houses during this period of time.
The Japanese army also looted the city and burned down many buildings,
one-third of the city was destroyed as a result of arson.
Such crime continued from three to six weeks depending on the types of crime.
As many as 300,000 civilians and numerous unarmed Chinese soldiers were killed over the course of
two months. The chaos, fires, and mass graves make a precise count of casualties impossible.
The violence subsided in February 1938,
after the establishment of a Chinese led, Japanese influenced government.
In 1939, Mutō was recalled to Japan and then served as director of the Military
Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of War actively participating in the planning of the Pacific
War which started on December 7, 1941 when Japan launched an attack on the American navel base at
Pearl Harbor. The following day, the United States declared war on Japan, entering into World War
II. and on December 11, Nazi Germany, Japan’s Axis ally, declared war on the United States.
In the first months after the attack on Pearl Harbor,
the Japanese achieved a long series of military successes. In December 1941, Guam, Wake Island,
and Hong Kong fell to the Japanese, followed in the first half of 1942 by the Philippines,
the Dutch East Indies – today’s Indonesia, Malaya, Singapore, and Burma. Japanese troops also invaded
neutral Thailand and pressured its leaders to declare war on the United States and Great Britain
A turning point came in June 1942 at the Battle of Midway. It was
the first time that Allied forces were able to make headway in the Pacific.
In April 1942 Muto, then lieutenant general, was assigned command of the
Second Imperial Guards Division at Singapore and from June 1944 he was
assigned to command Japanese forces on Sumatra in Japanese -occupied Netherlands East Indies.
In October 1944 he was transferred to the Philippines where he was appointed chief
of staff of the Japanese Fourteenth Area Army under General Tomoyuki Yamashita.
There Muto began to conduct a campaign of slaughter,
torture and other atrocities against the Filipino civilian population,
prisoners of war and civilian internees, and ordered guerrilla containment.
On 6 January 1945, the Sixth U.S. Army, totaling 200,000 men, landed at Lingayen Gulf in Luzon,
the most populous island in the Philippines. While evacuating most of his soldiers from the
advancing Allies, Yamashita, who also served as the governor-general and military governor
of the Philippines, did not declare Manila an open city. When a military commander or
political leader formally declares an open city this means that the defending military will not
defend the city in battle and the victorious forces can enter unopposed. In addition,
open city declaration saves civilian lives and guarantees no destruction of buildings.
During the evacuation of Yamashita’s soldiers,
Japanese Navy Rear, Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi re-occupied Manila with
16,000 sailors, with the intent of destroying all port facilities and naval storehouses.
Once there, Iwabuchi took command of the 3,750 Army security troops, and against Yamashita's
specific order, turned the city into an open battlefield. The atrocities commited
against Filipono civilians during the battle of Manila became known as the Manila massacre.
The Japanese order justifying the Manila massacre stated: "The Americans who have penetrated into
Manila have about 1000 troops, and there are several thousand Filipino soldiers under the
Commonwealth Army and the organized guerrillas. Even women and children have become guerrillas.
All people on the battlefield with the exception of Japanese military personnel,
Japanese civilians, and special construction units will be put to death." And they were!
The Manila massacre became was one of several major war
crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army.
The Japanese forced Filipino women and children to be used as human shields on the front lines
to protect Japanese positions. But those who survived were then murdered by the Japanese.
The Japanese conducted mop-up operations to clear north Manila of guerrillas,
executing more than 54,000 Filipinos, including children, as they passed through towns.
Pregnant Filipino women were killed by having their bellies ripped open while
Filipino civilians trying to flee were executed.
The Bayview Hotel, luxurious hotel located in wealthy Ermita district of Manilla,
was used as a designated "rape center" by the Japanese. On the 9 February 1945,
400 women and girls were rounded up from Manila's Ermita district,
and submitted to a selection board that picked out the 25 women who
were considered most beautiful. These women and girls, many of them 12 to 14 years old,
were then taken to the Bayview Hotel where Japanese enlisted men and officers took
turns raping them and once they were done, the women were bayoneted open from the neck down.
Another atrocity occurred on the morning of Feb. 10, 1945 when about 800 people including
Filipinos, Spanish and five German nationals, went to the German Club, which was a clubhouse
on San Luis Street, to find shelter in a dugout located on the tennis court and in the garden.
At about noon, a platoon of Japanese Marines who had cordoned off the
4,000 square meters of the club premises, started killing everyone in sight.
Japanese soldiers bayoneted infants and children of mothers pleading for mercy and raped women
seeking refuge. During the massacre, at least 20 Japanese soldiers raped a young girl before
slicing her breasts off after which a Japanese soldier placed her mutilated breasts on his own
chest to mimic a woman while the other Japanese soldiers laughed. The Japanese then doused the
young girl and two other women who were raped to death in gasoline and set them all on fire.
The Japanese went on setting the entire club on fire killing many of its inhabitants.
Those who attempted to escape the inferno were gunned down.
The killing continued all day and into the night.
Only 10 people survived the massacre. The total number of civilians who were
killed during the battle of Manillla between 3 February – 3 March 1945 was at least 100,000.
Tomoyuki Yamashita and Akira Mutō were held responsible for the massacre.
Yamashita was able to hold on to part of Luzon,
the largest and most populous island in the Philippines as well as home to the
country’s capital Manila, until after the formal Surrender of Japan in August 1945.
After the surrender of Japan, Mutō was arrested by the American occupation authorities and tried
before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. This military trial,
also known as the Tokyo Trial and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, convened on April 29, 1946 to try
the leaders of Japan for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace.
On November 4, 1948 the tribunal found Akira Muto guilty of atrocities against civilians
and prisoners of war in both China and the Philippines and sentenced him to death by hanging.
Muto was 56 years old when he was executed on 23 December 1948 in Sugamo Prison in Tokyo.
His last words were „ Wife and children follow, but I care about the mountains and rivers".
There were no tears shed for Akira Muto.
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