General Masaharu Homma

More than any other Allied garrison attacked on December 7, 1941, the Philippines were an important target for the Imperial Japanese High Command. Japanese Navy and Army bombers from Formosa attacked in the late morning, and achieved the same success their comrades were enjoying over Pearl Harbor.

The American public largely ignored the war crimes trials in Tokyo and throughout Asia in 1946-1948. Unlike the charismatic Nazi leadership, who were infamous throughout Europe, the Japanese leadership was not well known. That was due in part to the Allied propaganda, which did not want to criminalize the Emperor.

Huge numbers of Allied POWs were captured by the Japanese between December 1941 and May 1942.

Deep racial hatred, led many Allied soldiers to prefer death to capture. But the large numbers of soldiers surrendered by their commanders in the Philippines and Singapore did not have much choice. They entered captivity at the start of the war, and only about half of them would leave the POW camps alive.