The rude scaffold stood in a Philippine cane field near the old Japanese torture camp of Los Banos. In the early morning (3:02 a.m.), under the glare of three floodlights, Lieut. General Tomoyuki Yamashita strode up its 13 steps, his big bulk dressed in a U.S. Army fatigue outfit —the symbol of military disgrace ordered by his conqueror, General Douglas MacArthur.
As he faced about to receive the rope, a Buddhist priest heard him voice a wish "for the Emperor's long life." Then justice, if justice it was, overtook the Tiger of Malaya.
In his final written statement before his execution,...
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