General yamashita and his style of leadership: the malaya/singapore campaign

Ever since the days of the Pacific War, or the Great East Asian War (1941-45) in Japanese, General Yamashita Tomoyuki has been highly esteemed as a victorious general during the first stages of the war, the Imperial Army’s equal to Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku. Yamashita’s fame spread overseas. Arthur Swinson, for example, wrote that ‘[i]n many quarters it was being said that he was the finest general in the entire army, and indeed the finest Japan had ever known’.1 His image as a hero was amplified by the story and accompanying documentary film footage of Yamashita forcing General Arthur Ernest Percival to answer just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ during the cease-fire talks at the Ford Automobile Works north-west of Singapore City on 15 February 1942. Yamashita’s good build and his handsome face that we can see in photos or films of the period, combined with his nickname ‘Tiger of Malaya’, made him famous.