Japanese Invasion of P.I. in Photos

General Homma at Lingayen Gulf,  Philippine Islands 1941

Japanese tanks and soldiers moving towards Manila, Dec. 22, 1941

Cavite Navy Shipyard in flames, Dec. 10, 1941 

A Japanese soldier looks at an American propaganda billboard.


(Photo Source from the US National Archives)

The Japanese invasion of Manila

Shortly after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl harbor, the Japanese Imperial Army invaded the Philippines on December 8, 1941. The first to be attacked was Clark Airbase in Pampanga.  Then the Japanese landed at Lingayen Gulf and proceeded towards Manila. At the Advice of the Commonwealth President Osmena, Gen. Douglas MacArthur declared Manila an Open City so as to spare the destruction of its buildings and residents.

Manila: Open City

While the Japanese proceeded to occupy Manila, MacArthur's forces, composed of Filipinos and Americans, decided to put up a fight at Corregidor and Bataan.. With the Japanese in pursuit, the Philippine Scouts guarded the rear of MacArthur's forces and succeded in inflicting heavy casualties on the Japanese.

The heroic stand of the Fil-Am forces in Bataan and Corregidor  delayed the Japanese advance to other countries in the Pacific.The Japanese thought that they could take the Philippines by two months but actually dragged on for half a year.

Even as the surrender of the Fil-Am Forces on early April of 1942, small groups of Philippine Scouts continued to resist the Japanese.

Nazi War Crimes : The Medical Case

The case of United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al., also known as "the Medical Case", was one of twelve separate proceedings held before several U.S. Military Tribunals at Nuernberg in the U.S. Zone of Occupation in Germany against officials or citizens of the Third Reich. Authority for these twelve subsequent proceedings stemmed mainly from Control Council Law 10 of December 20, 1945, and was reinforced by Executive Order 9679 of January 16, 1946; U.S. Military Government Ordinances Nos. 7 and 11 of October 18, 1946, and February 17, 1947, respectively; and U.S. Forces, European Theater (USFET) General Order 301 of October 24, 1946. The procedures applied by U.S.Military Tribunals in the subsequent proceedings were patterned after those of the International Military Tribunal and further developed in the twelve cases, which required over 1,200 days of court sessions and generated more than 330,000 transcript pages.


Case I was heard by U.S. Military Tribunal I from November 21, 1946, to August 20, 1947. The crimes Charged in the Brandt case consisted largely of medical experiments performed on defenseless concentration camp inmates against their will; "euthanasia" carried out on the mentally defective, the physically sick, the aged, and ethnic and racial groups; and the murder of concentration camp inmates for the express purpose of collecting skulls and skeletons for the Anatomical Institute of the Reich University of Strassburg. The following medical experiments were conducted:



1. High altitude: to investigate effects of low pressure on persons,

2. Freezing: to test human resistance to extemely low temperatures,

3. Malaria: to develop controls over the recurring nature of the disease,

4. Mustard gas: part of a general research program in gas warfare,

5. Sulfanilamide: to test the efficacy of the drug in bone muscle and nerve regeneration and bone transplantation,

6. Seawater: to test methods of rendering seawater potable,

7. Epidemic jaundice: to develop an antitoxin against the disease,

8. Sterilization: to test techniques for preventing further propagation of the mentally and physically defective,

9. Typhus: to investigate the value of various vaccines,

10, Poison: to test the efficacy of certain poisons,

and 11. Incendiary bomb: to find better treatment for phosphorus burns.


Twenty three persons were indicted, all of whom were physicians except defendants Rudolf Brandt, Viktor Brack, and Wolfram Sievers. They were:


Karl Brandt: Personal physician to Adolf Hitler, Gruppejifuehrer in the SS and ueneralleutnant (Major General) in the Waffen SS, Reichskommissar
fuer Sanitaets- und Gesundheitswesen (Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation), and member of the Reichsforschungsrat (Reich Research
Council).

Kurt Blome: Deputy [of the] Reichsgesundheitsfuehrer (Reich Health Leader) and Plenipotentiary for Cancer Research in the Reich Research Council.

Rudolf Brandt: Standartenfuehrer (Colonel) in the Allgemeine SS, Persoenlicher Referent von Himmler (Personal Administrative Officer to
Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler), and Ministerial Counselor and Chief of the Ministerial Office in the Reich Ministry of the Interior.

Joachim Mrugowsky: Oberfuehrer (Senior Colonel) in the Waffen SS, Oberster Hygieniker, Reichsarzt SS und Polizei (Chief Hygienist of the Reich
Physician SS and Police), and Chef des Hygienischen Institutes der Waffen SS (Chief of the Hygienic Institute of the Waffen SS).

Helmut Poppendick: Oberfuehrer in the SS and Chef des Persoenlichen Stabes des Reichsarztes SS und Polizei (Chief of the Personal Staff of the Reich
Physician SS and Police).

Wolfram Sievers: Standartenfuehrer in the SS, Reich Manager of the "Ahnenerbe" Society and Director of its Institut fuer Wehrwissenschaftlic'he
Zweckforschung (Institute for Military Scientific Research), and Deputy Chairman of the Managing Board of Directors of the Reich Research
Council.

Karl Genzken: Gruppenfuehrer in the SS and Generalleutnant in the Waffen SS and Chef des Sanitaetsamts der Waffen SS (Chief of the Medical
Department of the Waffen SS).

Karl Gebhardt: Gruppenfuehrer in the SS and Generalleutnant in the Waffen SS, personal physician to Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler,

Oberster Kliniker, Reichsarzt SS und Polizei (Chief Surgeon of the Staff of the Reich Physician SS and Police), and President of the German Red
Cross.

Viktor Brack: Oberfuehrer in the SS and Sturmbannfuehrer (Major) in the Waffen SS and Oberdienstleiter, Kanzlei des Fuehrers der NSDAP (Chief
Administrative Officer in the Chancellery of the Fuehrer to the NSDAP).

Waldemar Hoven: Hauptsturmfuehrer (Captain) in the Waffen SS and Chief Physician of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

Herta Oberheuser: Physician at the Ravensbrueck Concentration Camp and assistant physician to the defendant Gebhardt at the hospital at Hohenlychen.

Fritz Fischer: Sturmbannfuehrer in the Waffen SS and assistant physician to the defendant Gebhardt at the hospital at Hohenlychen.

Siegfried Handloser: Generaloberstabsarzt (Lieutenant General, Medical Service), Heeressanitaetsinspekteur (Medical Inspector of the Army), and Chef des Wehrmachtsanitaetswesens
(Chief of the Medical Services of the Armed Forces).

Paul Rostock: Chief Surgeon of the Surgical Clinic in Berlin, Surgical Adviser to the Army, and Amtschef der Dienststelle Medizinische Wissenschaft und Forschung (Chief of the Office for
Medical Science and Research) under the defendant Karl Brandt, Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation.

Oskar Schroeder: Generaloberstabsarzt; Chef des Stabes, Inspekteur des Luftwaffe-Sanitaetswesens (Chief of Staff of the Inspectorate of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe); and
Chef des Sanitaetswesens der Luftwaffe (Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe).

Hermann Becker-Freyseng: Stabsarzt in the Luftwaffe (Captain, Medical Service of the Air Force) and Chief of the Department for Aviation Medicine of the Medical Service of the
Luftwaffe.

Georg August Weltz: Oberfeldarzt in the Luftwaffe (Lieutenant Colonel, Medical Service of the Air Force) and Chief of the Institut fuer Luftfahrtmedizin (Institute for Aviation Medicine) in
Munich.

Wilhelm Beiglboeck: Consulting physician to the Luftwaffe.

Gerhard Rose: Generalarzt of the Luftwaffe (Brigadier General, Medical Service of the Air Force); Vice President, Chief of the Department for Tropical Medicine, and Professor of the
Robert Koch Institute; and Hygienic Adviser for Tropical Medicine to the Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe.

Siegfried Ruff: Director of the Department for Aviation Medicine at the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt fuer Luftfahrt (German Experimental Institute for Aviation).

Hans Wolfgang Romberg: Physician on the staff of the Department for Aviation Medicine at the German Experimental Institute for Aviation.

Konrad Schaefer: Physician on the staff of the Institute for Aviation Medicine in Berlin.

Adolf Pokorny: Physician, specialist in skin and-venereal diseases.

The prosecution alleged and the judgment confirmed that these experiments were not isolated acts of individual doctors and scientists on their own responsibility but that they were the result of high-level policy and planning. They were carried out with particular brutality, often disregarding all established medical practice. Judgment was pronounced on August 19, 1947. The indictment consisted of four counts. Count one charged participation in a common design or conspiracy to commit war crimes or crimes against humanity. The ruling of the tribunal disregarded this count, hence no defendant was found guilty of the crime charged in count one. Count two was concerned with war crimes and count three, with crimes against humanity. Fifteen defendants were found guilty, and eight were acquitted on these two counts. Ten defendants were charged under count four with membership in a criminal organization and were found guilty. Brandt and six others were sentenced to death by hanging (all carried out at Landsberg Prison on June 2, 1948; nine were given prison terms of fifteen years to life; and seven were found not guilty.
Source Note:
NARS. Pamphlet Describing National Archives Microfilm Publication M887, "Records of the United States Nuernberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. (Case I), November 21, 1946 - August 20, 1947," Washington, D.C. 1974.

A Moral Question

The Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 created a lot of questions as to whether it was really necessary to drop the Atomic bomb in order to win the war against Japan. The US decision makers argued that it was the only way to end the war immediately. It indeed ended the war, but at a cost of an estimated 80,000 civilians dead in Nagasaki alone,  and not to mention the aftermath of radiation .

Would the US have won the war without the Atom bomb? No doubt, America would have still won the war. But , knowing the ferociousness of the Japanese soldier, the war would have dragged on for months, or even years, inflicting heavy casualties on both sides. Without the Atom bomb, the US would have to invade Japan, and this time the Japanese would be fighting for the defense of their homeland. They would have fought to the death.

No doubt, Japanese casualties alone would have been more than the number of casualties inflicted by the Atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Civilian deaths would still be unavoidable because of the use of bomber planes to daily drop conventional bombs on military targets, and that would be the same Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to my mind, is a necessary evil. It killed thousands, but it also spared more thousands of lives that would have been lost.

Second Atomic Bomb dropped in Nagasaki

After the Bombing of Hiroshima, the Japanese War Council still refused to surrender, despite seeing the magnitude of the devastation of Hiroshima. This prompted the United States to drop a second bomb, this time in Nagasaki, a center of shipbuilding industry, and therefor a military target.

Atomic cloud over nagasaki

The date was August 9, 1945. The American B-29 bomber nicknamed "Bock's car". The bomb was dropped at 11:02 a.m.,  the explosion unleashed the equivalent force of 22,000 tons of TNT. The hills that surrounded the city did a better job of containing the destructive force, but the number killed is estimated at anywhere between 60,000 and 80,000 or maybe more, not counting more deaths due to radiation.

This finally convinced the Japanese War Council to accept the unconditional surrender of Japan . But it was not an easy desicion. Despite the devastation on Nagasaki, the members of the Council was still divided. Emperor Hirohito, upon the the request of two Council members who were eager to end the war, finally decided that in order to save the Japanese race from total annihilation , Japan was to surrender unconditionally.

Today in History : Atomic Bomb dropped on Hiroshima

On this date, August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber nicknamed Enola Gayand piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, commander of the 509th Composite Group,  dropped the world's first Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima. The bomb, the first of its kind, was so powerful that  almost 90% of the buildings were destroyed. An estimated 80,000 people were instantly killed, 35,000 injured and another 60,000 , as a result of radiation,were dead in the weeks to come.

The yield of the explosion was later estimated at 15 kilotons (the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT). The devastation of Hiroshima. however, did not convinced the Japanese to surrender.