MANILA MASSACRE

1945

The Manila Massacre, also called the Rape of Manila, is one of several major war crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army that had destroyed a city and the lives within it.

With shocking brutality, Japanese troops began a month-long campaign of torturing and massacring Filipino civilians in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, in February 1945. Untold numbers of women were publicly raped and mutilated, their babies tossed in the air and bayoneted. As many as a hundred girls were forced to serve as "comfort women" to the Japanese troops, many of whom were raped twenty times in a single night. There were some instances in which large numbers of civilians—men, women, and children alike—were herded into buildings that were subsequently barred and set on fire. Other instances include children being tossed into pits with grenades Three years after the atrocities, General Tomoyuki Yamashita and chief of staff Akira Mutō were held responsible for the murder of at least 100,000 Filipino civilians. They were executed in January and February 1948, respectively.

Despite the inexplicable inhumanity that unfolded in Manila, once known as the Pearl of the Orient for centuries before its devastation, the Manila Massacre has become largely forgotten.