Surrender and Evacuation

Homma was a graduate of the Military Academy of the Japanese Imperial Army (1907) and of the Army General Staff College (1915). During World War I he was an observer with the British forces in France, and in 1925 he served as Japanese resident officer in India. In 1930 Homma was appointed military attaché in London. In 1939 he commanded Japanese forces at Tientsin, China, when the Japanese army blockaded the foreign concession there.

In December 1941, a few days after the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor, Homma, then a lieutenant general, led the Japanese invasion of the Philippine Islands. Although it was commonly supposed that Homma had been superseded by General Tomoyuki Yamashita after the campaign bogged down at Bataan and Corregidor, subsequent evidence suggested that Homma held the supreme command throughout the campaign. He also directed the mopping-up actions against stray U.S. and Filipino forces in the Visayas and Mindanao areas.

He was demoted when the fierce resistance at Bataan forced him to stop in February and call for reinforcements. Placed in charge of moving prisoners to Camp O’Donnell.  As many as 11,000 of the POWs died on the Death March as a result of the cruelty and inhumanity of their guards. The survivors' suffering did not end -- over twice as many POWs died in the first two months of imprisonment at Camp O'Donnell as did on the Death March. Thousands later died of malnourishment, disease, exhaustion, physical abuse, or were executed in this and other Japanese POW camps. Even more died on the so-called "hell ships." Packed into Japanese freighters, they were transported to Japan and China to work for the Japanese war industry. Locked in the holds, most drowned when Allied submarines and aircraft sank these ships. In fact, only one-third of Bataan's defenders survived the war.