The Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita (1885-1946) distinguished himself as the "Tiger of Malaya" during World War II. After the war he surrendered in the Philippines, where he was tried for war crimes and executed by the Allies.

Tomoyuki Yamashita was born on Nov. 8, 1885, in Shikoku, son of a medical doctor, who started the child in a military career. At the military academy he was a year junior to his lifetime rival, Hideki Tojo, and graduated at the head of his class. By 1932, when only 47, he became section chief of military affairs in the War Ministry and was earmarked as an eventual war minister or even premier. He was one of the generals admired by a fanatical group of radical young officers, called the Imperial Way faction, who carried out an abortive coup d'etat on Feb. 26, 1936. Although Yamashita, then a major general, refused to go along with the plot...