<div class="image-550">
<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-17/the-manila-escape.webp" alt="Citizens of Manila run for safety from suburbs burned by Japanese soldiers" loading="lazy" />
<div>
(Citizens of Manila run for safety from suburbs burned by Japanese soldiers, February 10, 1945)
</div>
</div>

The total number of civilians killed was at least 100,000.


The Manila Massacre was one of the several major war crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army, as judged by the postwar military tribunal.


The Japanese commanding general, Tomoyuki Yamashita, and his chief of staff Akira Muto, were held responsible for the massacre and other war crimes in a trial which started in October 1945.


Yamashita was executed on February 23, 1946 and Muto on December 23, 1948.


The Americans who had penetrated Manila had about 1,000 troops, and there were several thousand Filipino soldiers under the Commonwealth Army and the organized guerillas.


Even women and children became guerillas.


All people on the battlefield, with the exception of Japanese military personnel, Japanese civilians and special construction units will be put to death.

Before the battle, deciding that he would be unable to defend Manila with the forces available to him, and to preserve as large a force as possible in the rural mountain Luzon region of the Philippines, General Yamashita had insisted on a complete withdrawal of Japanese troops from Manila in January 1945.


However, Yamashita's order was ignored by about 10,000 Japanese marines under Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi who chose to remain in Manila.


About 4,000 Japanese army personnel were unable to leave the city due to the advance of the American and Filipino forces.


In the Battle of Manila from February to March 1945, the United States Army advanced into the city of Manila to drive the Japanese out.


During lulls in the battle for control of the city, Japanese troops took their anger and frustration out on the civilians in the city.


Violent mutilations, rapes, and massacres occurred in schools, hospitals and convents, including San Juan de Dios Hospital, Santa Rosa College, Santo Domingo Church, Manila Cathedral, Paco Church, St Paul's Convent, and St. Vincent de Paul Church.



The Japanese forced Filipino women and children to be used as human shields in the front lines to protect Japanese positions. Those who survived were then murdered by the Japanese.


The Japanese conducted mop-up operations north of Manila of guerillas, executing more than 54,000 Filipinos, including children, as they passed through town.

<h3>
Mass rapes
</h3>

The Bayview Hotel was used as designated "rape center."


According to testimony at the Yamashita war crimes trial, 400 women and girls were rounded up from Manila's wealthy Ermita district, and submitted to a selection board that picked out the 25 women who were considered most beautiful.


These women and girls, many of them 12 to 14 years old, were taken to the hotel, where Japanese enlisted men and officers took turns raping them.


Despite many allied Germans holding refuge in a German club, Japanese soldiers entered in and bayoneted infants and children of mothers pleading for mercy, and raped women seeking refuge.


At least 20 Japanese soldiers raped a young girl before slicing her breasts off after which a Japanese soldier placed her mutilated breasts on his chest to mimic a woman while the other Japanese soldiers laughed.


The Japanese then doused the young girl and two other women who were raped to death in gasoline and set them all on fire.

The Rape of Manila during the World War II and the trial of Tomoyuki Yamashita