Yamashita: the greatest Japanese general of World War II?

Winston Churchill famously described the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 as ‘the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history’. Japanese troops had landed in Thailand and northern Malaya on 8 December 1941, marching south over 500 miles of hostile jungle terrain in less than two months. General Tomoyuki Yamashita (1885-1946), known as ‘the Tiger of Malaya’ and ‘the Beast of Bataan’. Was the captor of Singapore the greatest Japanese general of the Second World War? Photo: Mary Evans By the time they reached Singapore, a combination of casualties and exhaustion meant that barely half of the original 60,000-strong force could be classed as combat-effective.