Yamashita Surrender Day
Next: September 3, 2027
The day the war ended in the Philippines.
The story
Where it comes from
On 2 September 1945, the same day Japan signed its formal surrender aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, commander of Japanese forces in the Philippines, came down from the Cordillera mountains and surrendered to Filipino and American forces at Kiangan, in Ifugao province. The formal surrender document was signed the next day, 3 September, at Camp John Hay in Baguio. Ifugao keeps 3 September as Yamashita Surrender Day, a special non-working holiday in the province.
How it's celebrated
This is a day of remembrance rather than celebration. Wreaths are laid at the Philippine War Memorial Shrine in Kiangan, veterans and their families are honoured, and schools hold programmes on the war in the Cordilleras, where Filipino guerrillas and American troops fought the last campaign against Yamashita's retreating army.
Did you know
- Yamashita had taken Singapore from the British in 1942 in just seventy days, earning the name 'Tiger of Malaya'.
- The Kiangan shrine is shaped like an Ifugao native house and stands near the schoolhouse where Yamashita first surrendered.
- Yamashita was tried in Manila for atrocities committed by troops under his command and executed in February 1946; the 'Yamashita standard' of command responsibility is still cited in international law.
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