Japanese Command Group

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The general at the center of this group won his war and lost his life for it. Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma commanded the army that overran the Philippines in 1942, forcing the surrender of the American and Filipino forces and driving Douglas MacArthur out of the islands. In the aftermath came one of the war's worst atrocities — the Bataan Death March, the forced movement of some seventy thousand starving prisoners, thousands of whom died of brutality, disease and thirst. Homma insisted he had not known the full horror of what his troops did; it did not save him. After the war a US military commission handpicked by MacArthur convicted him on the principle of command responsibility, and in April 1946 he was shot — a trial some historians still question even as they condemn the crime. The three-figure set places Homma at the center, arm outstretched in command, flanked by an aide-de-camp with a map case and a regimental commander with sword and rifle — the rigid hierarchy of the Imperial Japanese Army officer corps in one group. It sits naturally with the Emperor in whose name they served and the Officer with Binoculars at the sharp end of their orders — and, across the war, the American they beat and who later judged their commander, General Douglas MacArthur. As the command element of a Pacific diorama, the group gives a scene its chain of authority. Model: JN060 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 3 piece set Show more