If it had all gone differently—if the Japanese had committed no atrocities and released the civilians unharmed—a last-ditch fight for Manila might have aroused the begrudging admiration of their enemies. After all, the Americans had their own anti-surrender traditions and lore—the Alamo, Captain James Lawrence’s “Don’t give up the ship,” and (much more recently) General Anthony McAuliffe’s one-word reply to a German surrender demand at Bastogne: “Nuts.” But the systematic rape, torture, and massacre of innocents stripped the fight of its honor. Three-quarters of a century later, the Japanese
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