B. F. Schwartz; Prosecutor of Japanese General
Benjamin F. Schwartz, a longtime Los Angeles attorney and member of the Justice Department’s antitrust team who after World War II became one of the prime prosecutors of the Japanese general executed for organizing the Bataan Death March, died Sunday.
Schwartz died at home in Los Angeles of heart failure at age 80, said his wife, Lois.
A graduate of a Brooklyn law school, Schwartz joined the antitrust division of the Justice Department after graduation and then became an officer with the Industrial Incentive Division of the Navy, where he spoke during the war to defense plant workers to encourage increased productivity.
At war’s end he was the only Navy prosecutor of Gen. Masaharu Homma at his trial in Manila. Schwartz came back to Los Angeles, where he became a civil attorney in private practice and ran unsuccessfully for the state Assembly in 1952.
He later became a member of the Democratic State Central Committee and was a delegate to the 1956 and 1960 presidential conventions.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by four children and four grandchildren.
A funeral service is scheduled Wednesday at noon at Mt. Sinai Memorial Park.
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