In the days during the Tokyo Trials after Japan's defeat and surrender, Hideki Tojo had two attempted suicide attempts.
One occurred on September 11, 1945.
At that time, MacArthur, the supreme commander of the Allied forces in Japan, ordered the arrest of the first 39 alleged war criminals. Most of these war criminals were planners and initiators of the Pacific War, as well as senior officers who committed serious crimes.
Hideki Tojo not only instigated the "September 18" incident of armed aggression against northeast China, but also instructed a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, which led to the outbreak of the Pacific War. He is undoubtedly the first of the war criminals. At four o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, the U.S. army surrounded Hideki Tojo's private residence. After a brief conversation, a gunshot rang out from Hideki Tojo's room.
The U.S. troops rushed in, and Hideki Tojo fell back in his chair, his face twitching in pain. Hideki Tojo did not die, and he deflected the shot. A few days ago, he asked Dr. Suzuki to mark the location of his heart on his left breast. When the shot was fired, for some reason, the bullet ran away.
The doctor inquested that the bullet passed between the sixth and seventh ribs, slightly off the heart, and did not cause fatal injuries. Through a blood transfusion of American soldiers, Hideki Tojo was rescued.
The second occurred on December 22, 1948.
At that time, the court completed the trial of Hideki Tojo. According to the conspiracy to invade China and promote the Pacific War, he single-handedly took charge of fifty-four of the fifty-five crimes. There is no doubt that Hideki Tojo was sentenced to death. The night before the execution, Hideki Tojo tried to hang himself. In prison, Hideki Tojo stretched his neck into the rope ring and made a movement, and the prison director rushed in and cut the rope with a knife.
The investigation found that the rope hanging from Hideki Tojo was actually made of paper. Hideki Tojo accumulates the tissue in advance, soaks it, and twists it into strips of paper to make a rope. Then, just commit suicide with such a rope.
Both suicides are intriguing, especially the first. At the scene of Hideki Tojo's suicide, the U.S. military also turned over sabers and the poison potassium cyanate, and with these things as a backup, he was stunned that he did not die. Moreover, suicide does not have to be shot in the heart, but can be done with a shot from the temple. Former Rikusugi Sugiyama Moto shot himself at his temple with a gun and ended up with himself.
Because there are too many perverse reasons, Hideki Tojo's suicide attempt gradually becomes a farce and scandal. The Japanese believe that they should commit suicide by caesarean section, rather than shooting themselves like cowards, and that this has not yet been done. The US media believes that this incident is the punishment of the biggest war criminals. The Allied Command's view was "suicide for refusing trial".
Why is it a scandal?
Because this suicide is even more of a show, I am afraid that there is another purpose behind it. Let's take that circle. That circle is so accurate, why is it biased? The general explanation is the recoil of the gun, which generally makes sense. But Hideki Tojo was left-handed, shot himself with his right hand, and chose a pistol with little lethality, is this not obviously to achieve some purpose? The circle that the doctor had drawn for him was more like a circle he had drawn to help him avoid his heart.
And that's not all. After failing once, Hideki Tojo should have a second chance. That is, when the American gendarmes kicked open the door of their room, they could shoot themselves in the head. However, after the first shot, nothing happened.
In the face of these loopholes, Hideki Tojo has his own explanations, such as the time is too late, "let people recognize my face" is so pale and powerless.
In hindsight, Hideki Tojo was either afraid of death and didn't want to die at all, or he gave up committing suicide in place of the emperor. The latter is full of the smell of trading conspiracies, and the specific circumstances need to be further explored in more historical details.
On December 23, 1948, Hideki Tojo was hanged. After the cremating, his ashes were thrown into the sea by American soldiers. Hideki Tojo went there. The crimes committed by him and the militaristic cancer behind him are indelible by the vast ocean.