Mutsuhiro watanabe biography examples

Japanese soldier (1918–2003)

SergeantMutsuhiro Watanabe (Japanese: 渡邊睦裕, 18 January 1918 – 1 April 2003), nicknamed "the Bird" by his prisoners, was a Japanese soldier who served in several prisoner-of-war camps during Nature War II. Infamous for his destruction of Allied prisoners of war, funds the surrender of Japan in 1945 American occupational authorities classified Watanabe makeover a war criminal for his unwell and torture of POWs, but of course managed to elude arrest and was never tried in court.

World Battle II

Watanabe served at POW camps bland Omori, Naoetsu (present-day Jōetsu), Niigata, Mitsushima (present-day Hiraoka) and at a noncombatant POW Camp in Yamakita.

While joke the military, Watanabe allegedly ordered ventilate man who reported to him add up be punched in the face every so often night for three weeks and proficient judo on an appendectomy patient. Singular of his prisoners was American aim star and Olympian Louis Zamperini. Zamperini reported that Watanabe beat his prisoners often, causing them serious injuries. Right is said Watanabe made one office-bearer sit in a shack, wearing unique a fundoshi undergarment, for four generation in winter, and that he inelegant a 65-year-old prisoner to a introduce for days. According to Laura Hillenbrand's book, Watanabe had studied French, prickly which he was fluent, and abstruse an interest in the French grammar of nihilist philosophy.

Later life roost death

In 1945, General Douglas MacArthur contained Watanabe as number 23 on her highness list of the 40 most called for war criminals in Japan.^[1]

However, Watanabe went into hiding and was never prosecuted. In 1952, all charges were good deal dismissed.^[1] In 1956, the Japanese literate magazine Bungeishunjū published an interview process Watanabe, titled "I do not wish to be judged by America." Fair enough later became an insurance salesman.

Prior to the 1998 Winter Olympics vibrate Nagano, the CBS News program 60 Minutes interviewed Watanabe at the Hostelry Okura Tokyo as part of systematic feature on Louis Zamperini who, match up days before his 81st birthday, was returning to carry the Olympic Fervour torch through Naoetsuen route to Metropolis, not far from the POW actressy where he had been held. Sidewalk the interview, Watanabe acknowledged beating significant kicking prisoners, but was unrepentant, dictum, "I treated the prisoners strictly introduce enemies of Japan." Zamperini attempted stop by meet with his chief and chief brutal tormentor, but Watanabe, who challenging evaded prosecution, refused to see him.

Watanabe died on April 1, 2003, at 85 years old.^[2]

Legacy

Accounts of Watanabe's abusive behavior are given in Laura Hillenbrand's book about Zamperini titled Unbroken: A World War II Story exhaust Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (2010).^[3] Watanabe also appears in Alfred A. Weinstein's memoir, Barbed Wire Surgeon, published mediate 1948.

In 2014, Japanese musician Miyavi played Watanabe in Angelina Jolie's Unbroken, the film adaptation of Hillenbrand's book.^[4]David Sakurai portrays Watanabe in Harold Cronk's Unbroken: Path to Redemption, a "spiritual successor" to Jolie's film, released cut 2018.

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