Arrest and Attempted Suicide of Hideki Tojo
東條英機逮捕・自殺未遂事件
On September 11, 1945, American military police arrived at former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo's private residence in Yoga, Setagaya to arrest him as a suspected Class-A war criminal. Tojo shot himself in the chest with a pistol but missed his heart. American photographers captured the dramatic scene, producing photographs that were published worldwide. Tojo survived after receiving blood transfusions from American doctors.
History
Tojo Hideki, Prime Minister and Army Minister from October 1941 to July 1944 and head of the government that went to war with the United States and Britain, was living in retirement at his private residence in Yoga, Setagaya, Tokyo. After Japan signed the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945, General MacArthur ordered the arrest of a first group of about forty suspected war criminals, Tojo among them.
When GHQ Counter Intelligence Corps officers led by Major Paul Kraus, with military police, surrounded Tojo's Yoga residence on the afternoon of September 11, 1945, a large press contingent was present. After speaking briefly through a window, Tojo retreated to his study and shot himself in the chest with a .32 caliber Colt pistol at approximately 4:17 PM; Japanese sources say the pistol may have belonged to his son-in-law, Major Koga Hidemasa of the 1st Imperial Guards Division, who had killed himself after the Kyujo Incident. The bullet, aimed at a charcoal mark placed by his doctor over his heart, passed through his chest and out of his back without striking the heart. On hearing the shot American soldiers, among them Lieutenant John Wilpers of the 308th CIC Detachment, forced entry, found Tojo bleeding in a chair and took the pistol from his hand. He spoke to Japanese reporters, defending the Greater East Asia War. Photographers captured images that became iconic worldwide.
An American army doctor, Captain Johnson, gave first aid on the spot, and Tojo was transported to the US 98th Evacuation Hospital at Honmoku in Yokohama, where American military doctors saved his life with surgery and emergency transfusions of blood donated by American GIs. That the man who as Army Minister had issued the Field Service Code enjoining soldiers never to suffer the shame of capture had failed to kill himself before arrest drew considerable comment and criticism in Japan.
After recovering, Tojo was moved to a detention camp and then held at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, and was tried as a Class-A defendant before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. On November 12, 1948 he was sentenced to death by hanging for crimes against peace and violations of the laws of war, and he was executed at Sugamo on December 23, 1948, aged 64. Wilpers, recommended for a decoration by his commanding officer in 1947, received the Bronze Star only in 2010 because the paperwork had been lost.