DRAMATIC ACT TO FOIL ARREST

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21816, 12 September 1945, Page 5

DRAMATIC ACT TO FOIL ARREST

BULLET WOUND UNDER HEART FAIR CHANCE oTrECOVERY REPORTED (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (11 a.m.) TOKIO, Sept. 11. Oeneral Tojo, former Prime Minister of Japan, shot and wounded himself under the heart at his home as American intelligence officers closed in to arrest him. He is reported by Japanese sources to have a fair chance of recovery. On the table beside him were two shining knives, wrapped in a white cloth, the traditional instruments of harakiri. Before he shot himself, Tojo twice opened one of the big sliding windows and smiled hard and steelily at the officers and then slammed down the window so hard that he nearly broke it. Thereupon, one officer tried to display his credentials through the window. General Tojo ignored this, except to exclaim: “I am Tojo.” As Tojo stood glowering through the window a press photographer snapped him.

■ Then the officers and correspondents moved towards the front door intending to go in. Suddenly a shot was fired. The officers kicked in the door which had a flimsy lock Entering the hall, they broke down a second locked door and found Tojo sprawled in a deep chair with a bullet wound just under the heart.

When a doctor and nurse arrived 55 minutes after the shooting, Tojo is reported to have said: “I want to die.” The doctor said he did not have any instruments and did not know why he was called in. At first he refused to attend Tojo. . Prime Minister at the time of Pearl Harbour, General Tojo was ordered to be arrested along with other members of his Cabinet. Among them is Admiral Togo, then Minister of the Navy.