Mutsuhiro Watanabe

Mutsuhiro Watanabe
Died	April 1, 2003(2003-04-01) (aged 85)
Allegiance	Empire of Japan Imperial Japanese Army
Years of service	1941?–1945
Battles/wars	World War II

Mutsuhiro Watanabe (Japanese: 渡邊睦裕, January 1, 1918 – April 1, 2003) was an Imperial Japanese Army sergeant in World War II who served at POW camps in Omori, Naoetsu (present day Jōetsu, Niigata), and Mitsushima (present day Hiraoka). After Japan's defeat, the US Occupation authorities classified Watanabe as a war criminal for his mistreatment of prisoners of war (POWs), but he managed to evade arrest and was never tried in court.^[1]

Early years

Watanabe was the fourth of six children. His family was wealthy, owning hotels and mines. Watanabe was educated at Waseda University, where he studied French literature, and worked at a news agency for a month before enlisting in the Japanese Army.

Prison guard

Former POWs have alleged that Watanabe beat them often, causing them serious injuries. Watanabe is said to have made one officer sit in a shack, wearing only a fundoshi undergarment, for four days in winter, and to have tied a sixty-five-year-old prisoner to a tree for days. Watanabe allegedly ordered one man to report to him to be punched in the face every night for three weeks, and practiced judo on an appendectomy patient. His prisoners nicknamed Watanabe "The Bird". One of Watanabe's prisoners was American track star Louis Zamperini, who recalled that after one beating he saw on Watanabe's face a "soft languor.... It was an expression of sexual rapture."^[2]

Later life

In 1945, General Douglas MacArthur included Watanabe as number 23 on his list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan. Watanabe went into hiding and was never prosecuted. While in hiding, Watanabe apparently worked on a farm and in a small grocery store. In 1956, the Japanese literary magazine Bungeishunjū published an interview with Watanabe titled アメリカに裁かれるのは厭だ! ("I do not want to be judged by America").^[2] Watanabe later became a successful life insurance salesman and was reportedly wealthy, owning a $1.5 million apartment in Tokyo and a vacation condominium on the Gold Coast of Australia.^[2]

Prior to the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, the CBS News program 60 Minutes interviewed Watanabe at the Hotel Okura in Tokyo as part of a feature on Zamperini, who was returning to carry the Olympic Flame torch through Naoetsu en route to Nagano. In the interview, Watanabe acknowledged beating and kicking prisoners, but was unrepentant, saying: "I treated the prisoners strictly as enemies of Japan." Watanabe refused to meet Zamperini upon request.^[3]

Legacy

Watanabe's abusive behavior is described in Laura Hillenbrand's book about Zamperini titled Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (2010).^[2] Watanabe also appears in Dr. Alfred A. Weinstein's memoir, Barbed Wire Surgeon, published in 1948. In 2014, Japanese musician Miyavi played Watanabe in Angelina Jolie's Unbroken, the film adaptation of Hillenbrand's book.^[4]

References