How to Pronounce Mutsuhiro Watanabe
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Jan 01, 1918 Died on 01 Apr 2003 (aged 85)
Japanese war criminal
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About Mutsuhiro Watanabe
- Mutsuhiro Watanabe (Japanese: ????, 18 January 1918 – 1 April 2003) – nicknamed "the Bird" by his prisoners – was an Imperial Japanese Army corporal in World War II who served at POW camps in Omori, Naoetsu (present day Joetsu), Niigata, Mitsushima (present day Hiraoka) and at the Civilian POW Camp at Yamakita.
- 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.
- Watanabe 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.
- One of his prisoners was American track star and Olympian Louis Zamperini, who tells his story in the book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand, later adapted into a feature film directed by Angelina Jolie and also Louis Zamperini by Ali Sen.
- Zamperini reported that Watanabe beat his prisoners often, causing them serious injuries.
- It is said Watanabe made one officer sit in a shack, wearing only a fundoshi undergarment, for four days in winter, and that he tied a sixty-five-year-old prisoner to a tree for days.
- According to Hillenbrand's book, Watanabe had studied French, in which he was fluent, and had interest in the French school of nihilist philosophy.
