THREE days after the Allied victory over Japan, Subhas Chandra Bose climbed into an aeroplane that was to take him from Formosa to Manchuria. It crashlanded on takeoff, breaking into pieces and burning into flames. There are various accounts of this event, with minor discrepancies between them which have led to elaborate theories that Bose did not die but escaped to the Soviet Union.
The recently released archives of Indian Political Intelligence prove conclusively that Bose was killed in 1945. Since rumours were circulating that he was still alive, IPI arranged for Military Intelligence in Delhi to investigate the matter. Captain Turner of the War Crimes Liaison Section in Formosa was put on to the case, and he managed to locate the last person to have seen Bose alive. This was Captain (Medical) Taneyoshi Yoshimi, who was under arrest in Stanley Gaol. He gave a statement that resolved the matter: I personally cleaned his injuries with oils and dressed them. He was suffering from extensive burns over the whole of his body, though the most serious were those on his head, chest and thighs. During the first four hours he was semi-conscious...he murmured, and muttered in his state of coma, but never regained consciousness. At about 2300 hrs he died. I injected Formalin into the body, and also had the coffin partly filled with lime. The cof-fin was then taken away and Boses body was cremated.
