Page 6 - Pastiche Vol 1 Edition 1 January 2019

but was not made public for more than 60 years until 1 September 2016), - just after takeoff
a propeller blade on the airplane in which Bose was travelling broke off and the engine fell
off the plane, which then crashed and burst into flames. When Bose exited it his clothes
caught fire and he was severely burned. He was admitted to Nanmon Military Hospital south
of Taihoku under Dr. Yoshimi, and although he was conscious and able to carry on a
conversation for some time, he went into a coma and died a few hours later, between 9 and
10 PM.

Bose's body was cremated in the main Taihoku crematorium on 20 August 1945. On 23
August 1945, Japan announced the death of Bose and Shidea. On 7 September Lieutenant
Tatsuo Hayashida, handed over Bose's ashes to the president of the Tokyo Indian
Independence League, Rama Murti in Tokyo. On 14 September a memorial service was held
for Bose in Tokyo and a few days later the ashes were turned over to the priest of the Renkōji
Temple in Tokyo where they have remained ever since.
Survival Legends of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose
Subhash Chandra Bose had already been legendary by his
feats as an ardent freedom fighter feared by the British.
His escape from house arrest in Calcutta in 1940 and his
appearance in Germany in 1941 and the radio broadcasts
from Berlin charting radical plans for India's liberation
earned him admiration in India and Southeast Asia. Thus
when Bose appeared in Southeast Asia in July 1943,
brought mysteriously on German and Japanese
submarines, he was already a figure of mythical size and
reach.

After Bose's death, no one ever saw a body, or photographs taken of the injured or deceased
Bose, neither was a death certificate issued. According to historian Leonard A. Gordon,
“The war was ending; all was chaotic in East Asia, and there were no official reports released
by the Governments of India or Britain. These governments did nothing to prevent the
confusion. Even members of India's Interim Government in 1946 waffled on the matter. Bose
had disappeared several times earlier in his life; so rumours began again in 1945 and a
powerful myth grew."

When a Japanese delegation, including General Isoda, visited Bose's senior
officer J. R. Bhonsle on 19 August 1945 to break the news and offer
condolences, he told Isoda that Bose had not died, rather his disappearance
has been covered up. Mohandas Gandhi said that he was skeptical about the
air crash, but changed his mind after meeting Habibur Rahman. Lakshmi
Lakshmi Sehgal Sehgal said that she thought Subhash Bose was in China.

According to historians Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper:
“The legend of 'Netaji' Bose's survival helped bind together the defeated INA. In Bengal it
became an assurance of the province's supreme importance in the liberation of the motherland.
It sustained the morale of many across India and Southeast Asia who deplored the return of
British power or felt alienated from the political settlement finally achieved by Gandhi and
Nehru”.

Following the possibilities of any conspiracy, stories of Bose sightings, and persistent public
demand, the pre and post independent Governments ordered enquiry commissions to probe
into the death or disappearance of Subhash Chandra Bose.
(contd…)
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