Death of Subhas Chandra Bose

On 18 August 1945, a Mitsubishi Ki-21 heavy bomber belonging to the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service crashed upon take off from Taihoku Airfield in Taihoku Prefecture, Japanese Taiwan, present day Songshan Airport in Taipei, Taiwan. Out of the 12 or 13 passengers on board, two passengers; Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose and Japanese Lieutenant General Tsunamasa Shidei died in hospital in the immediate aftermath of the crash. The bomber crashed three days after Japan announced its surrender, and three months before the return of Taiwan to the Republic of China.

Bose, who had become soaked in gasoline before exiting the burning bomber, was transported to the Nanmon Military Hospital south of Taihoku, where his extensive upper-body burns were treated for six hours by the chief-surgeon Dr Taneyoshi Yoshimi, two other doctors, Dr Tsuruta and Dr Ishii, and half a dozen technical staff and nurses. Bose went into a coma and died between 9 pm and 10 pm Taihoku time. Bose's chief-of-staff, Colonel Habib ur Rahman, who had travelled with him, and who was put to lay nearby with severe burns, survived and made a full recovery. Ten years later he testified at an inquiry commission on Bose's death, the burn marks on his arms conspicuously visible. General Shidei's descendants commemorate his death every year at the Renkō-ji Temple in Tokyo, where Bose's ashes are also deposited.

Bose's death and the nature of the plane crash has been marked with numerous disputations and conspiracy theories. Many among Subhas Chandra Bose's supporters, especially in the Bengal Presidency, refused at the time and have refused since to believe either the fact or the circumstances of his death.