Yoshie Shiratori (白鳥 由栄, Shiratori Yoshie, July 31, 1907 – February 24, 1979) was a Japanese national born in Aomori Prefecture. His family name Shiratori means "swan" in Japanese.[1] Shiratori, who became an anti-hero in Japanese culture, is famous for having escaped from prison four times.[2] He was first imprisoned after being forced to admit to a murder he did not commit. He could pick locks, scale walls, break handcuffs and dislocate his joints at will. His most infamous escape, consisted of him using miso soup to rust the bolts on his window bars and handcuffs to escape

Akira Yoshimura published a novel Hagoku based on him. A memorial to Shiratori is in the Abashiri Prison Museum.

There are numerous takes involving his escapes. The information has been documented sometimes and sometimes it has been folkloric at most.

He is most famous for his Miso soup prison break from Abashiri Prison, where he dabbed Miso soup upon his iron handcuffs, legcuffs, and the small iron window in his cell. After a while, the iron rusted and came off. After that, he slid through the window and escaped from the prison cell.

BASICS
QUICK FACTS
Intro Japanese escape artist
Crime Murder
From Japan
Type Murderer
Birth 1907, Aomori Prefecture, Japan
Death 1979 (aged 72 years)

The Lockpicker
No other man in history has shown such disdain for incarceration than Yoshie Shiratori, who was tagged as “the man that no prison could hold.” Yoshie was initially accused of murder and robbery and was sentenced to Aomori prison. Three years later, he picked the lock of his handcuffs with a short wire he found from a wooden bathing bucket.


Police recaptured him after three days and he was sentenced to life in prison for escaping and for supposedly stealing supplies from a hospital. He was eventually transferred to Akita prison in 1942.

At Akita prison, Yoshie managed to escape by somehow climbing the impossible smooth walls of his cell to reach the air vent. He would climb up and down every night and eventually unhinged the vent to extricate himself.

Perhaps he was exhausted from all the running and hiding, he decided to go to the home of a police officer, the only person who had shown any benevolence towards him from his previous prison in Aomori. However, this officer eventually handed Yoshie over to the authorities, and he vowed to never place his trust in another police officer ever again

The Miso Soup Act
Yoshie was transferred for the second time to Abashiri Prison, which was located in a remote locale in Northern Hokkaido. Abashiri was no regular penal colony. It was reserved for the worst kinds of criminals in Japan.

Yoshie was transferred here because he had already escaped two times, and the police wanted him to stay put. As luck would have it (for Yoshie), he managed to eventually escape Abashiri. The Abashiri Prison Museum even has a figure dedicated to Yoshie as he escaped his cell wearing nothing but his underwear.


How did Yoshie do it this time? The man had an endless pool of ingenuity, to be honest. Each morning, he would spit miso soup on the doorframe of his cell. The salts and moisture eventually corroded and weakened the door frame.

When the wartime blackout of August 26, 1944 occurred Yoshie dislocated his shoulders and squeezed himself out of the small space on the metal frame where the guards would slide in his food. Once again, Yoshie’s escape was publicized, and made the headlines of several newspapers in the Hokkaido Shimbun.

Real prison
Re-enacted way he escaped

The Final Bid For Freedom
Yoshie was once again tried for escaping, and he was sentenced to death by the Sapporo District Court. Additionally, Yoshie was assigned six armed guards, and he was under surveillance, 24 hours per day.

At the Sapporo prison, he was incarcerated in a specially made cell that was designed to prevent him from escaping through the air vent in the ceiling. This would be the largest defect in the setup because too much attention to the ceiling meant the floor of the cell was more or less ignored.


The prison guards at Sapporo had so much faith in the newly renovated cell that they no longer bothered to handcuff their prisoner. This would be mistake number two.



While it was true that Yoshie had aged and was fatigued from being a prisoner and from constantly escaping, there was one thing that still fueled his drive: desperation. While awaiting execution in 1947, Yoshie made his final bid for freedom by unlocking the bolts that held together the cell’s wooden floorboards. He used a bowl used for food to dig his way out of prison.

After a year of liberty, it was said that Yoshie was offered a cigarette by a police officer. Moved by the kindness of the police officer, Yoshie again opened up to the officer he was the Shiratori that had escaped previously
He admitted that he was an escaped convict. He was tried once again by the High Court of Sapporo. They noted that in all his four escapes, he did not perform bodily harm to any of the guards, despite the fact that abuse by guards was rampant in all the prisons.

The High Court of Sapporo decided to revoke the previous decision of the death penalty. Instead, he was given a final sentence of 20 years in prison. Yoshie requested that he be imprisoned in Tokyo, which the court granted. He spent his days in Fuchu Prison until 1961 when he was given parole. He traveled to the Aomori Prefectures more than a decade later to reunite with his daughter so that he could tell her his life story. Yoshie lived for another decade after that, doing odd jobs to survive. He eventually succumbed to a heart attack in 1979. A woman who had previously cared for him also took care of his ashes after his death.

He will not only be remembered as the most skillfully gifted escapist but his good heart .

Shiratori



NB - if you have an interesting historical figure you want me to write about do let me know in the comments

Interesting read thanks op

Interesting

SexyProphet:
Interesting read thanks op

thank you for been amazing,♥️♥️

TheSourcerer:
thank you for been amazing,♥️♥️

you're welcome ✔

Genius

SHEAU:
Genius

That very Word Genius!

nice one
can you write about king jaja of opobo?

Nice read.Thanks for sharing

somehow:
nice one

can you write about king jaja of opobo?

I will take this to consideration , thank you , follow me and I'll follow you right back

Just reading this alone, I've escaped from poverty

StubbornGENIUS:
Nice read.Thanks for sharing

you're a Genius of course you find it interesting ♥️♥️, sad it's not even on the new topics or trending of Nairaland , just can be seen by followers and guest I'm beginning to believe there's a reason more of sexaul contents hits fp and trending more than actual News/Documentaries , I believe ithae to do with paid adverts Sorta. ?

Chidexter:
Just reading this alone, I've escaped from poverty

like Shiratori you can escape anything !

Lovely

TheSourcerer:
you're a Genius of course you find it interesting ♥️♥️, sad it's not even on the new topics or trending of Nairaland , just can be seen by followers and guest I'm beginning to believe there's a reason more of sexaul contents hits fp and trending more than actual News/Documentaries , I believe ithae to do with paid adverts Sorta. ?

Well I don't know how mods select posts that hit fp,but it's certain that no educative or historical posts such as yours have made fp in a very long time.Maybe it may really have to do with paid adverts.

Can you write about Arnold Paole and Mr. Zedzed?

TheSourcerer:
I will take this to consideration , thank you , follow me and I'll follow you right back

cool

This is nicely written and a well researched one.
I one watched something about him on YouTube. Do keep this up.
Oh, to everyone, the OP has been banned again ( I wonder what he ever did to deserve it), however, he'll be back tonight to give us something interesting.
BTW, he'll be opening a YouTube channel soon, once he does, please like the videos, share and subscribe to his channel.

Oldies days of nairaland

Wow!
I didn't know this story.

Thank you for sharing this!
I appreciate you!!

Abe Sada incident is very famous in Japan.
Maybe young generation don't know.
But very famous.
If you had time or interest about that, Please check it
But little bit scary

Beautiful story. Very engaging

TheSourcerer:
Shiratori



NB - if you have an interesting historical figure you want me to write about do let me know in the comments

Please write about seven seven, real name: Okonkwo Asaa, a late music legend. Thanks.

FortuneDeGreat:
Please write about seven seven, real name: Okonkwo Asaa, a late music legend. Thanks.

seen , reading about him already to make a write-up and get live photos

peacefull:
Wow!
I didn't know this story.

Thank you for sharing this!
I appreciate you!!

Abe Sada incident is very famous in Japan.
Maybe young generation don't know.
But very famous.
If you had time or interest about that, Please check it
But little bit scary

and you are wonderful ♥️♥️

I love my stories Scary , Abe Sada would definitely be one of interest , this evening .

TheSourcerer:
seen , reading about him already to make a write-up and get live photos

Thanks.