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New Blow to Bushido
TOKIO (A.P.).—Warrant Officer
Magoshichi Sugino, fabled as a suicide
fighter who helped scuttle a Japanese
river boat at the entrance of Port Ar-
thur, Manchuria, and bottle up the
Russian fleet, is reported ready to come
home from shame-faced exile of 44
years.
The discovery of the erstwhile hero,
around whom the bushido (immortality
through death in war) code was
strengthened, and for whom songs were
written and statues erected, gives the
code a death blow, say observers here.
It was belief in that code which sent
thousands of young Japanese to their
graves in senseless banzai charges in
World War II.
Sugino, old, but in excellent health,
was reportedly discovered and identi-
fied at a Manchurian repatriation port
by home-going Japanese. They con-
sidered him to be an insult to hero
worshippers who had revered his name
for the “sacrifice” he had made.
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