Death of Subhas Chandra Bose

The alleged death of Subhas Chandra Bose, the supreme commander of Azad Hind Fauj and Free India Legion in a plane crash in Taiwan on August 18, 1945, has long been the subject of dispute. There has been three Government of India sponsored commissions and numerous private investigations to find out if Subhas Chandra Bose had died in the plane crash. The third Indian commission that was appointed for enquiring into this concluded in its report tabled in parliament in May 2006, that Bose's death was staged to facilitate an escape to the USSR.

Introduction

Subhas Chandra Bose, a prominent leader of the Indian independence movement against the British Raj in India and a general of the Imperial Japanese army Tsunamasa Shidei were reported to be flying to Tokyo, Japan when the alleged plane crash occurred at Matsuyama aerodrome (now Songshan Airport) in Taipei, northern Formosa (now the Republic of China, or Taiwan). The news was withheld by the Japanese government for five days before it was announced by Japanese news agency Domei. The Allied forces took the Japanese news as a ploy. The then Viceroy of India, Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, is reported to have noted in his diary that "I wonder if the Japanese announcement of Subhash Chandra Bose's death in an air-crash is true. I suspect it very much, it is just what should be given out if he meant to go underground."

The matter was looked into by several allied intelligence teams...
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