Underground Escape
By Masanobu Tsuji, David G. Thomas, Editor
Underground Escape and The God of Strategy, A Biography of Masanobu Tsuji
First published in 1950 and long out of print, Underground Escape is Masanobu Tsuji’s extraordinary account of his three-and-a-half years in hiding after the collapse of the Japanese Empire. A brilliant but controversial Japanese officer and strategist, Tsuji was a key architect of Japan’s early wartime victories – and a suspected war criminal at the war’s end. Rather than face arrest by Allied authorities, he vanished into Southeast Asia on August 16, 1945, the day after Japan’s surrender, disguised as a Shinshu Buddhist priest under the name Norinobu Aoki.
His disappearance became one of the great mysteries of the postwar years. This is the story he later told.
From the shattered remnants of Bangkok to the war-scarred cities of China and French Indochina, Underground Escape is a firsthand chronicle of a vanquished officer navigating a world in ruins. Evading capture and political retribution, Tsuji bore witness to starvation, political upheaval, war crimes tribunals, brutal executions, and the steady rise of Communist China.
His vivid portraits of life among soldiers, smugglers, peasants, political exiles, and corrupt National Chinese officials are matched only by his brutally honest descriptions of his own excruciating physical hardships.
His insights into the Chinese Civil War are especially striking. Tsuji recognized early the weakness of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and the growing momentum of Mao’s Communist forces. He offers scathing observations of the corruption and disunity in Nationalist ranks, writing: “Nobody seemed to be doing any work. However, in their attention to women, they were absolutely without peers.”
The book’s most astonishing moment may be Tsuji’s handwritten letter to Chiang Kai-shek, composed not with ink, but with his own blood: “I washed the lid of a tea-cup, prepared a new brush and then with a straight-back razor cut deep into my left thumb.… Holding back the surging blood… I wrote to the Generalissimo.”
This edition brings back into print a remarkable and controversial Japanese wartime memoir.
The God of Strategy, A Biography of Masanobu Tsuji
By David G. Thomas
Masanobu Tsuji reemerged from hiding not in disgrace, but as a bold and unrepentant nationalist. He quickly rose to prominence in postwar Japan, securing a seat in the Diet and cultivating global influence far beyond official diplomatic channels. Tsuji traveled widely, holding private meetings with world leaders such as Georgy Zhukov, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Zhou En-lai. He sought to shape Japan’s foreign policy from the shadows, leveraging his notoriety and wartime connections to operate as a rogue envoy for the nationalist cause.
In 1961, Tsuji embarked on a “private” inspection tour of Southeast Asia, traveling incognito – disguised – once again – as a Buddhist monk. Over the course of 40 days, he vanished without a trace. Despite intensive efforts by U.S. intelligence and Japanese officials to track him, his fate remains unknown. Was he assassinated, captured, or did he orchestrate his own disappearance? The God of Strategy draws from multiple sources, including Tsuji’s CIA dossier, to provide a biography of Tsuji and to piece together what is known about his final movements.
Paperback: 978-1-952580-22-2
Table of Contents
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Buy Underground Escape and The God of Strategy, A Biography of Masanobu Tsuji
