Yoshie Shiratori

After Shiratori was forced to confess to robbery and murder, Shiratori was falsely imprisoned at Aomori prison in 1936. However, after studying the guards' routine for months, he escaped by picking his cell lock with the metal wire that was wrapped around the washroom's bucket provided for bathing and escaped through a cracked skylight.[5][6] Before escaping, he placed floorboards onto his futon to fool the passing guards into thinking he was still asleep.

Police recaptured Shiratori after three days whilst he was stealing supplies from a hospital. Sentenced to life in prison for escaping and attempted theft, he was transferred to Akita prison in 1942.[6]

At Akita prison, Shiratori was placed in a cell specially designed for escape artists, featuring high ceilings, one small skylight, and smooth copper walls. Nevertheless, Shiratori was able to scale the walls, and noticed that the wood holding the window bars was beginning to rot. Every night, he would climb up to loosen the vent, until he finally managed to pry away the wood and open the skylight. Knowing prison staff would be able to hear his footsteps on the roof, Shiratori waited until a stormy night to climb the walls and escape. Three months later, he showed up at Guard Kobayashi’s house to ask for help in a case against injustice in the Japanese prison system, as he was one of the only people who had shown kindness and respect to Shiratori during his stay in the Akita prison. However, while Shiratori was in the bathroom, the guard called the police, and Shiratori was arrested and sent back to prison.[5][7]

Replica of Shiratori's escape from Abashiri Prison at the Abashiri Prison Museum.

During the winter of 1943, Shiratori was transferred to Abashiri prison in Northern Hokkaido, the country’s northernmost prison. Still wearing summer prison garments, he was thrown into an open cell exposed to the extreme cold, allowing the guards to beat him down whenever he stood up. Angrily, Shiratori vowed to escape, and to the guards' amazement, broke his handcuffs in front of them.[8] Later, he was placed in specially made handcuffs taking nearly two hours to unlock by a specialist who came once per week so that he could bathe. When the guards delivered meals however, he would always drip miso soup on the handcuffs and food slot, both of which eventually became corroded, allowing Shiratori to break them. Then on 26 August 1944, he dislocated both of his shoulders, enabling him to fit out of the narrow food slot in his cell door and escaped the prison, using a wartime blackout as cover.[2] After living in an abandoned mine deep in the mountains for two years, he descended to a nearby village, and learned of the surrender of Japan. However, he was captured yet again after fatally stabbing a farmer who attacked him after he was caught stealing a tomato from his farm. He claimed it was an act of self defense.[5][6][7][4] By now, he had made the headlines of several newspapers.

For his previous escapes and the farmer's murder, Shiratori was sentenced to death by the Sapporo District Court. At the Sapporo prison, he was placed in a specially designed cell with high ceilings and windows smaller than his head. However, the prison guards at Sapporo had so much faith in it that they no longer bothered to handcuff Shiratori, and because they paid so much attention towards his ceiling escapes, they neglected the floors. In 1947, he dug his way out by making a tunnel with some of the miso soup bowls, placing the dirt in a small pocket underneath the floorboards, crawling his way out.[5][6][9]