Ananda Mahidol

On 8 December 1941, Thailand was invaded by Japan. Despite fierce fighting in Southern Thailand, the fighting lasted only five hours before ending in a ceasefire. Thailand and Japan then formed an alliance making Thailand part of the Axis alliance until the end of World War II. King Ananda was away from the country, as he had returned to Switzerland to complete his studies, and Pridi Phanomyong served as regent in his absence. From 24 January 1942, Thailand became a formal ally of the Empire of Japan and a member of the Axis. Under Plaek Pibunsonggram, Thailand declared war on the Allied powers. The regent refused to sign the declaration and it was thus legally invalid. Many members of the Thai government, including the Siamese embassy in Japan, acted as de facto spies in the Seri Thai underground on the side of the Allies, funnelling secret information to British intelligence and the US Office of Strategic Services. By 1944, it was apparent that Japan was going to lose the war. Bangkok suffered heavily from the Allied bombing raids. These, plus economic hardships, made the war and the government of Plaek Pibunsonggram very unpopular. In July, Plaek Pibunsonggram was ousted by the Seri Thai-infiltrated government. The National Assembly reconvened and appointed the liberal lawyer Khuang Aphaiwong prime minister. Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945, and Allied military responsibility for Thailand fell to Britain.

King Ananda Mahidol returned from Switzerland to Thailand, during an official ceremony in January 1946 in Bangkok, with Pridi Banomyong, Srinagarindra, and Prince Bhumibol.

Only after the end of World War II could Ananda Mahidol return to Thailand. He returned for a second visit in December 1945 with a degree in law. Despite his youth and inexperience, he quickly won the hearts of the Thai people, who had continued to revere the monarchy through the upheavals of the 1930s and 1940s. The Thai were delighted to have their king amongst them once again. One of his well-remembered activities was a highly successful visit to Bangkok's Chinatown Sampheng Lane (ซอยสำเพ็ง), which was intended to defuse the post-war tensions that lingered between Bangkok's ethnic Chinese and Thai people.

King Ananda Mahidol and Louis Mountbatten on 19 January 1946

King Ananda Mahidol in 1946

Foreign observers, however, believed that Ananda Mahidol did not want to be king and felt his reign would not last long. Louis Mountbatten, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, the British commander in Southeast Asia, visited Bangkok in January 1946 and described the king as "a frightened, short-sighted boy, his sloping shoulders and thin chest behung with gorgeous diamond-studded decorations, altogether a pathetic and lonely figure". At a public function, Mountbatten wrote: "[H]is nervousness increased to such an alarming extent, that I came very close to support him in case he passed out".

The Boromphiman Throne Hall in the Grand Palace. The king's bedroom is on the upper floor.

Keith Simpson, pathologist to the British Home Office and founding chairman of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Guy's Hospital in London, performed a forensic analysis of the king's death and recounted the following sequence of events on the morning of 9 June 1946:[2]

• 06:00: Ananda was awakened by his mother.
• 07:30: His page, But Patthamasarin, came on duty and began preparing a breakfast table on a balcony adjoining the king's dressing room.
• 08:30: But Patthamasarin saw the king standing in his dressing room. He brought the king his customary glass of orange juice a few minutes later. However, by then the king had gone back to bed and refused the juice.
• 08:45: The king's other page, Chit Singhaseni, appeared, saying he had been called to measure the King's medals and decorations on behalf of a jeweller who was making a case for them.
• 09:00: Prince Bhumibol Adulyadej visited King Ananda. He said afterwards that he had found the king dozing in his bed.
• 09:20: A single shot rang out from the king's bedroom. Chit Singhaseni ran in and then ran out along the corridor to the apartment of the king's mother, crying "The King's shot himself!" The king's mother followed Chit Singhaseni into the king's bedroom and found the king lying face up in bed, bloodied from a wound to the head.[2]

Cremation of King Ananda Mahidol, 1950

Monarchs of the Chakri dynasty
	Phra Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (Rama I)
	Phra Buddha Loetla Nabhalai (King Rama II)
	Nangklao (King Rama III)
	Mongkut (King Rama IV)
	Chulalongkorn (King Rama V)
	Vajiravudh (King Rama VI)
	Prajadhipok (King Rama VII)
	Ananda Mahidol (King Rama VIII)
	Bhumibol Adulyadej (King Rama IX)
	Vajiralongkorn (King Rama X)

An initial radio announcement on 9 June surmised that the king was accidentally killed while toying with his pistol.[3]

Soon after the death, the Democrat Party spread rumours that left-wing prime minister Pridi Banomyong was behind the death.[4]

Following the change of prime minister, in October 1946, a Commission of Inquiry reported that the king's death could not have been accidental, but that neither suicide nor murder was satisfactorily proved.

In November 1947, Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram staged a coup against the elected government of Pridi, appointed Democrat Party leader Khuang Aphaiwong as Prime Minister, and ordered a trial. King Ananda's secretary, Senator Chaleo Patoomros, and the pages, But and Chit, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder the king. After the coup, former Prime Minister Luang Thamrong privately confided to US Ambassador Edwin F. Stanton that the evidence gathered during investigations of the regicide implicated King Bhumibol in the late king's death.[5]

The trial began in August 1948. Prior to the trial, Pibulsonggram admitted to U.S. Ambassador Edwin F. Stanton that he was doubtful that the trial would resolve the mystery of Ananda Mahidol's death.[4] The prosecution's case was supported by 124 witnesses and such voluminous documentary evidence that defence counsel asked for an adjournment to give them time to consider it. When this was refused the counsel resigned, and new counsel was found. Later, two of the defence counsel were arrested and charged with treason. Of the remaining two, one resigned, leaving only a single young lawyer for the defence, Fak Na Songkhla. Towards the end of the case he was joined by Chaleo Patoomros's daughter, who had just graduated.

The lengthy trial finally ended in May 1951. The court ruled that King Ananda had been assassinated, but that Chaleo had not been proved guilty and that neither of the pages could have fired the fatal shot. However, they found Chit guilty of being party to the crime. The charges against Chaleo and But were dismissed and they were released.

Chit appealed against his conviction, and the prosecution appealed against the acquittal of Chaleo and But. After fifteen months of deliberation the Appeals Court dismissed Chit's appeal, and also found But guilty.

Chit and But appealed to the Supreme Court, which deliberated for ten more months before finally upholding both convictions, and this time convicting Chaleo as well.

The three men's petitions for clemency were rejected by King Rama IX (Bhumibol Adulyadej) on 17 February 1955 and they were executed by firing squad the next day.[6] King Bhumibol Adulyadej later said that he did not believe they were guilty.[4]

The King was cremated at Royal Crematorium, Sanam Luang, Bangkok, Thailand on 29 March 1950, four years after his death.

The king's death is still seen as a mystery. The subject is never openly discussed in Thailand in the mainstream media, though the subject is not taboo and numerous books have been written about it in Thai. All the principals known to be related in any way to the death are now deceased.

On 15 June 1946, American Chargé d'affaires Charles Yost met with Foreign Minister Direk Jayanama, who had just had an audience with the new king, Bhumibol Adulyadej. In his report to the US State Department, Yost noted,

King Bhumiphol... informed the Foreign Minister that he considered the [widely circulated] rumors [on the late King's death] absurd, that he knew his brother well and that he was certain that his death had been accidental... What the King said to Direk does not necessarily represent what he really believes, it is nevertheless interesting that he made so categorical a statement to the Foreign Minister.[4]

In 1948, Pinit Intaratood, who had just been appointed as the police officer in charge, went to the Villa Vadhana in Lausanne to question King Bhumibol. During the inquiry, the king looked gloomy, so Pinit decided to ask for forgiveness. The king was smiling and says:

I can't, even for a moment, stop missing him. I would have thought that we will never be apart throughout my lifetime. It was our destiny. I've never thought of being the king, [I] only want[ed] to be his brother.[7]

However, in a 1980 BBC documentary, Bhumibol stated that although the court ruled that the death was 'proven' not an accident, "one doesn't know." He noted in English:

The investigation provided the fact that he died with a bullet wound in his forehead. It was proved that it was not an accident and not a suicide. One doesn’t know. ... But what happened is very mysterious, because immediately much of the evidence was just shifted. And because it was political, so everyone was political, even the police were political, [it was] not very clear.

I only know [that] when I arrived he was dead. Many people wanted to advance not theories but facts to clear up the affair. They were suppressed. And they were suppressed by influential people in this country and in international politics.[8]

Sulak Sivaraksa, a prominent conservative and monarchist, wrote that Pridi's role in the event was he protected a wrongdoing royal, and prevented an arrest of a person who destroyed the evidence.[9]^: 5–6 He wrote a Facebook post in 2015 claiming: "in truth, the murderer of King Rama VIII is not Pridi Banomyong. That person is still alive, even though not intending in doing so."[10]

Seni Pramoj and the Democrat Party spread rumours that Pridi was behind the death. Yost noted in a US State Department communication:

"... Within forty-eight hours after the death of the late King, two relatives of Seni Pramoj, first his nephew and later his wife, came to the Legation and stated categorically their conviction that the King had been assassinated at the instigation of the Prime Minister (Pridi Phanomyong). It was of course clear that they had been sent by Seni. I felt it necessary to state to both of them in the strongest terms, in order to make it perfectly clear that this Legation could not be drawn into Siamese political intrigues, that I did not believe these stories and that I considered the circulation at this time of fantastic rumors un-supported by a shred of evidence to be wholly in-excusable. The British Minister informed me this morning that he had also been approached by several members of the Opposition to whom he had stated that he accepted the official account of the King's death and that he would not be drawn into any further discussion of the matter.[4]

On 14 June 1946, Yost met with Pridi Banomyong and made the following report to the US State Department:

"[Pridi spoke] very frankly about the whole situation and ascribed the King's death to an accident, but it was obvious that the possibility of suicide was at the back of his mind. [Pridi] was violently angry at the accusations of foul play leveled against himself and most bitter in the manner in which he alleged (without doubt justly) that the Royal Family and the Opposition, particularly Seni Pramoj and Phra Sudhiat, had prejudiced the King and especially the Princess Mother against him."[4]

After overthrowing Pridi Banomyong in a coup, Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram told US Ambassador Edwin Stanton that he "personally doubted whether Pridi was directly involved for two reasons: firstly, ... Pridi is a very clever politician and secondly, ... he has a 'kind heart'." Pibul concluded to the Ambassador that "he did not think [Pridi] would cause anybody to be murdered. Pibul's wife, present in the meeting, seconded her husband's observations. However, Pibul noted that it was possible that Pridi had covered up or destroyed some of the evidence to protect the successor, Bhumibol Adulyadej.[4]

Keith Simpson, a forensic pathologist who investigated the king's death, found it highly unlikely that the death was due to suicide, noting that:

• The pistol was found by the king's left hand, but he was right-handed.
• The direction of bullet fired was not inward towards the centre of the head.
• The wound, over the left eye, was not in one of the elective sites, nor a "contact" discharge.
• The king was killed while lying flat on his back. Simpson noted that in twenty years' experience he had never known of any suicide shooting while lying flat on the back.[2]

An account of the death is given in William Stevenson's The Revolutionary King, written with the co-operation of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. This account exculpates those executed and suggests that Ananda Mahidol was murdered by Tsuji Masanobu. Masanobu was a former Japanese intelligence officer who had been active in Thailand during the war and, at the time of Ananda Mahidol's death, was hiding out in Thailand for fear of being prosecuted for his war crimes.

Stevenson's account is that Ananda Mahidol could not have killed himself, either by suicide or by accident. He was found lying on his back in his bed, not wearing his glasses, without which he was almost blind. He had a small bullet wound in his forehead and a somewhat larger exit wound in the back of his head. His pistol, an M1911 given him by a former US Army officer, was not nearby. The M1911 is not especially prone to accidental discharge; it will fire only if considerable pressure is applied to the safety plate at the back of the butt at the same time as the trigger is depressed. It is a heavy pistol and awkward to use by an untrained person. It would have been almost impossible for Ananda Mahidol, a frail 20-year-old, to lie on his back and shoot himself in the forehead with such a weapon. Had he done so, the impact, according to forensics experts, would have blown his skull apart, not caused the small wounds seen by many witnesses. Stevenson writes that no cartridge case was found, and subsequent inquiries ordered by King Bhumibol, but suppressed by later governments, found that the Colt had not been fired.[11]

Another account, which concluded that Ananda Mahidol's death was the result of suicide, was explored by journalist Rayne Kruger in his book, The Devil's Discus.[12] The book is banned in Thailand. However, a website[13] by a Thai writer has provided a summary of Kruger's arguments, and it links to other material about the death. Kruger, who had unprecedented access to members of the inner circle of the Thai royal family (although these contacts had to remain unidentified), drew the conclusion that Ananda's death was most probably an 'accidental suicide'. Thus, said Kruger, it appears the sad, most likely accidental, death of the young king was exploited for the purposes of a political vendetta, and that three innocent victims were executed to maintain the façade.

Paul Handley, author of a biography of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, wrote that either suicide or an accidental shooting by Prince Bhumibol was responsible for the king's death:[14]^: 77–78 "I have no idea whether Ananda shot himself or was killed by Bhumibol, the two possibilities most accepted among historians. If the latter, I clearly term it an accident that occurred in play".[15]

Royal Monogram of King Ananda Mahidol

• Chachavalpongpun, Pavin (2021). Love and Death of King Ananda Mahidol of Thailand. Springer Singapore. ISBN 978-981-16-5288-2.