Late Life
Following the Occupation, Watanabe became a life insurance salesman and was reportedly wealthy, owning a $1.5 million apartment in Tokyo and a vacation condominium on the Gold Coast of Australia.
Prior to the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, the CBS News program 60 Minutes interviewed Watanabe at the Hotel Okura in Tokyo as part of a feature on Zamperini, a prisoner under Watanabe who was returning to carry the Olympic Flame torch through Naoetsu en route to Nagano. Watanabe did not apologize in the interview, but acknowledged beating and kicking prisoners. "I wasn't given military orders. Because of my own personal feelings, I treated the prisoners strictly as enemies of Japan." Zamperini forgave Watanabe and wanted to meet with him, but Watanabe declined the meeting, probably fearful of reprecussions after some accusatory questions in the earlier press interviews.
There are as yet undocumented accounts by local residents, that Watanabe was also arrested as a pedophile, accused of molesting very young boys, including relatives, but this was concealed by officials to "protect family honor".
Watanabe died in April 2003.
Watanabe's abuses are detailed in the 2010 best-selling book about Zamperini titled Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.
Read more about this topic: Mutsuhiro Watanabe
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