As a prison officer delivers the daily serving of miso soup to Yoshie Shiratori’s cell,
it takes all his concentration not to break out into an evil grin.
He wishes he could laugh at the man and call him a fool.
Do they really think they can keep him contained this time around, after failing so many times
already?
Of course, he doesn't want to give himself away, so he stays quiet and watches the man
leave.
Now, it’s time for the fun to begin.
Shiratori will make use of whatever tools are available to him, and it just so happens
that now, the only thing he has to work with is a concoction made of fermented soybeans.
A challenge, sure, but nothing a bit of creativity can’t solve.
He tucks into his meal hungrily, but instead of swallowing, he stands up while retaining
the liquid in his mouth.
Time to get to work.
He spits the food onto the doorframe, mouthful after mouthful.
Then, he spits a bit more on his handcuffs.
Just what is he doing?
Well they don’t call him Japan’s answer to Houdini for nothing.
These officers have no idea what’s about to hit them…
Yohie Shiratori was born in 1907, during the Meiji Era in Japan which lasted from 1868
to 1912 and was notorious for its harsh prison conditions.
Harsher prison conditions means a greater incentive to escape, and Shiratori wasn't
the only one to come to that conclusion.
For instance, in 1881, almost two thousand prisoners escaped from their cells.
But before you can escape, you first have to be convicted.
And for Yoshie Shiratory that conviction was a big one - found guilty of robbery and murder.
You never forget the first prison.
Or at least that’s how the saying goes.
For Shiratori, it was Aomori prison which was a horrible place.
So how did he get out after just three years?
Well short of his original sentence?
Well for Shiratori it was all very easy, really.
One evening, the guards handed him a bucket of water to wash with, and as he looked down
into the water, he noticed a tiny, glimmering strip staring up at him.
Checking his surroundings to ensure nobody was watching, he picked it up to find it was
a tiny wire.
A tiny wire might not sound like something to write home about if you’re living a cushy
life complete with human rights and all that jazz, but for Shiratori, it was a miracle.
Instantly, he realized he could use it to pick the lock of his handcuffs and escape,
so he hid it out of sight.
The lock picking took a bit of trial and error, but there’s nothing better to do with your
time in a prison cell.
Shiratori enjoyed a good few years of sweet, sweet, freedom.
Unemployment, too, but at least he was free.
The problem was, he got too comfortable.
The life of crime was calling Shiratori, and he so badly wanted to answer the call.
One day, he just couldn’t resist stealing some supplies from a hospital.
Big mistake.
In 1936, the powers that be recaptured Shiratori, and this time, it was a life sentence.
But now he went into prison already thinking about the ways to escape.
And he was determined to make it an even better story than the last time.
The next stop was Akita prison.
Not the most memorable place, but it just so happened to be where he conducted an even
cooler exit.
As soon as they put him into his cell, he started surveying his surroundings.
There were no wires this time, but after what felt like hours of pacing, he gave up and
settled down on his poor excuse for a bed.
Laying down on his bed, looking up at the ceiling, he was struck with inspiration.
Right in the top corner of the wall, by the ceiling, was an air vent.
And everybody knows an air vent has to lead somewhere.
It was his getaway ticket.
But there was a problem: the walls in this cell were very high and extremely smooth.
Even if it was possible to force the door to the air vent open and make his way through
to the other side without killing himself, how would he ever climb the wall?
Figuring that out made up became Shiratori’s hobby for the rest of his time in Akita.
After weeks on end of perfecting his scaling technique, one day he finally made it to the
top.
And...then he fell down.
Great.
But at least he had the ability to make it up, right?
Shiratori eventually managed to get to the top and stay there long enough to undo the
hinge that was keeping the door closed.
There was only one part left now: to take the exit route.
Shiratori waited until the time when the prison got quiet, then scaled up the wall and busted
open the air vent, clambering in sweatily before his bare feet lost grip on the walls.
Now he just had to crawl through a horribly small passageway for who-knows-how-long without
the claustrophobia giving him a panic attack, and force open the door on the other end.
Easy.
It was a tense journey, but finally he reached the end of the tunnel.
Shiratori didn’t really have a great view of what was waiting for him on the other side,
it was impossible to tell if there were many people there, but it seemed to be silent.
He took a deep breath, scrambled out, then snuck out of the prison without being seen.
Success!
Then, it was back to the same old problem: he had absolutely nowhere to go.
Shiratori had no money.
No friends or family he could trust to protect him.
He couldn’t just go and get a job; they’d realize he was a prisoner.
Shiratori was stuck in a revolving door of crime.
But then he remembered a specific prison guard from Aomiri prison, one who always gave him
a warm smile and made sure he had enough food.
Maybe he would help him.
It was a long shot, turning to a prison guard for refuge, but what else was a prisoner on
the run supposed to do?
Miraculously, Shiratori was able to find him, and even more miraculously, he took him in.
For a while, things were going well.
He loved Shiratori’s stories and appreciated the company.
But after a while, Shiratori noticed that he wasn’t looking him in the eye.
That’s never a good sign, and not long after the police arrived at the door to arrest Shiratori
again.
He’d been betrayed.
That night, Shiratori made an oath to himself that he’d never trust another officer again.
This time, they sent him to Abashiri prison.
He was really in with the big fish this time.
Abashri was the destination of hardened criminals and the most dangerous people in Japan.
This cell didn’t even have an air vent.
That traitor guard had probably told the staff exactly how he’s escaped the previous times.
But nobody could have guessed what Shiratori had in store this time around.
Every meal time, the officers would dish up a serving of miso soup.
It was bitter and horrible stuff, but conveniently his plan ensured that he didn’t have to
eat it.
Each morning, Shiratori would spit the soup onto his door frame and handcuffs.
The salt and moisture from the Miso had corrodings and weakening the doorframe and the handcuffs.
It was a long game, sure, but he had nothing but time.
Although saltwater alone can’t cause rust, it does accelerate the process.
Rusting happens because metal atoms react with oxygen and water — and because there’s
almost always some moisture in the air, most iron is exposed to both of these.
This results in hydrated iron oxide.
Electrons move more easily in saltwater than freshwater since it contains lots of dissolved
ions, so the rusting process takes place more quickly.
Shiratori gradually wore down the door frame over time, making it looser and looser, until
finally, he could create a larger gap on the metal frame the guards pushed the miso soup
through.
He also loosened his handcuffs.
Now, all he needed was an opportunity.
Opportunity arrived when there was a wartime blackout in 1944.
With no light and the minds of the prison staff on problems other than guarding the
prisoners, he realized he might just be able to manage an escape.
But as he pried apart the metal on the frame, he discovered that he wasn’t going to make
it through.
The hole was too small.
Unless…
Shiratori might just be able to squeeze himself through if he really forced it, but it was
going to do his body some damage.
But it was this or nothing.
With all his might, he rammed himself through that gap, dislocating his shoulder in the
process, and while the whole prison was dark and everyone was distracted, he successfully
snuck away again.
But Shiratori’s story didn’t end there.
There was still one fourth and final escape...
When he was recaptured, things were somehow worse than ever.
His original sentence of a few years’ imprisonment had now become a death sentence.
It was almost like escaping from prison hadn’t been worth it.
Yet he knew that, with such high stakes, this time he had no choice but to get out.
But Shiratori was well known for his escapes now and no longer had the element of surprise.
Now he had six armed guards watching over him 24 hours a day.
And, even worse, the cell had been specially designed to ensure that he couldn’t get
out through the air vent.
One of the few bright sides for Shiratori was no more handcuffs.
The prison had so much faith in their sophisticated cell design and highly-trained guards that
they deemed them unnecessary.
So, at least he wouldn’t have to waste time on spitting soup out onto his wrists this
time around.
The other thing that caught his notice was the floor.
He was on the ground floor this time, and the wooden floorboards looked like they could
be easily lifted up if the bolts were removed.
But even if he could, he’d still have to dig an entire tunnel before he had any hope
of escaping.
This was going to take a while.
By this point, Shiratori was an old man.
All the escaping from prison and being recaptured had really taken a toll on him, and the prospect
of the grueling manual labor involved in digging up a tunnel didn’t exactly fill him with
joy.
But it was literally a matter of life or death.
So, every day he used his food bowl to dig a small part of that hole.
It took a while, but finally, he finished digging the tunnel and crawled to freedom.
But again, Shiratori struggled to adjust to the world outside of prisons, though he did
manage to stay out of trouble.
For a year at least.
One day, Shiratori encountered a police offer.
His body froze up on instinct after seeing him, remembering his promise to never trust
another officer, but the man surprised him by offering a cigarette.
These were the post-war days when cigarette prices were extortionate, so he couldn’t
help but feel touched by the gesture.
Overwhelmed by the show of camaraderie, Shiratori blurted out that he’d escaped prison four
times.
It sounds like a stupid thing to say, but it’s hard to go your whole life as the world’s
single greatest prison escape artist and not tell a single person.
But of course, the officer snitched, and just like last time, Shiratori returned to prison,
for the fifth and final time.
But this time around, he at least got some special treatment.
No more death sentence and the chance to go to a prison of his choice.
He chose a prison in Tokyo and was eventually granted parole, getting to live the final
ten years of his life as a truly free man.
Now, go watch our video on the man who escaped prison by mail and the time death row inmates
escaped before execution.