L.v. Man Gave His Blood So Tojo Could Face Justice

On the night of Dec. 23, 1948, Jack Archinal was listening closely to his radio. Like many Americans he was awaiting word of the death by execution of Japan's former prime minister and ultimate warlord, Hideki Tojo. But unlike his fellow countrymen Archinal had a personal reason for listening in. Three years before he had given his blood to Tojo after the warlord's suicide attempt. He told waiting reporters, "I gave my blood so he could be brought to justice, and that is exactly what he got." But after that night the reporters stopped coming to Jack Archinal's house. He was now old news and his moment in the sun was forgotten by all but his friends.

Forty years ago, chance, fate and World War II placed Jack Archinal on the world stage. The 40-year-old soldier was caught up unwittingly in historical drama. In those heady weeks after V-J Day his face andname flashed across the world as the man who gave blood to one of World War II's most feared and hated leaders, Japan's Tojo.

These days, Jack Archinal takes things pretty easy. He basks in his 78 years of memories. Sitting in a lawn chair in front of the Bath home of Dan and Charlotte McKeon, with whom he now lives, Archinal's lively eyes reflect his joy in living.

Since he left high school Jack Archinal has sold soap, tended bar and acted as the supervisor for the fountain service at Allentown's Whelans Drug Store. But Archinal refuses to live in the past. He talks of ideas he has for soap company jingles and speaks happily of his current life and friends. "What happened back then," he says firmly, "is over."

Archinal appears to have few illusions about how his role as Tojo's blood donor came about. "In the Army," he says, "everything is done by the alphabet and I was letter A. Besides," he adds, "we just happened to have the same blood type." But as a footnote to history Archinal's story is one that gives the events of World War II a human perspective, how those events connected two individuals through a blood transfusion.

One did not have to tell Americans of Jack Archinal's generation who Tojo was. For them his face, buck teeth, big, black-framed goggle eyeglasses and high bald forehead were as well known as Hitler's toothbrush mustache. Like the German dictator's drooping forelock and Mussolini's jutting jaw, Tojo's features were seen as an incarnation of tyranny. He was the enemy whose face was duplicated in a multitude of war movies. Tojo was the Jap, the man who stabbed us in the back at Pearl Harbor.

If America's vision of Hideki Tojo (1884-1948) was somewhat less complex than the real man, his ruthlessness more than matched the stereotype. Trained in the strict code ofJapanese soldiering since his youth, Tojo was one of the most militant of the pro-war group in Japan. From 1941 to 1944 he ruled that nation as a virtual dictator. Even Emperor Hirohito, a man whose subjects thought him a god, was afraid of his dictatorial prime minister.

But in July 1944 time had begun to run out for Japan's ultimate warlord. That month America had captured Saipan, giving the U.S. air fleet the chance to begin regular bombing runs on Japan's home islands. Disgraced by this failure to keep America away, Tojo resigned as prime minister. Some of his more militant followers were dismayed. They felt he should