The extraordinary untold Japan story of ‘You Only Live Twice’

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The Japan Times
　平成27・2019年6月17日　ジヤパンタイムズ

The extraordinary untold Japan story of ‘You Only Live Twice’
　Damian Flanagan
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The extraordinary untold Japan story of ‘You Only Live Twice’

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The Cold War deepened in 1948 over the Berlin Airlift. Hughes was dismissed as manager of the club and swore never to return to it. At the same time, he started working as a foreign correspondent for London’s Sunday Times, under its foreign manager Ian Fleming, who had played a distinguished role in British naval intelligence during World War II and presided over many crucial covert operations.

Hughes now created his own intelligence network by founding the Baritsu Chapter, supposedly the Asian section of the Baker Street Irregulars, a Sherlock Holmes appreciation society first founded in the U.S. in 1934. “Baritsu” is the name given to a fictional form of martial art that Holmes is described as using to defeat his arch-nemesis, Moriarty, while wrestling with him at the Reichenbach Falls.

The society was invitation only and at first had just 12 high-profile members, including Walter Simmons, the chief correspondent of The Chicago Tribune and renowned Japanese fantasy author Edogawa Ranpo (1894-1965), who had himself created many classic stories inspired by Sherlock Holmes.

The first society dinner was a lavish 11-course affair: Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida himself was due to participate, but offered last minute apologies due to an emergency meeting with Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Allied commander in Japan. He promised that nothing would prevent him from attending the next meeting. His son, satirical author and Anglophile Kenichi Yoshida, was also a keen member.



Edogawa Ranpo | WIKICOMMONS