Only a few days ago the Thai royal Chakri dynasty informed the world of the death of Sirikit (1932-2025), its most beloved and longest-serving Queen Mother, wife of the late King Rama IX (Bhumibol Adulyadej, 1927-2016) and mother of Rama inimitable of the sovereign. Not everyone knows, however, that the reign of Rama IX and Sirikit began with a mystery, a real mystery: the strange death of their predecessor Rama VIII (1925-1946, i.e. Ananda Mahidol), elder brother of Bhumibol Adulyadej. For some it was suicide, for others it was murder. In any case, this tragic death marked the existence of the family forever, changing the fate of the kingdom of Thailand.
Life of a Prince
Ananda Mahidolfuture King Rama VIII was born in Germany and spent a good part of his youth between Paris, Lausanne and the United States, before returning to what was then Siam in 1928. Since the ruler of the time, Rama VII, had had no children, in 1929 Mahidol Adulyadej, father of Ananda, was appointed heir to the throne. Unfortunately, however, Mahidol Adulyadej died shortly after, on September 24, 1929. Thus the position passed to his son.
In 1932 the Siamese Revolution and Rama VII had to grant the people the Constitution, effectively sanctioning the end of the absolute monarchy in the Asian country. The following year the very young Prince Ananda returned with his mother to Switzerland, far from the chaos and threats of the insurrection.
On March 2, 1935, King Rama VII, worn out by the political pressures resulting from the revolt, abdicated in favor of Ananda Mahidol. The new sovereign was but a child and lived abroad, where he remained during the period of World War II. For this reason the administration of the kingdom passed into the hands of two regents. Except for a brief visit in 1938 King Ananda, or rather, Rama VIII, returned to his country only in 1945.
Despite the distance, the people had not forgotten their sovereign. For his part, Rama VIII managed to make himself loved right away, demonstrating a mild and apparently calm character. THE Thais they expected great things from him. Unfortunately, the young man did not have time to implement his plans, to leave an indelible mark on the history of the country or even to be crowned with a traditional ceremony. Destiny chose a different path, as dramatic as it was incredible.
On 9 June 1946, reports the Daily Telegraph, King Rama VIII was found dead in his room inside the Grand Royal Palace in Bangkok. The death occurred following a gunshot to the head.
Murder or suicide?
According to the reconstruction made by pathologist of the British Home Office, Keith Simpson, who was asked for his opinion on the case, on the evening of 8 June 1946 Ananda went to sleep around 10 pm, complaining of an intestinal disorder. He would put on a T-shirt, some blue Chinese silk trousers and get into bed.
He would be woken up by his mother around six. He would not eat the breakfast that had been prepared for him, but he would go back to sleep. The latter circumstance, confirmed by the King’s younger brother, Bhumibol Adulyadej. The latter, in fact, would have gone to Ananda’s room to check on his health conditions, but would have found him asleep. At around twenty past nine the servants heard the shot. One of them, named Chit, reportedly rushed to the royal apartment, finding Ananda Mahidol lifeless. Immediately afterwards he would come out shouting: “The King shot himself”.
Fundamental detail: four security men and a guard inspector remained to watch over the monarch’s sleep throughout the night. The police would not have taken action photographs of that heartbreaking scene, therefore an important element that could have helped investigators in their investigations is missing. However, thanks to the descriptions obtained by Simpson, we know that Ananda’s body lay on the bed surrounded by a mosquito net. He was covered, except for his arms, which were stretched out parallel to the body. Above his left eye was a bullet hole.
The scene of this death, however, would have been contaminated: the first to enter the room would have been the King’s mother. Immediately afterwards the nanny would have joined her, who would have made a huge mistake. After taking Ananda’s pulse, the woman would take the Colt 45 caliber who was next to the King and would have moved it to a bedside table. Then Prince Bhumibol would enter and hide the gun in a drawer “for safety”. In this way the fingerprints of the nanny and Bhumibol were imprinted on the weapon, making the investigations more complicated.
No enough: when they arrived the police would have found the room “cleaned up”. This would suggest that the servants, probably on orders from the family, would have rearranged the bed and the objects around it, frustrating any attempt to understand what had really happened that morning. It is impossible to say whether this decision was the result of unawareness or whether someone was trying to hide evidence. Furthermore, the Chief of Police would not have been allowed to examine the body. In Thailand, in fact, sovereigns are treated like semi-divinities, untouchable by definition. It seems, however, that the official took the gun in his hands, even adding his fingerprints to it.
What is the motive?
There are many things that do not add up in the death of Rama VIII. Again according to Keith Simpson’s reconstruction, the King would not have left no ticket that could explain a hypothetical suicide. The royal family then claims that he was healthy, that he showed no signs of depression and had never expressed the idea of ending it.
There’s more: during the 1946 investigation the hypothesis was put forward according to which Ananda killed himself by mistake, while cleaning the gun. An unlikely circumstance, for three reasons: the sovereign would have been a weapons expert. Simpson also pointed out that the young man would have been very short-sighted, so he would never have cleaned or inspected the weapon without wearing his glasses. These, however, would have been found on the bedroom table, far from the bed. Finally, to make the hypothesis even more remote, there would be the position of corpse.
Let’s not forget that Rama was found supine, with his body covered except for his arms: a somewhat strange posture for examining a weapon. In this regard, the pathologist pointed out another reason for perplexity: in fact, according to his experience, usually those who want to kill themselves with a firearm are standing or sitting. This could be the norm, but it is not excluded that the case of the death of Thai ruler was the exception. The position in which Ananda was found is not incompatible with the suicide hypothesis.
There is, however, another by no means negligible problem: the gun would have been found on the left side of the corpse, but the King would have been right-handed. Even the trajectory of the bullet would have been bizarre because, the pathologist highlighted, it would not have aimed inwards, towards “the central part” of the head.
According to Simpson, King Rama VIII may have been killed. Nobody knows, however, what it would have been motive. In truth, the 1946 investigation was unable to reconstruct the exact dynamics of the death, nor demonstrate, beyond any reasonable doubt, whether it was murder, suicide or accident.
A conspiracy?
Rumors began to circulate in the kingdom according to which the sovereign had been the victim of a plot hatched by Prime Minister Pridi Banomyong. No evidence to this effect was ever found, but these indiscretions ended up undermining the prime minister’s popularity and weakening his government. General Plaek Phibunsongkhram (also known as Phibun), former protagonist of the Siamese Revolution of 1932 and prime minister from 1938 to 1944, took advantage of this difficult political situation, dominated by chaos and uncertainty about the causes of Rama VIII’s death. In 1947 the military managed to impose itself again on the political scene through a coup d’état.
The new prime minister Phibun reopened the case of Rama VIII’s death, convinced that there was one real cause conspiracy of the Palace: he arrested the King’s personal secretary, a senator and the two servants who had seen Ananda a few hours before his death (among them also Chit, the page who had discovered the body), instituting a trial that lasted until 1951.
The legal proceedings led to nothing. No one was able to irrefutably prove the guilt of the accused. Indeed, somehow the reconstruction of the events done in court would have contributed to making the mystery even more confusing and contradictory. It was established that King Ananda would have been murdered, but the judges were unable to identify with certainty either those responsible or the motive for the alleged murder. They limited themselves to believing that Chit must be part of a plot against the sovereign, but they did not specify either the origin or the objectives of this secret plan.
As the Daily Telegraph explains in 1954, despite the rather “smoky” conclusions of the trial, General Phao, Chief of the Thai Police, exerted pressure for the Supreme Court to find guilty and sentence death the servants and the senator. In 1955 the three were executed.
The uncertainties of Rama IX
King Ananda’s body was cremated according to Thai tradition only on March 29, 1950, recalls the New York Times. Four years after his death. During an interview with the BBC for the documentary “Soul of a Nation” (1980) Bhumibol Adulyadej, the new ruler with the name of Rama IX, made it clear that he was not at all convinced of the outcome of the process.
The death of Rama VIII remains an unsolved enigma, like other mysteries with which it has some small analogy, such as the death of the Duke of Kent George, paternal uncle of
Queen Elizabethwho died in 1942 during a flight to Iceland and the Mayerling case, or the disappearance of Archduke Rudolf of Habsburg-Lorraine and his lover, Baroness Maria Vetsera, in 1889.