The Post World War II Japanese Holdouts


DATE OF HAPPENING: 1945-1974

On September 2, 1945 (6 years and 1 day after Hitler's invasion of Poland) Emperor Shōwa formally signed the surrender of the Empire of Japan, ending hostilities with Japan and the Allies. Despite this though, there were many Japanese Armies who continued to fight against the Allies (and the nations which were former Allied colonies), as they believed the surrender was some sort of propaganda. This is possibly because of the militarized Japanese traditions at the time: That death was more honorable than surrender. Nonetheless, these Japanese holdouts continued to fight a now dead war against countries who were officially at peace. Now, there were many of the stragglers at the start of the war, but throughout the years much of them really did discover that the war was over, and it was not a propaganda bit. However, I will be looking over three of the last holdouts: Shōichi Yokoi, Hirō Onoda, and Teruo Nakamura.

SHŌICHI YOKOI
Shōichi Yokoi
Shōichi Yokoi was a soldier who was a holdout for around 28 years: from 1944 to 1972. Yokoi was trapped in Guam when US forces took over the island from Japan, and he was hiding in the jungles of Guam while Shōwa signed the terms of surrender. While hiding, he held a strong belief that his Japanese comrades would eventually rescue him. Yokoi, determined to not get caught by the Americans, started to hide deeper and deeper in the jungle, and his food sources changed from cattle from farms to rats, eels, and venomous toads. Yokoi himself made a trap from reeds to capture eels. He also dug himself up an underground shelter, supported by bamboo. Despite his craftiness, the burden of being trapped in the jungle and missing his family weighed heavy on his soldiers. Finally, in January 24, 1972, local hunters discovered him on the island. Yokoi, fearing that they would take him as a prisoner of war, cried to the hunters to kill him instead. But, they did not. Yokoi would eventually return to Japan and was warmly welcomed but Yokoi was irked by Japan's changes since 1944. He noted that a 10,000 yen banknote was "valueless." Yokoi and his wife would visit Guam multiple times again before his death in 1997.

HIRŌ ONODA
Hirō Onoda
Hirō Onoda was another holdout who lived in the island of Lubang in the Philippines from 1944 to 1974. Onoda, as a young man, trained in the Nakano School in Tokyo, which was a training camp for intelligence agents. He was trained in propaganda, sabotage, martial arts, and guerilla warfare. When Japan initially surrendered, Onoda and his crew at the time - he led a unit of three - refused to come out of hiding to surrender, despite noting the lessened activity on the island in Autumn of 1945. Onoda and his crew all lived in huts they constructed from bamboo at the time, and lived off the island. But in 1949, one of the quartet - Yuichi Akatsu, surrendered. His reappearance started the first of many searches, which included air drops onto the island. But Onoda and his crew at the time, only thought of it as Western propaganda. He assumed his family lived in Allied occupation and forced his family to send him letters as a means to surrender. To survive, Onoda and his men raided farms and killed farmers. As a result, the police came to investigate, and a shoot out occurred, and the remaining two of his crew - Shōichi Shimada and Kinschichi Kozuka - were killed by gunfire. Onoda was pronounced dead in 1959, despite being very much alive. It was from there that he was alone. He continued to survive, but he became an international sensation. More leaflets dropped, but Onoda was not convinced. He wasn't at least, until 1974. During that year, an adventurer named Norio Suzuki, who was determined to find Onoda, a panda, and the Abominable Snowman (the Yeti), in that order, discovered Onoda on the island. Onoda caught on to Suzuki as strange - he had worn woolen socks with his sandals, unlike the natives of the island who tried to search for him. Suzuki was quite eccentric himself, and this brought Onoda on to not feel as threatened when they met. "The Emperor and people of Japan are worried about you", Suzuki remarked to Onoda. Despite this heart-warming message to the soldier, Onoda still refused to surrender, at least until a higher officer gave him orders to do so. So, about a month later, Suzuki returned with former Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, who at the time became a book keeper. Taniguchi would be the one to assure the end of the war and convinced Onoda to lay down his arms. Onoda then presented his ceremonial sword to President Marcos of the Philippines, who then in turn pardoned Onoda of all of his crimes in Lubang. Onoda also got his sword back. Like Yokoi, Onoda had a hard time adjusting to 1970s Japan (despite its welcome to him), as he was not used to the technology and tall building all around him. Onoda then relocated to a Japanese community in Brazil, and became a cattle farmer. He married, and visited Lubang again, but this time it was to donate $10,000 to an island school. He also returned to Japan to open the Onoda Nature school. Onoda died in January 26, 2014.

TERUO NAKAMURA
Teruo Nakamura
His real name was Attun Palalin. But when he was conscripted into the Japanese Army, he adoped a Japanese name, Teruo Nakamura. He joined the war effort in 1943 and went to the Indonesian island of Morotai a couple months before it being liberated by the Americans. Palalin was an indigenous Formosan, from the island of Formosa, now known more commonly as Taiwan. A possible reason he enlisted in the war effort was to improve his reputation in the eyes of the Japanese administration, who saw indigenous fighters as superior to the Chinese. However, his Japanese superiors also gave the indigenous fighters dangerous missions enough for them to be meat shields. Like the previous two holdouts, Nakamura was forced to make ends meet by living on limited supplies on the island, and the standard of living wasn't exactly the best. And like Onoda, Nakamura also survived with a group. But since Nakamura wasn't Japanese while his comrades were, he slowly started to distance himself from them, and eventually started to live by himself a couple years after 1950. His comrades supposedly died in the jungle, to the jungle. But not Nakamura! He, like Yokoi, was very crafty. He lived and survived alone, catching fish in the rivers. Nakamura would eventually settle in southern Morotai, and even started to farm. Bananas, paw-paw, red peppers, and taro. He even cleaned and maintained his rifle, although he didn't use it in the fear of revealing himself. Despite all this, Nakamura still had some contact with the islanders, even somewhat becoming friends with one, although he did not know who Nakamura was. Pilots noted human activity in what was thought to be remote parts of Morotai. When Onoda was found in 1974, this led to a search in Morotai. Eventually, a search group of 11 Indonesian army men discovered Nakamura in 1974. Nakamura, like Yokoi, was weak and frightened, and asked to be killed. Instead, though, he was sent to Jakarta to be treated. Despite Nakamura outlasting Onoda, Nakamura was not nearly known as much as Onoda was. Even worse, Since Nakamura was a indigenous Formosan, it was much harder for him to be repatriated to any country. His homeland, Taiwan, became a stronghold of the Guomindang, a Chinese nationalist government which was pushed out of China by the Communist Chinese Party. Despite him not being Japanese though, Nakamura did serve in the Japanese military. However, he was only paid 68,000 Yen ($1,110 in 2021 USD) for his efforts. An organization formed by people who thought that Japan didn't pay enough money to Nakamura was formed, and $62,000 was paid to Nakamura. Nakamura would eventually be repatriated to Taiwan. Nakamura also discovered that his wife had a son he didn't meet, and even remarried. But, the wife married Nakamura again, and he would live until 1979 where he died of lung cancer.

There have been other possible stragglers after Nakamura, but most of their stories are either hoaxes, did not have enough evidence, or simply weren't really Japanese stragglers. It isn't surprising that Yokoi and Onoda had such a hard time re-adjusting to Japan after living as outcasts for 25+ years - much changes in a quarter of the century. But what makes all of this impressive is that these soldiers, and many more, were all able to survive on their own (at least Onoda and Yokoi, Nakamura did have some other human contact before 1974). It is interesting that a culture which deems surrender as dishonorable led to such men to fend for the lives by themselves in a harsh environment, yet the human ingenuity leads them to survive, even if barely. Of course, for every Onoda or Yokoi, there were probably many unfortunate souls who passed away in and because of the jungle, or other people. Yet, we also cannot forget what Onoda has done, as despite being pardoned by Marcos, he did kill many islanders in Lubang, and robbed them, because such military culture pushes men to war even in a time of peace.