There is an old anecdote: in 1970, a bearded man with a machine gun enters a Belarusian village. When he meets an old woman, he asks:
Grandma, are there any Germans in the village?
My dear, the village woman throws up her hands. So the war ended 25 years ago!
Yes? - the partisan answers in surprise. “Why, then, have I been derailing trains all this time?”
But what was a peculiar form of humor for the inhabitants of the Soviet Union was the absolute truth for the Japanese. Soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army continued to fight even three decades after their country capitulated in World War II.
Hiroo Onoda in his youth. Photo: Public Domain
The New York Times reported that he died in Tokyo at the age of 92 former military intelligence officer Hiroo Onoda, for whom the Second World War ended 29 years later than for his native country.
Hiroo Onoda was born in the Japanese village of Kamekawa on March 19, 1922, in the family of a journalist and a teacher. In his youth, Hiroo was fond of Japanese kendo and was generally an athletic youth. After graduating from school, he got a job in a private company and went to do business in China. There, Hiroo learned English and Chinese, but his business career was interrupted by conscription. A capable guy with knowledge of languages was sent to the school of intelligence officers, which, however, Hiroo did not have time to finish - things in Japan at the front were getting worse. In 1944, Onoda was sent to the Philippines as the commander of a special squad to carry out sabotage operations behind enemy lines.
Parallel reality of the Japanese lieutenant
In January 1945, the saboteur and his subordinates were assigned to the island of Lubang, where he was given the task of engaging in sabotage and reconnaissance activities in the rear of the American troops. The officer was instructed that his mission would last at least three to five years.
After the regular units of the Japanese army on Lubang were defeated, junior lieutenant Onoda with his soldiers went to the mountains, where he created a base and switched to guerrilla warfare.
Onoda and his three soldiers were not embarrassed by the American leaflets dropped from aircraft, which spoke of the surrender of Japan, nor even the order to lay down their arms signed by the Japanese general, copies of which were also scattered over the Lubang jungle. The Japanese soldiers thought it was just American propaganda.
The guerrilla war of the Onoda detachment, which consisted of four people, lasted five years, until one of the fighters surrendered to the Philippine police - Yuichi Akatsu. It was he who said that his comrades, who were considered dead in their homeland, were still fighting in Lubang.
The Japanese government dispatched a group to search for Onoda's detachment, but this did not produce any results.
In July 1954, Onoda and his soldiers were confronted by a group of Filipino policemen. Killed in battle Seichi Shimada who covered the retreat of the commander. After that, a search party sent from Japan searched the Lubang jungle again, but Onoda was never found.
In 1969, the officer and his only remaining subordinate in Japan were declared dead for the second time, posthumously awarded orders.
Meanwhile, Onoda kept fighting. Having arranged his life in the jungle, he attacked the Philippine military, policemen, committed sabotage against the American base located on the island. For three decades, the saboteur killed 30 people and wounded about 100.
The most interesting thing is that Onoda, during his sorties, captured the radio and knew what was happening in the world. However, he stubbornly did not believe that Japan had lost World War II. And even the Vietnam War, the saboteur considered nothing more than a Japanese counteroffensive in Indochina.
Surrender at the Order of the Bookseller
In September 1972, the Philippine police shot and killed a Japanese soldier who was taking rice from farmers. It turned out to be Kinsiti Kozuka, Onoda's last subordinate.
After that, the Japanese government again sent a mission to the Philippines in order to still find a saboteur officer. And again, this did not bring results.
The case helped. On February 20, 1974, Onoda was stumbled upon in the jungle by a young Japanese traveler student. Norio Suzuki. Taken aback by surprise, the young man nevertheless began to explain to the officer what was really happening in the world, and began to persuade Onoda to return home.
Onoda seemed to believe, but his answer struck the young man: "I cannot leave the combat post without the order of the senior commander."
The student returned to Japan with photographs of Onoda, which caused quite a stir. Japanese authorities found Onoda's direct commander during the war, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, who by that time was a modest bookstore worker, and dressed in a military uniform, was sent to Lubang.
Having received an order by radio from Major Taniguchi, Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, in full combat gear, with weapons and with a report on his actions on March 10, 1974, surrendered to the Philippine authorities.
Youth mentor
According to the laws of the Philippines, Onoda was to be tried as a criminal, but the Japanese government managed to convince the country's authorities that the case of a saboteur officer was special.
They met him ambiguously: Onoda spoke with slogans from the time of the war, and the mood in Japanese society has changed a lot. Some even said: Onoda is a born bandit who just liked killing people.
As a result, in 1975, Onoda left for Brazil, where he settled among the Japanese emigrants. Again, he returned to his homeland in 1984, when the excitement around his person had already subsided.
Not only did the mood of the Japanese change, Onoda himself also changed. He got used to the modern world, softened and decided to take up the education of young people by opening his own survival school. Onoda's experience in survival was such that hardly anyone could compare with him. For his successful work in the field of educating the younger generation, Onoda was even awarded a special award from the Japanese government.
Onoda lived the last part of his life in two houses - in Japan and Brazil. He wrote several books of memoirs, the most famous of which was Never Surrender: My Thirty Years' War.
The last soldiers of the empire
If Hiroo Onoda was destined for a solemn surrender, then for Terou Nakamura things didn't turn out so rosy. A native of Taiwan who did not even speak Japanese, he was drafted into the Imperial Army in 1943 and sent to the Indonesian island of Morotai. At the end of the war, Nakamura's detachment lost contact with Tokyo, and the soldiers themselves were surrounded by the Americans. Nakamura managed not to be captured, and he went into the jungle, where he began to live like a real one. Robinson.
Nakamura, unlike Onoda, did not partisan, but simply survived, being sure that he would be killed when discovered.
They stumbled upon him only in 1974 and within two months they persuaded him to surrender. Finally, in December 1974, the soldier capitulated to the Indonesian soldiers.
Nakamura, 55, was in good health and looked great for someone who had spent three decades in the jungle. But a real drama happened in the life of a soldier: for thirty years he dreamed of returning to his beloved wife, but she, considering him dead, married another.
Nakamura was explained that Taiwan is no longer a territory of Japan, so he has a choice where to go: to the country for which he fought for three decades, or to where he was born. Nakamura chose Taiwan, where he was deported. The Japanese government paid the soldier compensation, which amounted to 227 US dollars. Unlike Onoda, Nakamura's peaceful life did not work out - he died just five years after the end of his long war.
Story Shoichi Yokoi similar to the story of Nakamura and Onoda. A Japanese corporal who fought on the island of Guam also refused to accept his country's defeat in World War II. Having gone with his comrades into the depths of the jungle of Guam, he hid there for many years. In 1964, two of his colleagues died and he was left alone. The corporal lived as a hermit, eating meat obtained from hunting, which he went out at night. Yokoi was discovered in January 1972, after which he returned to Japan. The 57-year-old corporal, having arrived at his homeland, said the words that have become a symbol of all Japanese soldiers with a similar fate: "I am painfully ashamed that I returned alive."
Shoichi Yokoi settled in a village in his native Aichi Prefecture, married and began to lead a modest life as a Japanese pensioner. However, he, like Onoda, was often remembered by journalists who invited him to talk shows and even made a documentary film about the soldier.
Shoichi Yokoi died in 1997 and was buried next to the grave of his mother, who never waited for her son from the war.
Photos from the Second World War show us, first of all, German and Soviet prisoners of war, as well as captured soldiers of the armies of Great Britain and the United States, the same post will show rare photographs of Japanese military personnel who were captured by the USSR or the United States.
Japanese pilot captured during the fighting at Khalkhin Gol. 1939
The Japanese, who fell into Soviet captivity during the fighting at Khalkhin Gol. The Soviet commander in the foreground has the military rank of major. Soviet military personnel are wearing cotton Panama hats for hot areas, which have survived to this day with minimal changes. Red stars 7.5 cm in diameter are sewn onto panama caps in front, enamel stars are attached in the center. 1939
Japanese soldiers taken prisoner after the capture of the island of Betio, part of the Tarawa Atoll. From the Japanese garrison, numbering more than 5,000 people, including 1,200 Korean workers, from 17 to 35 Japanese soldiers, as well as more than a hundred civilian personnel, surrendered, according to various sources. November 1943.
Crew members of the American battleship New Jersey watch a Japanese prisoner of war being bathed. During World War II, in the Pacific theater of war, Americans washed, shorn, treated with anti-lice and dressed them in American military uniforms without insignia. There is a version that the prisoner of war in the photo is a downed kamikaze pilot. 1945
US Marines remove a Japanese captive soldier from a US submarine that has returned from patrol.
Captured Japanese. Manchuria.
A Japanese soldier lay for 36 hours with a grenade in his hand, pretending to be dead. Having received from him a promise not to resist, the American treats him to a cigarette. Location: Iwo Jima, Japan. Shooting time: February 1945.
US Marine, First (Senior) Lieutenant Hart H. Spiegal, using sign language, is trying to start a conversation with two undersized Japanese soldiers captured on the island of Okinawa. The one on the left is 18 years old, the other is 20 years old. Location: Okinawa, Japan.
Japanese prisoners are preparing for lifting a small submarine No. 53 (Type B Ko-Huoteki, Kō-hyōteki) in Simpson Bay on Rabaul (New Guinea). Main characteristics: displacement - 47 tons, length - 23.9 m, width - 1.8 m, height - 3. Maximum speed - 23 knots (underwater), 19 knots - surface. Cruising range - 100 miles. Crew - 2 people. Armament - 2 450 mm torpedoes and a 140 kg explosive charge.
Japanese Lieutenant General Yamashita Tomoyuki (Tomoyuki Yamashita, 1885-1946) arrives in Manila under escort of US military police. In the background on the right is the general's personal translator, a graduate of Harvard University, Masakato Hamamoto. Location: Manila, Philippines.
Japanese prisoners of war on the island of Guam, bowing their heads, listen to the announcement of Emperor Hirohito of Japan's unconditional surrender.
A Japanese prisoner of war in a camp on Guam after the news of Japan's unconditional surrender.
Japanese prisoners receive lunch at the Bilibid camp in Manila in the Philippines.
The surrender of the Japanese garrison of the island of Matua to the Soviet troops. Location: Matua Island, Kuril Islands. Date of shooting: 08/25/1945. Ceremony of surrendering the military personnel of the 41st separate infantry regiment, which was part of the garrison of the island of Matua. Japanese officer - regiment commander, Colonel Ueda.
Captain III rank Denisov interrogates captured Japanese officers. Naval Base Kataoka, Shumshu Island. Location: Shumshu Island, Kuril Islands.
Taking under guard the units of the Red Army of Japanese military depots and property after the surrender of the Kwantung Army. Taking under guard Japanese warehouses in the zone of operations of the 57th Rifle Corps of the 53rd Army of the Trans-Baikal Front in the vicinity of the Chinese city of Fuxin. Immediately after the signing of the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945 and the end of hostilities, it was decided to take under the protection of the Soviet troops numerous military depots with food, weapons and other property located in China. Location: China.
From 1945 to 1956, about five thousand Japanese prisoners of war participated in the construction of the Farhad hydroelectric power station (HES-16), a hydroelectric power station on the Syr Darya River. Location: Shirin, Uzbekistan, USSR.
Two Japanese prisoners who returned from the USSR pass by a group of people who were meeting them.
A group of former Japanese prisoners walking along the road after returning from the USSR.
A group of former Japanese prisoners on the pier after returning home from the USSR.
After the Empire of Japan admitted defeat in September 1945, small groups of soldiers who had retreated into the jungles of Indochina and Indonesia still continued to resist. These servicemen received the nickname "Stragglers" from the US military, which can be translated as "stragglers" or "remaining". Many of them did not find out in time about the surrender of their country, and upon learning, they refused to believe in it. The reason for this was the upbringing in the spirit of the traditions of the samurai, for whom the end of the war is victory or death.
In addition, during the training of the soldiers of the imperial army, they were warned that the "gaijins" were cunning and insidious. They can resort to mass disinformation about the end of the war. Therefore, even gaining access to information about the current state of affairs in the world, these "samurai" thought that the government of Japan, which is spoken about on the radio or written in the newspapers, is a puppet of the United States, and the emperor and his entourage are in exile. All events in the world were perceived by them from a distorted angle.
This fanatical devotion to an empire that no longer existed caused the deaths of some "stragglers" in clashes with local police. This article will tell the stories of three soldiers for whom World War II ended only in the 1970s. Perhaps each of you will be able to formulate your point of view and decide how to treat such people: as heroes, infinitely devoted to their country and traditions, or as fanatics, whose minds have been thoroughly washed by the propaganda machine of militaristic Japan.
Corporal Shoichi Yokoi. Shoichi was born on March 31, 1915 in a small village in Aichi Prefecture. Before being drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army in 1941, he worked as a tailor.
Initially, he was assigned to the 29th Infantry Division, which was stationed in Manchuria. In 1943, already as part of the 38th Infantry Regiment, he was transferred to the Mariana Islands, and in February of the same year, Shoichi and his colleagues were transferred to the island of Guam, which they were supposed to protect from the invasion of American soldiers.
In the course of fierce hostilities, the Americans still managed to capture the island. However, the corporal, like ten of his colleagues, did not give up. They remained true to their oath, which stated that the soldiers of the empire had no right to be captured. The emperor spoke about it, the officers repeated it every day. The Guam samurai went deep into the island, into its most inaccessible part, where they found a suitable cave and decided to wait for the return of the Japanese army, not doubting for a minute that this would be the case.
Years passed, and help never came. Soon only three of the eleven soldiers remained. After the strongest hurricane that hit the island, the "stragglers" began to have problems with provisions. It was decided to cast lots: the one who wins will remain in the equipped cave, the other two will have to leave and look for a new shelter. The corporal was lucky, and two of his colleagues died a few days later from poisoning by the fruits of a poisonous plant. It is not known whether they ate them by accident, or it was an act of ritual suicide. Be that as it may, the corporal was left completely alone. He buried his comrades in a cave, and dug himself a new shelter.
In eight years, Yokoi learned to hunt and fish with the most primitive tools. He went out for fishing at night, in order not to be noticed by the local population, which he suspected of collaborating with the enemy. His soldier's uniform decayed, and the corporal, remembering his past life as a tailor's apprentice, made himself new clothes from what he found in the jungle.
However, no matter how he hid, in 1972 he was spotted by two shrimp fishermen. They thought that this strange old man was a runaway peasant, so they tied him up and took him to the village. Corporal Shoichi considered himself disgraced, he could not believe that some two fishermen had caught him, a loyal soldier of the imperial army. Yokoi heard many stories from his officers about how the Americans and their allies executed their prisoners, so he thought he was being taken to the executioner.
However, it soon became clear that the war ended 28 years ago, and instead of the shameful death of a corporal, a medical examination and return to his homeland await. Before going to the hospital, Shoichi asked to be taken to a cave, where he dug up the remains of two of his comrades and put them in a sack. He did not part with him until his return to Japan. Doctors, having examined the corporal, found that he was completely healthy. Before being sent home, the soldier met with the Japanese consul, who answered many questions. It is said that Shoichi almost fainted when he learned that Japan and the United States were now allies, but the news that Roosevelt had long died corrected the situation and made the Emperor's soldier smile for the first time in 28 years.
The forgotten soldier who returned to his homeland was greeted as a hero - he was invited to talk shows, his feat was written about in newspapers and magazines, he was even paid a salary for all the time that he was considered dead. A documentary film, Shoichi Yokoi and his 28 years on the island of Guam, was made about his life on the island. In 1991, the hero himself was honored with a reception from Emperor Akihito, who called his feat "an act of selfless service to the motherland." Shoichi Yokoi died in 1997 at the age of 82. He was buried next to the grave of his mother, who died without waiting for the return of her son.
Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda. Onoda was born on March 19, 1922 in a family of teachers from the village of Kamekawa, in Wakayama Prefecture. After leaving school, in April 1939, he became an employee of the Tajima Trading Company and moved to China. There he learned Chinese and English. In December 1942, he returned to his homeland, as he was drafted into the army. Initially, Onoda, with the rank of private second class, was assigned to the 61st Infantry Regiment. Then, a few days later, he was transferred to the 218th Infantry Regiment. By mid-summer, Hiroo was already a private first class, and between September and November he was promoted to private of the upper class, and then to corporal. From January to August 1944, Onoda Hiroo was trained at the army school. In December 1944, he was sent to the Philippines and appointed commander of a saboteur detachment.
In January 1945, already in the rank of second lieutenant, Onodo, together with a detachment, went to the island of Lubang. Arriving at their destination, the young officer offered the local command to prepare for a long defense, but his proposal was rejected. As a result, US Army soldiers easily defeated the Japanese and took possession of the island.
True to his oath, Onoda fled into the jungle with three surviving subordinates. There they set up a base and began to wage a guerrilla war. After the surrender of Japan, American planes began to drop leaflets over the jungle, which announced the end of the war. Onoda, being an intelligence officer, regarded this as misinformation.
Meanwhile, in Japan, due to lack of communication with the sub-lieutenant group, the authorities declared all of its members dead, but they had to reconsider when, in 1950, one of the members of sub-lieutenant Hiroo's guerrilla group surrendered to the Philippine authorities. Thanks to his testimony, a special commission was created to search for "stragglers". Due to the unstable political situation in the search area, Japanese search engines could not start working for a long time. While there were diplomatic proceedings, another member of the sabotage group was discovered. On May 7, 1954, in the mountains, a police detachment noticed a group of people dressed in Japanese military uniforms. An attempt to make contact with them ended in a gunfight, as a result of which the second member of Onoda's group was killed.
After that, the Philippine government gave permission to the Japanese search teams to conduct their activities on the territory of Luang Island, but they could not find anyone. Fifteen years later, Onoda and the only repairman he had left were again declared dead. They were posthumously awarded the Order of the Rising Sun of the VI degree. On September 19, 1972, the Filipino police again exchanged fire with a group of unknown Japanese - this is how the last member of the Hiroo group was shot dead. Another search and rescue team arrived from Japan, but this attempt also failed.
The stubborn samurai was found only at the end of February 1974. A Japanese traveler, exploring the Philippine jungle, accidentally came across a saboteur's hideout. At first, Second Lieutenant Hiroo tried to attack the intruder, however, when it turned out that he was Japanese, he decided not to do it. They talked for a very long time. The researcher, whose name was Norio Suzuki, persuaded Onoda to lay down his arms, since the war had long ended, but to no avail. Onoda stated that he had no right to do so, since he was a soldier, and the order had been given to him, and until the order was canceled, he had no right to surrender.
After Suzuki returned to his homeland, the story of this meeting made a splash, a third search team was assembled, which invited the former commander Hiroo Onoda, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi. On the island, Taniguchi got in touch with Onoda and read him a surrender order. When the junior lieutenant handed over the weapon, everyone present saw that it was in perfect condition. According to the law of the Philippines, Hiroo was awaiting the death penalty, since during his protracted war he killed about 30 people and wounded more than 100, but the Japanese Foreign Ministry settled this issue, and the officer, faithful to his oath, returned home on March 12, 1974.
Interesting fact: The return of Hiroo Onoda was met with mixed reactions by the Japanese. The majority, of course, supported the junior lieutenant and considered him a model of officer honor, but the communists and social democrats called him the “ghost of militarism” and stated that he knew about the surrender of Japan, but did not give up just because he was a complete militarist and preferred to live in the jungle and kill innocent Filipinos rather than accept the defeat of their country.
Private First Class Teruo Nakamura. Nakamura was born on November 8, 1919. He was drafted into the army in 1943. The private soldier served on the island of Morotai, in Indonesia. After the US troops finally defeated the enemy forces in this territory in January 1945, communication between Japan and the island where Nakamura remained was lost. Teruo served in a unit that, in its training, was equated to commando units, so he easily managed to avoid captivity and hide in the jungle, where he built himself a shack and started a small vegetable garden where he grew potatoes. The private believed that if they found out about his existence, they would immediately surrender to the enemy troops, and then captivity and all the horrors that the officers told about would follow.
For almost 30 years, the private did an excellent job with the role of the ghost of the jungle, but in 1974 the crew of the Indonesian Air Force plane noticed his shelter and reported him to the command. Within two months, negotiations were held with the government and a plan was developed to evacuate the "straggler" soldier. No one knew how Nakamura would react to the appearance of a group of rescuers and whether he would believe the news of the surrender of his country.
On December 18, 1974, several Indonesian soldiers quietly crept up to the private's shack and took the area into a ring to prevent an attempt to escape. Then, to the Japanese national anthem, they began waving the Japanese flag. After that, Teruo himself left his dwelling and laid down his weapon (Arisaka rifle with five rounds). After that, he said: "I was ordered to fight to the very end." He was taken to Jakarta where he underwent a full medical examination. It turned out that in addition to traces of malaria, which the samurai caught during his years in the jungle, he is absolutely healthy, and his physical condition is even better than that of most of his peers (in the meantime, he was 55 years old).
The Japanese government returned the soldier to his homeland in Taiwan and gave him a military pension. According to Nakamura himself, the only thing he most wanted was to return alive to his wife. However, it turned out that during the time he was considered dead, she, considering herself a widow, remarried. Perhaps that is why, after being deported home, he lived only three years.
Interesting fact: Teruo Nakamura was not Japanese, he belonged to Taiwan's largest Ami people. When informed that Taiwan was no longer a Japanese or Chinese colony, he replied, "I've been a Japanese soldier for too long and I don't care that Taiwan is now a free state." By the way, his real (Taiwanese) name never became known.
According to official information, more than a hundred Japanese soldiers who remained in Indochina after the surrender of their country joined the detachments of the Malayan communists and continued their war. In addition, in 2005, two soldiers were found in the territory of the Philippines, who by that time were already over eighty. They hid, fearing that they would be accused of desertion and executed. Based on this information, we can safely assume that today in the jungles of Southeast Asia there may be the remains of more than a hundred of these "stragglers" who never knew that their war was over, and the empire for whose glory they fought was already long gone.
During one of the attacks on the enemy base, the scout received a radio receiver, converted it to receive decimeter waves and began to receive information about the situation in the world around him. He also had access to Japanese newspapers and magazines, which were left in the jungle by members of Japanese search commissions. Even before being sent to the front, Onoda was taught at the officer school that the enemy would resort to mass disinformation about the end of the war, so he did not believe the information received.
On February 20, 1974, a young Japanese traveler, student Norio Suzuki, accidentally found Onoda in the Lubang jungle. Suzuki tried to persuade him to return to his homeland, talking about the end of the war, the defeat of the Japanese and the modern prosperity of Japan. However, Onoda refused, explaining that he could not leave the duty station because he did not have permission to do so from his superior officer. Suzuki returned to Japan alone, but brought back photographs of a Japanese spy, which caused a sensation in the Japanese media. The Japanese government urgently contacted Yoshimi Taniguchi, a former major in the Imperial Japanese Army and Onoda's direct commander, who worked in a bookstore after the end of the war. On March 9, 1974, Taniguchi flew to Lubang, got in touch with Onoda, dressed in military uniform, and announced the following order to him:
“1. According to the order of His Majesty, all military units are exempt from combat operations.
2. According to Order No. 2003 on combat operations "A", a special group of the General Staff of the 14th Army is exempt from all operations.
3. All units and persons who are subordinate to a special group of the General Staff of the 14th Army must immediately stop fighting and maneuvers and go under the command of the nearest senior officers. If this is not possible, they must contact the US Army or their allied armies directly and follow their instructions.
Commander of the Special Group of the General Staff of the 14th Army Yoshimi Taniguchi
On March 10, 1974, Onoda brought a report for Taniguchi to the radar station and surrendered to the Filipino forces. He was in full military uniform, carrying a serviceable type 99 Arisaka rifle, 500 rounds of ammunition for it, several hand grenades and a samurai sword. The Japanese gave his sword to the commander of the base as a sign of surrender and was ready to die. However, the commander returned the weapon to him, calling it "a model of army loyalty."
Under Philippine law, Onoda faced the death penalty for robbery and murder, attacks on the police and the military during 1945-1974, but thanks to the intervention of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, he was pardoned. The surrender ceremony was attended by dignitaries from both countries, including then Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Onoda solemnly returned to his homeland on March 12, 1974.
“For him, the war is not over,” they sometimes say about former soldiers and officers. But this is more of an allegory. But the Japanese Hiroo Onoda was sure that the war was still going on even a few decades after the end of World War II. How did it happen?
Scout on Lubang
Hiroo Onoda was born on March 19, 1922 in the village of Kamekawa, Wakayama Prefecture. After graduating from school, in April 1939 he got a job at the Tajima trading company, located in the Chinese city of Hankou. There, the young man mastered not only Chinese, but also English. But in December 1942, he had to return to Japan - he was called up for military service. In August 1944, Onoda entered the Nakano Army School, which trained intelligence officers. But the young man failed to complete his studies - he was urgently sent to the front. In January 1945, Hiroo Onoda, already in the rank of second lieutenant, was transferred to the Philippine island of Lubang. He received orders to hold out to the last. Arriving at Lubang, Onoda suggested that the local command begin preparations for a long-term defense of the island. But his call was ignored. The American troops easily defeated the Japanese, and the reconnaissance detachment led by Onoda was forced to flee to the mountains. In the jungle, the military set up a base and began a guerrilla war behind enemy lines. The squad consisted of only four people: Hiroo Onoda himself, Private First Class Yuichi Akatsu, Private Senior Class Kinshichi Kozuki, and Corporal Shoichi Shimada. In September 1945, shortly after Japan signed the act of surrender, an order from the commander of the 14th Army was dropped from aircraft into the jungle, ordering them to surrender their weapons and surrender. However, Onoda considered this a provocation by the Americans. His detachment continued to fight, hoping that the island was about to return to Japanese control. Since the group of partisans had no connection with the Japanese command, the Japanese authorities soon declared them dead.
"War" continues
In 1950, Yuichi Akatsu surrendered to the Philippine police. In 1951, he returned to his homeland, thanks to which it became known that members of Onoda's detachment were still alive. On May 7, 1954, Onoda's group clashed with the Philippine police in the mountains of Lubang. Shoichi Shimada was killed. In Japan, by that time, a special commission had been created to search for Japanese military personnel who remained abroad. For several years, members of the commission searched for Onoda and Kozuki, but to no avail. On May 31, 1969, the Japanese government declared Onoda and Kozuku dead for the second time and posthumously awarded them the Order of the Rising Sun, 6th class. On September 19, 1972, a Japanese soldier was shot and killed in the Philippines while trying to requisition rice from peasants. That soldier turned out to be Kinsiti Kozuka. Onoda was left alone, without comrades, but obviously he was not going to give up. During the "operations", which he carried out first with subordinates, and then alone, about 30 were killed and about 100 seriously wounded military and civilians.
Loyalty to officer honor
On February 20, 1974, Japanese travel student Norio Suzuki stumbled upon Onoda in the jungle. He told the officer about the end of the war and the current situation in Japan and tried to persuade him to return to his homeland, but he refused, citing the fact that he had not received such an order from his immediate superiors. Suzuki returned to Japan with pictures of Onoda and stories about him. The Japanese government managed to contact one of Onoda's former commanders, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, who has now retired and worked in a bookstore. On March 9, 1974, Taniguchi, in military uniform, flew to Lubang, got in touch with a former subordinate and gave him the order to stop all military operations on the island. On March 10, 1974, Onoda surrendered to the Philippine military. He faced the death penalty for "combat operations", which were qualified by local authorities as robberies and murders. However, thanks to the intervention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, he was pardoned and on March 12, 1974 solemnly returned to his homeland. In April 1975, Hiroo Onoda moved to Brazil, got married and took up cattle breeding. But in 1984 he returned to Japan. The former military man was actively involved in social work, especially with young people. On November 3, 2005, the Japanese government presented him with the Medal of Honor with a blue ribbon "For Public Service". Already at an advanced age, he wrote a memoir entitled "My Thirty Years' War on Lubang." Hiroo Onoda died on January 16, 2014 in Tokyo at the age of almost 92.
