Whether they refused to give up the fight for ideological reasons, or simply were not
aware that the fight was over, there were a number of Japanese soldiers who held out long
after Japan had formally capitulated to the Allies in the Second World War.
Among the most famous holdouts was Japanese commando Hiroo Onoda,
who remained in the Philippines until 1974. Contrary to what you might have heard, however,
Onoda was not the last recorded holdout. That title goes to a Taiwanese-Japanese soldier known
by many names, the most prevalent being Teruo Nakamura. In this video, we tell his story.
During the First Sino-Japanese War in the late 1890s,
the Empire of Japan annexed Taiwan. Believing aboriginal Taiwanese would excel in special
forces operations in tropical and sub-tropical climates, the Imperial Japanese Army started
recruiting such men in the lead up World War II, training them in guerrilla warfare. As many as
5,000 aboriginal Taiwanese fought for the Japanese throughout the war, and one aboriginal Taiwanese
unit which served with distinction was the Takasago Volunteers. While it's unclear if
he was forced to or actually wanted to, Amis aborigine Teruo Nakamura joined the unit in 1944,
shortly after which he was sent to fight in Indonesia. One particular conflict there,
the Battle of Morotai, would change Nakamura's life forever. On the 15th of September 1944,
a 57,000-man-strong Allied force composed of American, Australian, British, and Dutch troops
landed on the Maluku Island of Morotai, which was defended by as few as 500 Japanese troops at one
point. Despite facing overwhelming numbers, the Japanese employed guerrilla tactics and managed
to put up a solid fight until the 4th of October. While the Allies used Morotai as a base to launch
further operations, a number of Japanese stayed in the jungle and held on, Nakamura among them.
On the 15th of March 1945, before the war had even come to an end, Nakamura was declared dead. We of
course know that this wasn't the case. Along with some other holdouts, who often got around
in groups, Nakamura hid deep in the jungle. Throughout 1946 and 1947, he was like "To hell
with ya'll" and went off on his own. But evidently that didn't work out for him, and he ended up in
a group once more. The years ticked by, and a little before said group of holdouts was found
and repatriated in December 1955, Nakamura went off on his own again, this time for good. With his
training, and having grown up in the mountains, he made a life for himself in the Morotai jungle.
While he had a rifle, knife, helmet, cooking pot, and mirror when he set out alone,
he otherwise lived off the land, constructing a three-meter-square hut; cultivating fruit and
vegetables (such as bananas, pawpaw, red peppers, taro, sweet potatoes, beans, and sugar cane)
in a twenty-by-thirty-meter field which he fenced off with bamboo; trapping pheasants and boars; and
catching fish from a river. He even constructed his own abacus just for fun — because maths
is fun — and used the moon to count the days, which quickly added up to years, then decades.
According to the Taipei Times, Nakamura wrote a biography later in life, in which he explained
what got him through each day: "Although I didn't have anybody to talk to, buried deep in my heart
seemed to be a glimmer of hope and expectation. The only trace of happiness during this time
came from the fact that I was still alive and I hadn't lost my sense of existence yet. [...] Not
to lose my life became my only goal, and that exhausted almost all of my time."
Without a mindset like that, Nakamura might have lasted a while, but certainly not until the 70s.
In mid-1974, a pilot flying over the island spotted Nakamura's crib and a butt-naked
Nakamura from the sky, and the information reached the Japanese Embassy in Jakarta,
Indonesia's capital city, later that year. In November, the embassy contacted the Indonesian
government in turn, and the Indonesian Air Force on Morotai sent out a plane to search for him.
When Nakamura was once again spotted from the air, a group of Indonesian soldiers began a gruelling
three-day hike through the jungle, finally finding Nakamura's crib — which they later renamed
"Nakamura City" — and Nakamura himself on the 18th of December 1974. As they surrounded him, they
sung the Japanese anthem, Kimigaya, and some other Japanese songs, and also carried a Japanese flag,
in an effort to calm Nakamura before they captured him. While Nakamura did not resist arrest, he was
incredibly thin and almost too frightened to move. Then, as he was transported away from the jungle
into the 1970s, that fear turned to utter confusion. He was, in a way,
the Taiwanese Captain America, thrust almost 30 years into a strange and terrifying future.
Initially, Nakamura recovered in a hospital in Jakarta,
where he started to come to terms with his new reality. But there was a lot to take in.
First and foremost, his wife, thinking he had died, had gone out and scored herself a new man,
and his son, who was just a baby when Nakamura had been sent to fight in Indonesia,
was now a full-grown man with children of his own. What was also rather problematic is that Taiwan,
Nakamura's home country, was now no longer part of Imperial Japan, rendering poor Nakamura
a country-less dead man. The subject of Nakamura's repatriation lingered in the media for a while,
but he was ultimately given the choice of either returning to Taiwan or making a life for himself
in Japan; he chose Taiwan. As a Taiwanese man, however, he was not entitled to a pension from his
30-plus years serving the Imperial Japanese Army, and as a result, was only paid out 68,000 yen,
which, at the time, would've worked out to be about 227 US dollars. *No worries.* Following
this disgrace, the Taiwanese media kicked up a fuss and managed to squeeze a few million more
yen out of the Japanese government as well as some public donations,
totalling 4,250,000 yen — which was a little more like it. Unfortunately, Nakamura only had
around five years to spend his hard-earned cash. The poor man died of lung cancer in June 1979.
According to the Taipei Times once again, Nakamura went on to write,
"I made one simple wrong judgment, and it cost me 30 years." To be a little more specific,
Nakamura held out for 29 years, 3 months, and 16 days, beating Hiroo Onoda by a few months.
But we're interested to hear what you think. Did you know that Hiroo Onoda
was a scam artist? Had you heard of Teruo Nakamura before this video?
Do you know of any other crazy holdout stories from the Second World War? What about beyond
it? Please feel free to share your thoughts and RuneScape account information in the comments.