Hey, Austin Smith here, and welcome to Knowledge Now.
On September 2, 1945, the Empire of Japan surrendered to Allied forces, bringing World
War II to an end after six years of fighting. Despite the formal surrender, a number of
Japanese soldiers stationed of various Pacific islands continued to fight until news of the
surrender reached them. A few Japanese continued to hold out on Guam for many years, and one
soldier there wasn’t captured until 1972. There was still another soldier, however,
that didn’t surrender until 29 years later in 1974. His name was Hiroo Onoda.
Hiroo Onoda was born in 1922 and enlisted in the Imperial Japanese Army at the age of
20. He trained as an intelligence officer and achieved the rank of second lieutenant.
In December 1944 he was sent to Lubang Island in the Philippines where he was ordered to
do all that he could to protect the occupied island from enemy attacks. He was told that
under no circumstances was he to surrender.
When Onoda reached the island, he joined a group of Japanese soldiers there and fought
against American and Philippine forces when they landed on February 28, 1945. After a
short time, all of the Japanese had either died or surrendered except for Onoda and three
others. The four men took to the jungle to holdout until Japanese forces arrived to retake
the island.
When the war ended later that year, leaflets were dropped from the air to inform any remaining
Japanese that the war had ended. Onoda and his group determined the leaflet was simply
a trick by American forces to convince them to surrender. One of four surrendered to Filipino
forces in 1950 and the other three became even more cautious.
They were even convinced that letters from their family dropped by aircraft in 1952 urging
them to surrender was another trick. In 1953, one of the men was shot in the leg by a local,
but Onoda nursed him back to health. A year later, the same soldier was killed by a party
looking for the men. This left Onoda and only one other soldier, Private Kozuka. The two
continued to conduct guerrilla attacks on the locals into the 1970s, killing some 30
people over the years. In October 1972, Kozuka was shot and killed, when he and Onoda were
burning rice collected by farmers nearby. Onoda was now alone.
Finally, in February 1974, a Japanese man named Norio Suzuki, who was traveling around
the world went in search of Onoda. He found him after searching for four days and the
two became friends. Onoda was shocked to come to the realization that the war was truly
over. Onoda still refused to surrender though without orders from a superior officer.
Suzuki returned to Japan and located Onoda’s former commanding officer, who had since retired
from the military. He flew to Lubang in March of 1974 where he convinced Onoda to finally
leave the jungle. Since he was properly relieved of duty, Onoda did not have to surrender.
On March 10, 1975, at age 52, Onoda marched out of the jungle in full uniform that he
had worn for nearly 30 years. He later turned over his sword, his rifle, which was still
in perfect working order, and several grenades. Although Onoda had engaged in shootouts with
local police and killed inhabitants of the island, the unique circumstances led Fillipino
President Ferdinand Marcos to give Onoda a pardon for his actions. Only one other Japanese
soldier surrendered after Onoda, which occurred later that year in December 1974 in Indonesia.
After his return home, Onoda became a national hero in Japan. Onoda was unhappy with how
Japanese culture had changed so much since he had left 30 years earlier and decided to
leave for Brazil in 1975 where he became a cattle rancher and married in 1976. In 1984,
Onoda returned to Japan and opened an educational camp for youth.
In 1996, he donated $10,000 to a local school on the Philippine island where he had held
out for so many years. He also wrote an autobiography of his experiences titled No Surrender: My
Thirty-Year War. As of the time of this video, Onoda is 91 years old and lives part time
in Japan and Brazil.
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