Japan Style

In 1944, Lt. Hiroo Onoda was sent by the Japanese army to the remote Philippine island of Lubang. His mission was to conduct guerrilla warfare during World War II. Unfortunately, he was never officially told the war had ended; so for 29 years, Onoda continued to live in the jungle, ready for when his country would again need his services and information. Eating coconuts and bananas and deftly evading searching parties he believed were enemy scouts, Onoda hid in the jungle until he finally emerged from the dark recesses of the island on March 19, 1972.

Hiroo Onoda was 20 years-old when he was called up to join the army. At the time, he was far from home working at a branch of the Tajima Yoko trading company in Hankow (now Wuhan), China. After passing his physical, Onoda quit his job and returned to his home in Wakayama, Japan in August of 1942 to get into top physical condition.

In the Japanese army, Onoda was trained as an officer and was then chosen to be trained at an Imperial Army intelligence school. At this school, Onoda was taught how to gather intelligence and how to conduct guerrilla warfare.

In the Philippines

On December 17, 1944, Lt. Hiroo Onoda left for the Philippines to join the Sugi Brigade (the Eighth Division from Hirosaki). Here, Onoda was given orders by Major Yoshimi Taniguchi and Major Takahashi. Onoda was ordered to lead the Lubang Garrison in guerrilla warfare. As Onoda and his comrades were getting ready to leave on their separate missions, they stopped by to report to the division commander. The division commander ordered:

You are absolutely forbidden to die by your own hand. It may take three years, it may take five, but whatever happens, we'll come back for you. Until then, so long as you have one soldier, you are to continue to lead him. You may have to live on coconuts. If that's the case, live on coconuts! Under no circumstances are you [to] give up your life voluntarily.¹

Onoda took these words more literally and seriously than the division commander could ever have meant them.

On Lubang

Once on the island of Lubang, Onoda was supposed to blow up the pier at the harbor and destroy the Lubang airfield. Unfortunately, the garrison commanders, who were worried about other matters, decided not to help Onoda on his mission and soon the island was overrun by the Allies. The remaining Japanese soldiers, Onoda included, retreated into the inner regions of the island and split up into groups. As these groups dwindled in size after several attacks, the remaining soldiers split into cells of 3 and 4 people. There were four people in Onoda's cell: Corporal Shoichi Shimada (age 30), Private Kinshichi Kozuka (age 24), Private Yuichi Akatsu (age 22), and Lt. Hiroo Onoda (now age 23).

They lived very close together, with very limited supplies: the clothes they were wearing, a small amount of rice, and each had a gun with limited ammunition. Rationing the rice was difficult and caused fights, but they supplemented it with coconuts and bananas. Every once in a while, they were able to kill a civilian's cow for food.

The cells would save up their energy and use guerrilla tactics to fight in skirmishes. Other cells were captured or were killed while Onoda's continued to fight from the interior.

The War is Over...Come Out!

Onoda first saw a leaflet that claimed the war was over in October 1945. When another cell had killed a cow, they found a leaflet left behind by the islanders which read: "The war ended on August 15. Come down from the mountains!"² But as they sat in the jungle, the leaflet just didn't seem to make sense, for another cell had just been fired upon a few days ago. If the war were over, why would they still be under attack? No, they decided, the leaflet must be a clever ruse by the Allied propagandists.

Again, the outside world tried to contact the survivors living on the island by dropping leaflets out of a Boeing B-17 near the end of 1945. Printed on these leaflets was the surrender order from General Yamashita of the Fourteenth Area Army. Having already hidden on the island for a year and with the only proof of the end of the war being this leaflet, Onoda and the others scrutinized every letter and every word on this piece of paper. One sentence in particular seemed suspicious, it said that those who surrendered would receive "hygienic succor" and be "hauled" to Japan. Again, they believed this must be an Allied hoax.

Leaflet after leaflet was dropped. Newspapers were left. Photographs and letters from relatives were dropped. Friends and relatives spoke out over loudspeakers. There was always something suspicious, so they never believed that the war had really ended.

Source : http://history1900s.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/soldiersurr_2.htm

38 years ago, on January 24 1972, two residents from Guam discovered Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese soldier who was hiding in the jungle for… 28 years.

When discovered, Shoichi Yokoi was 56 years old, he looked skinny but he was healthy, was dressed with a uniform woven by himself from hibiscus fibers and he was keeping an accurate record of time. He attacked the two residents with a fishing net, but they managed to capture him and took him to the police station.

His story became famous throughout the world and he became one of the most famous people from Japan.

When he was drafted in the Imperial Japanese Army, in 1941, Shoichi Yokoi was preparing to become a tailor. At the beginning he was part of the 29th Infantry Division from Manchuria and in 1943 he arrived in Guam, with a rank of Sergeant, part of the Supply corps.

On July 21 1944, in the battle that followed the landing of American troops in Guam, the unit of Shoichi Yokoi was annihilated. He managed to survive, but he was cut off from his army so he refused to surrender and took refuge in the jungle. When he returned home, he explained:
“We Japanese soldiers were told to prefer death to the disgrace of getting captured alive”. He was officially listed as killed in September 1944.

He had the necessary knowledge and the amazing strength to live in the jungle for 28 years, waiting for the return of the Japanese Army.
At the beginning, he lived together with two other soldiers in a hole they dug in the ground, consolidated with bamboo walls.

After several months, because the food was running out, the two other soldiers moved but they remained in contact, visiting each other. However, after 8 years, Shoichi Yokoi found them dead, probably of starvation…

In 1952, Shoichi Yokoi found leaflets and newspapers and read that the war was over, but he thought it was just American war propaganda and remained hidden in the jungle.

Shoichi Yokoi wasn’t the only one living for many years in the jungle. In 1960, two other Japanese soldiers, Minagawa şi Ito, were found and repatriated to Japan.

After he was repatriated, Shoichi Yokoi became a national hero in Japan, and when he went to visit his native village, his visit was televised and thousands of Japanese welcomed him lined along the road and holding flags.

Shoichi Yokoi married several months after his return, wrote a book about his experiences in Guam, appeared regularly on TV and in 1974 he even ran for the Parliament.

In 1981, his dreams became true and he was granted an audience with Emperor Hirohito. The meeting was the greatest honor of his life and he declared to the Emperor:
“Your Majesties, I have returned home. I deeply regret that I could not serve you well. The world has certainly changed, but my determination to serve you will never change".

He lived a simple life, at one moment declaring:
“I can’t understand why cities must burn garbage. My family does not produce garbage. We eat every last bite of food. Parts of food that are not edible are used as fertilizer in my garden".
Shoichi Yokoi died of a hearth attack in 1997, at the age of 82 years.

It’s an amazingly dramatic story about survival. But even more impressive than the story itself is his way of thinking:
“I continued to live for the sake of the Emperor and believing in the Emperor and the Japanese spirit".

Source: http://www.muza-chan.net/japan/index.php/blog/japanese-soldier-guam