Japanese guerrilla fighter continued to fight in the jungle for 30 years after the end of the war

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The junior lieutenant of the Imperial Japanese Army, Hiroo Onoda, waged a guerrilla war for almost 30 years against the Philippine authorities and the American military on Lubang Island in the South China Sea. All this time, he did not believe the reports that Japan was defeated, and regarded the Korean and Vietnamese wars as the next battles of World War II. The scout surrendered only on March 10, 1974.

In the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the reforms carried out, Japan made a powerful economic breakthrough. Nevertheless, the country's authorities faced serious problems - a lack of resources and a growing population of the island state. To solve them, according to Tokyo, expansion to neighboring countries could. As a result of the wars of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, Korea, the Liaodong Peninsula, Taiwan and Manchuria came under Japanese control.

In 1940-1942, the Japanese military attacked the possessions of the United States, Great Britain and other European powers. The Land of the Rising Sun invaded Indochina, Burma, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Philippines. The Japanese attacked the American base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and captured a large part of Indonesia. Then they invaded New Guinea and the islands of Oceania, but already in 1943 they lost their strategic initiative. In 1944, Anglo-American forces launched a large-scale counteroffensive, pushing the Japanese out of the Pacific Islands, Indochina and the Philippines.

Emperor's soldier

Hiroo Onoda was born on March 19, 1922 in the village of Kamekawa, located in Wakayama Prefecture. His father was a journalist and member of the local council, his mother was a teacher. During his school years, Onoda was fond of the martial art of kendo - sword fencing. After graduating from high school, he got a job at the Tajima trading company and moved to the Chinese city of Hankou. I learned Chinese and English. However, Onoda did not have time to make a career, since at the end of 1942 he was drafted into the army. He began his service in the infantry.

In 1944, Onoda underwent training for command personnel, receiving the rank of senior sergeant after graduation. Soon the young man was sent to study at the "Futamata" department of the "Nakano" army school, which trained commanders of reconnaissance and sabotage units.

Due to a sharp deterioration in the situation at the front, Onoda did not have time to complete the full course of training. He was assigned to the Information Department of the 14th Army Headquarters and sent to the Philippines. In practice, the young commander was supposed to lead a sabotage unit operating in the rear of the Anglo-American troops.

Lieutenant General of the Japanese Armed Forces Shizuo Yokoyama ordered the saboteurs at any cost to continue to carry out their tasks, even if they had to act without communication with the main forces for several years.

The command awarded Onoda the rank of junior lieutenant, and then sent him to the Philippine island of Lubang, where the morale of the Japanese military was not very high. The scout tried to restore order at the new duty station, but did not succeed - on February 28, 1945, the American military landed on the island. Most of the Japanese garrison was either destroyed or surrendered. And Onoda with three soldiers went into the jungle and proceeded to what he was being prepared for - a partisan war.

Thirty Years' War

On September 2, 1945, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and Chief of General Staff, General Yoshijiro Umezu, signed an act of Japan's unconditional surrender on board the American battleship Missouri.

The Americans scattered leaflets over the Philippine jungle with information about the end of the war and orders from the Japanese command to lay down their arms. But Onoda was told about military disinformation while still in school, and he considered what was happening as a provocation. In 1950, one of the fighters of his group, Yuichi Akatsu, surrendered to Philippine law enforcement and soon returned to Japan. So in Tokyo they learned that the detachment considered to be destroyed still exists.

Similar news came from other countries previously occupied by Japanese troops. In Japan, a special state commission was created to return military personnel to their homeland. But her job was hard as the imperial soldiers were hiding deep in the jungle.

In 1954, Onoda's squad fought the Philippine police. Corporal Shoichi Shimada, covering the group's retreat, was killed. The Japanese commission tried to establish contact with the rest of the scouts, but never found them. As a result, in 1969 they were declared dead and posthumously awarded the Orders of the Rising Sun.

However, three years later, Onoda was "resurrected". In 1972, saboteurs tried to blow up a Philippine police patrol on a mine, and when the explosive device did not work, they opened fire on the guards. During the shootout, Onoda's last subordinate, Kinsichi Kozuka, was killed. Japan again sent a search group to the Philippines, but the junior lieutenant seemed to disappear into the jungle.

Later, Onoda talked about how he learned the art of survival in the Philippine jungle. So, he distinguished the disturbing sounds made by birds. As soon as someone stranger approached one of the shelters, Onoda immediately left. He also hid from American soldiers and Philippine special forces.

The scout ate most of the time on the fruits of wild fruit trees and caught rats with a snare. Once a year, he slaughtered cows belonging to local peasants in order to dry meat and get fat to lubricate weapons.

From time to time, Onoda found newspapers and magazines, from which he received fragmentary information about the events taking place in the world. At the same time, the intelligence officer did not believe the reports that Japan was defeated in World War II. Onoda believed that the government in Tokyo was collaborationist, while the real government was in Manchuria and continued to resist. He regarded the Korean and Vietnamese wars as the next battles of World War II and thought that in both cases Japanese troops were fighting the Americans.

A Farewell to Arms

In 1974, Japanese traveler and adventurer Norio Suzuki went to the Philippines. He decided to find out the fate of the famous Japanese saboteur. As a result, he managed to talk to his compatriot and take a picture of him.

Information about Onoda, received from Suzuki, became a real sensation in Japan. The country's authorities found the former immediate commander of Onoda, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, who worked in a bookstore after the war, and brought him to Lubang.

On March 9, 1974, Taniguchi conveyed to the scout the order of the commander of a special group of the General Staff of the 14th Army to stop military operations and the need to contact the US army or its allies. The next day, Onoda came to the American radar station on Lubanga, where he handed over a rifle, cartridges, grenades, a samurai sword and a dagger.

The Philippine authorities find themselves in a difficult position. During almost thirty years of guerrilla warfare, Onoda, along with his subordinates, made many raids, the victims of which were Filipino and American soldiers, as well as local residents. The scout and his associates killed about 30 people and wounded almost 100. According to the laws of the Philippines, the officer was facing the death penalty. However, after negotiations with the Japanese Foreign Ministry, President Ferdinand Marcos released Onoda from responsibility, returned his personal weapons and even commended his loyalty to military duty.

On March 12, 1974, the scout returned to Japan, where he was in the spotlight. However, the public reacted ambiguously: for some, the saboteur was a national hero, and for others, a war criminal. The officer refused to receive the emperor, saying that he was not worthy of such an honor, since he had not performed any feat.

The Cabinet of Ministers gave Onoda 1 million yen ($ 3, 4 thousand) in honor of the return, and numerous fans also raised a significant amount for him. However, the scout donated all this money to the Yasukuni Shrine, where the souls of the warriors who died for Japan are worshiped.

At home, Onoda was engaged in the issues of socialization of youth through the knowledge of nature. For his pedagogical achievements, he was awarded the Prize of the Ministry of Culture, Education and Sports of Japan, as well as the Medal of Honor for Service to Society. The scout died on January 16, 2014 in Tokyo.

Onoda became the most famous Japanese soldier who continued to resist after the capitulation of official Tokyo, but he was far from the only one. So, until December 1945, Japanese troops resisted the Americans on the island of Saipan. In 1947, Lt. Ei Yamaguchi, at the head of a detachment of 33 soldiers, attacked an American base on the island of Peleliu in Palau and surrendered only at the command of his former superior. In 1950, Major Takuo Ishii was killed in a battle with French troops in Indochina. In addition, a number of Japanese officers, after the defeat of the imperial army, went over to the side of the national revolutionary groups that fought with the Americans, the Dutch and the French.