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Japan to investigate reported WWII holdout in Philippines
Japan will send government officials to the Philippines Thursday to investigate unconfirmed reports that a few Japanese soldiers are still hiding out in the jungle, refusing to surrender after World War II.
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The mission, involving three researchers of the Health and Welfare Ministry, will search jungles on Luzon Island during a week-long investigation, a ministry official said on Wednesday. âWe have received information that a former Japanese soldier had lived in a village in the suburb of Manila, pretending to be a local resident, and the man apparently contacted a few Japanese still hiding in a jungle before he died in 1996,â the official said. The mission also includes two former Japanese soldiers who surrendered in Philippine jungles and were sent back to Japan after the end of World War II. If the reports prove true, it would be the first confirmation of Japanese holding out since 1974, when a former Imperial Army second lieutenant, Michio Onoda, returned to Japan after surviving for three-decades in a jungle having refused to surrender.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-11-20 |
