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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Japan to investigate reported WWII holdout in Philippines
2003-11-20
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.
"Didn't you get our note?"
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. “We 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,” 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

#7  Saw a Discovery Chanel docu on one of the guys,dude thinks Japan never should have surrendered.
Posted by: Raptor   2003-11-20 8:09:26 PM  

#6  I read a book Fire on the Plains about a wounded Japanese soldiers who were sent into the jungles to die (with a grenade). He didn't die and the Japanese pulled out without him. The guy had so much trouble finding food he resorted to canibalism. He convinced himself he was eating monkeys until the very end in the psycho ward in Japan when the doctor figured it out.Anyway it was a true story and it leads me to beleave it would be tough for a 80 something year old man to live in the Philippine jungles.
Posted by: ruprecht   2003-11-20 4:44:56 PM  

#5  "Service to the Emperor" was service for life - only the Emperor could relieve these Japanese soldiers of their duty. I would NOT be surprised to find a few soldiers hiding in the jungles of ANYWHERE Japanese had conquered - the Philippines, Borneo, Indonesia, Malaysia, even a few islands here and there. Any of them still surviving must be getting very old - a conscript recruited in say, June of 1945 at 17 would be 75 today.

Can you imagine the back pay for 58 years' service? Even at the pay rate of a private (17 yen/month), it'd mount up, especially with interest...
Posted by: Old Patriot   2003-11-20 3:12:16 PM  

#4  There is a fairly intersting book about the Onoda story - entitled "No Surrender". In a strange way, you gotta admire that type of loyalty to "duty".

In the book, one of the amazing things was how well cared for the Japanese weapons were - oiled with palm oil,if I remember correctly. But I think they said the bullets were all worn down, from years of constant handling and cleaning.

'Reminds me of pulling (and later inspecting) guard duty, back when. Shotgun guard posts. The shotgun cartridges has been handed over maybe 2,000 times, and were looking pretty moldy - not the sort of thing I'd want to take a chance with.
Posted by: Lone Ranger   2003-11-20 3:23:57 AM  

#3  The mutts from al qaeda have no idea what they're dealing with. They mistakenly view the japanese as being 'western', thus as 'soft' as Americans. Bad idea (and they're learning about our 'softness' up in the hills, too).
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-11-20 2:31:29 AM  

#2  Talk about fanatacism.

And to think Al-qaeda actually threatened the Japanese.
Posted by: Rafael   2003-11-20 1:06:45 AM  

#1  IIRC, Onoda finally surrendered when they brought his commanding officer, then a tailor in Japan, to the Phillipines to relieve him of his duty. Talk about fanatacism.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2003-11-20 12:30:29 AM  

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