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Hiroo Onoda
Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda (Japanese: 小野田 寛郎, Hepburn: Onoda Hiroo; IPA: [o̞no̞da̠ çiɾo̞ː]) 19 March 1922 – 16 January 2014) was an Imperial Japanese Army officer who served in World War II and is best known for being one of the last Japanese holdouts. Onoda continued fighting for nearly 29 years after the end of World War II in Asia in 1945, carrying out guerrilla warfare on Lubang Island in the Philippines until 1974.
Onoda initially held out with three other soldiers: one surrendered in 1950, and two were killed, one in 1954 and one in 1972. The men did not believe flyers and letters from their families stating that the war was over. They survived on wild fruits, game, and stolen rice, and occasionally engaged in shootouts (with their service rifles) with locals and the police. Onoda was contacted in the jungles of Lubang by Japanese adventurer Norio Suzuki in 1974 but still refused to surrender until he was formally relieved of duty by his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, who flew from Japan to the island to issue the order.
Onoda surrendered on 10 March 1974, and received a hero's welcome when he returned to Japan. That year he wrote and published a best-selling autobiography, and later moved to Brazil, where he became a cattle rancher. In 1984, Onoda returned to Japan, where he died in 2014 at the age of 91.
Onoda was born on 19 March 1922, in Kamekawa, Wakayama, in the Empire of Japan. In 1939, he left to work at a branch of the Tajima Yoko trading company in Wuhan, China, and in 1942 was conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army. Onoda trained as an intelligence officer at the Futamata branch of the army's Nakano School, where he was instructed in guerrilla warfare.
On 26 December 1944, Onoda was sent to lead guerrilla warfare operations on Lubang Island in the Japanese-occupied Philippines. His mission was to destroy the island's airstrip and the pier at its harbor ahead of the Allied invasion, as well as to destroy any enemy planes or boats that attempted to land. His orders explicitly stated that under no circumstances was he to surrender or take his own life. When Onoda arrived on Lubang, he encountered officers who outranked him and prevented him from carrying out his mission, which aided United States and Philippine Commonwealth forces in capturing the island when they landed on 28 February 1945. After a short period, all but Second Lieutenant Onoda and three other soldiers (Private Yuichi Akatsu, Corporal Shōichi Shimada, and Private First Class Kinshichi Kozuka) had died or surrendered. Onoda led the three men into the island's mountains.
While in hiding, Onoda and his companions continued their mission, carrying out guerrilla activities, surviving on bananas, coconuts, stolen rice and cattle, and on several occasions engaging in shootouts with locals and the police. They successfully evaded American and Filipino search parties, and attacked villagers whom they believed to be enemy guerrillas, allegedly killing up to 30 civilians on the island during their time in hiding.
The first time Onoda's group saw a leaflet announcing that Japan had surrendered was in October 1945; a separate group of Japanese holdouts showed them a note left behind by islanders that read: "The war ended on 15 August. Come down from the mountains!" The men concluded that the leaflet was Allied propaganda, and reasoned that they would not have been fired on before if the war had ended. Near the end of 1945, leaflets with a surrender order from General Tomoyuki Yamashita of the Japanese Fourteenth Area Army were dropped by air on Lubang. Onoda's group studied them to determine whether they were genuine, and decided they were not.
Akatsu separated from the group in September 1949, and after six months on his own surrendered to Philippine forces in March 1950. The others considered this a desertion and a betrayal, and became even more cautious. In February 1952, letters from the three soldiers' families urging their surrender, along with family photographs, were dropped by air, but the group concluded that it was a trick. Shimada was wounded in the leg in a shootout with local fishermen in June 1953, after which Onoda nursed him back to health. On 7 May 1954, Shimada was killed in a shootout with a Philippine Army mountain unit which accidentally encountered the soldiers while training on the island. On 19 October 1972, Kozuka was killed in a shootout with local police while conducting a recurring raid in which he and Onoda burned piles of rice harvested by the villagers, which they intended as a signal to fellow Japanese forces that their group was still alive and carrying out its duties on Lubang. Onoda was alone from this point.
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Hiroo Onoda
Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda (Japanese: 小野田 寛郎, Hepburn: Onoda Hiroo; IPA: [o̞no̞da̠ çiɾo̞ː]) 19 March 1922 – 16 January 2014) was an Imperial Japanese Army officer who served in World War II and is best known for being one of the last Japanese holdouts. Onoda continued fighting for nearly 29 years after the end of World War II in Asia in 1945, carrying out guerrilla warfare on Lubang Island in the Philippines until 1974.
Onoda initially held out with three other soldiers: one surrendered in 1950, and two were killed, one in 1954 and one in 1972. The men did not believe flyers and letters from their families stating that the war was over. They survived on wild fruits, game, and stolen rice, and occasionally engaged in shootouts (with their service rifles) with locals and the police. Onoda was contacted in the jungles of Lubang by Japanese adventurer Norio Suzuki in 1974 but still refused to surrender until he was formally relieved of duty by his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, who flew from Japan to the island to issue the order.
Onoda surrendered on 10 March 1974, and received a hero's welcome when he returned to Japan. That year he wrote and published a best-selling autobiography, and later moved to Brazil, where he became a cattle rancher. In 1984, Onoda returned to Japan, where he died in 2014 at the age of 91.
Onoda was born on 19 March 1922, in Kamekawa, Wakayama, in the Empire of Japan. In 1939, he left to work at a branch of the Tajima Yoko trading company in Wuhan, China, and in 1942 was conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army. Onoda trained as an intelligence officer at the Futamata branch of the army's Nakano School, where he was instructed in guerrilla warfare.
On 26 December 1944, Onoda was sent to lead guerrilla warfare operations on Lubang Island in the Japanese-occupied Philippines. His mission was to destroy the island's airstrip and the pier at its harbor ahead of the Allied invasion, as well as to destroy any enemy planes or boats that attempted to land. His orders explicitly stated that under no circumstances was he to surrender or take his own life. When Onoda arrived on Lubang, he encountered officers who outranked him and prevented him from carrying out his mission, which aided United States and Philippine Commonwealth forces in capturing the island when they landed on 28 February 1945. After a short period, all but Second Lieutenant Onoda and three other soldiers (Private Yuichi Akatsu, Corporal Shōichi Shimada, and Private First Class Kinshichi Kozuka) had died or surrendered. Onoda led the three men into the island's mountains.
While in hiding, Onoda and his companions continued their mission, carrying out guerrilla activities, surviving on bananas, coconuts, stolen rice and cattle, and on several occasions engaging in shootouts with locals and the police. They successfully evaded American and Filipino search parties, and attacked villagers whom they believed to be enemy guerrillas, allegedly killing up to 30 civilians on the island during their time in hiding.
The first time Onoda's group saw a leaflet announcing that Japan had surrendered was in October 1945; a separate group of Japanese holdouts showed them a note left behind by islanders that read: "The war ended on 15 August. Come down from the mountains!" The men concluded that the leaflet was Allied propaganda, and reasoned that they would not have been fired on before if the war had ended. Near the end of 1945, leaflets with a surrender order from General Tomoyuki Yamashita of the Japanese Fourteenth Area Army were dropped by air on Lubang. Onoda's group studied them to determine whether they were genuine, and decided they were not.
Akatsu separated from the group in September 1949, and after six months on his own surrendered to Philippine forces in March 1950. The others considered this a desertion and a betrayal, and became even more cautious. In February 1952, letters from the three soldiers' families urging their surrender, along with family photographs, were dropped by air, but the group concluded that it was a trick. Shimada was wounded in the leg in a shootout with local fishermen in June 1953, after which Onoda nursed him back to health. On 7 May 1954, Shimada was killed in a shootout with a Philippine Army mountain unit which accidentally encountered the soldiers while training on the island. On 19 October 1972, Kozuka was killed in a shootout with local police while conducting a recurring raid in which he and Onoda burned piles of rice harvested by the villagers, which they intended as a signal to fellow Japanese forces that their group was still alive and carrying out its duties on Lubang. Onoda was alone from this point.
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