Hiroo Onoda

Hiroo Onoda was a Japanese soldier who fought in World War II and did not surrender until 1974, almost 30 years after the war ended. He was trained as an intelligence officer in the Nakano School and was sent to Lubang Island in the Philippines in 1944. He was ordered to do all he could to hamper enemy attacks on the island and not to surrender or take his own life. He joined forces with a group of Japanese soldiers who had been sent there previously, but most of them either died or surrendered after the US and Philippine forces landed on the island in 1945. Onoda and three other soldiers retreated to the hills and continued their guerrilla activities, believing that the war was still going on. They ignored the leaflets and loudspeakers that announced Japan's surrender, thinking they were enemy propaganda. They also engaged in several shootouts with the local police and civilians, killing up to 30 people over the years. One of his companions surrendered in 1950, and the other two were killed in 1954 and 1972. Onoda remained alone in the jungle until 1974, when he was finally persuaded to come out of hiding by Norio Suzuki, a Japanese adventurer who had travelled to Lubang to find him. Suzuki contacted the Japanese government, who sent Onoda's former commander, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, to formally relieve him from duty. Onoda surrendered his sword, rifle, and other military items and tools to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, who pardoned him for his crimes. Onoda returned to Japan in March 1974 and received a hero's welcome. He was the last Japanese soldier to come out of hiding after the war. He wrote a memoir titled No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War, which became an international bestseller. He also opened nature camps for children across Japan and donated money to a local school on Lubang Island. He moved to Brazil in 1975 and became a cattle farmer. He married Machie in 1976 and lived in a Japanese community in Mato Grosso do Sul. He returned to Japan in 1984 and visited Lubang Island several times. He died of heart failure due to complications from pneumonia at a hospital in Tokyo on 16 January 2014. He was 91 years old.