One of the strangest stories about World War II is that a group of Japanese soldiers did not commit suicide but lived in hiding in a foreign land to defend themselves from the humiliation of defeat for a long time. even after the end of the war. They turned into something called “living ghosts”.
They live in nightmares caused by war and suffer judgment from the court of conscience and torment.
One of the most famous soldiers in the “ghost army” was an intelligence officer in the Imperial Japanese Army named Hiroo Onoda. Onoda began working in the Imperial Army’s infantry, training to become an intelligence officer.
Shortly after the Japanese invasion of the Philippines on December 7, 1941, Onoda boarded a ship to a foreign country, and around 1944, he found himself in Lubang, an island about 90 nautical miles from Manila. to the southwest. Then Allied forces, led by American General-Douglas MacArthur, waged a fierce battle to drive the Japanese out of the Philippines and in March 1945 they liberated Manila.
US Marines on Saipan Island during World War II.
The Japanese soldiers were simply scattered and disoriented, many of whom remained in Lubang in a form of guerrilla warfare years later. Hiroo Onoda was among them and these Japanese soldiers often appeared to launch quick attacks on the enemy. Then these comrades surrendered, the class was killed in battles, only Onoda was lucky to survive, but the war in him only really ended 29 years later.
While the world watched the Japanese surrender, Onoda did not believe it was true, insisting that it was all propaganda. In Onoda’s eyes, war was ongoing and he had to obey orders. Onoda lives alone in the jungles of the Philippines. He often breaks into farms to steal food or livestock, and is willing to kill anyone who tries to stop him. Several victims were killed in these incidents.
Onoda did his best to maintain his tall stature, as well as carefully cleaning the shiny weapons that were the pride of soldiers.
Onoda once said : “Every Japanese soldier is always ready to commit suicide, but an intelligence officer like me cannot die and must wage guerrilla war to the end. If you don’t complete the mission, it will be a disgrace.”
Years later, the Philippine government tried to lure Hiroo Onada out of the forest but was unsuccessful. Onada’s family and friends even went to Lubang Island to call loudspeakers and hand out flyers saying he would be safe out of the woods, but Onada didn’t believe him. On February 20, 1974, Onado happened to encounter a Japanese jungle explorer and Yeti hunter, named Norio Suzuki. This man set out to find Onada and was surprised to see the officer in the forest.
Not long after, a message was sent to Hiroo Onoda, written by Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, who was Onoda’s wartime commander, now a merchant. Mr. Taniguchi willingly returned to Lubang Island in 1974. There he was reunited with his 52-year-old subordinate, when Onoda was tired, his clothes dirty but still wearing his rifle and sword.
Mr. Taniguchi explained to his soldier that the war was three decades back, and the major also read the official surrender declaration and “ordered” Onoda to stop his mission. Onoda was taken to the capital Manila, “surrendered” to Philippine President-Ferdinand Marcos, and received amnesty back to Japan.
However, Hiroo Onoda never really integrated into life at home or in modern society. He traveled to a remote area as far as Brazil to start a farm for Japanese immigrants who lived a simple life, raising cattle in Terenos, Mato Grosso do Sul.
Onoda got married and returned to Japan in 1984, opening a school that teaches survival in the wild. He spent the last days of his life in Japan before dying of complications from pneumonia in January 2014, aged 91.
Before World War II, Shoichi Yokoi was a seamstress, in 1941 served in the army in Manchuria, then boarded a ship to the mosquito-rich jungles of Guam in 1944. Around July 1944, the United States conducted a fierce counterattack against the Japanese garrison on Guam. Eventually the Japanese were driven out of Guam, and Yokoi and the other Japanese soldiers were scattered in the vast jungles of Guam. They struggle to survive on their own.
Over the course of a few years, the remnants of Japanese soldiers dwindled, but Yokoi survived thanks to his omnivores. Snakes, frogs, mice, insects, iguanas, worms, whatever turns into Yokoi’s menu. He also devised many clever ways to trap wild animals to get back-up meat. Yokoi knows how to erase his tracks to avoid detection, as well as learn to camouflage himself, dig burrows to live in, and live among the wilds.
Around 1964, Yokoi’s comrades all died from floods, starvation, ingestion of poisonous animals or diseases, but Yokoi persisted in fighting alone to survive. Contrary to Hiroo Onoda, Yokoi believes that he will be saved by his teammates and tries to live to see his teammates. Yokoi grew increasingly emaciated, holding a rusty rifle. Yokoi became a “ghost” in the forest and when he heard that the war was over, he tried to hide deeper into the jungle for fear of being captured and executed.
After 28 years of hiding, in 1972, Shoichi Yokoi was discovered by a group of hunters. Fearing being killed by these people, Yokoi plotted to steal the rifles, but then the hunters still knocked down the “forest man” and brought him into the civilized world. Being captured was an insult to the soldier so Yokoi fell to the ground and begged the hunters to kill him right then and there.
Like Hiroo Onoda, Shoichi Yokoi’s return to Japan created a fever in the media. But even when he got married, Yokoi realized that he couldn’t regulate his own behavior in the civilized world. Yokoi set off again for Guam, where he lived and died in 1997, aged 82.
A book about Shoichi Yokoi titled “Yokoi’s Private War and Life in Guam 1944-1972, was published in English in 2009, and a museum in Guam also has exhibition space. about him.
Oba used to be a teacher at a public school and joined the Imperial Army in 1934. At the outbreak of World War II, Oba moved to China and then to Saipan (USA). In February 1944, Oba and 600 other Japanese soldiers were stranded on Saipan after their ship Sakito Maru was attacked and sunk by an American torpedo.
The “fox” Sakae Oba officially surrendered to American forces.
They regrouped on the island of Saipan and Oba took charge of a medical station along with 225 other soldiers. Not long after, when the US Marines fully attacked the Japanese beaches, fierce fighting forced Oba and his comrades to flee to Mount Tapochau.
With no supplies, shortages of food and medicine and ammunition, the Japanese forces on the island of Saipan vowed to launch a counterattack rather than die. They rallied approximately 4,000 men to carry out a deadly attack on June 7, 1944.
A war that freaked Americans out when Japanese soldiers, even without ammunition, were still rolling at the enemy, using bayonets to engage in hand-to-hand combat or with knives, swords or whatever else they could get their hands on. By the end of the war, nearly all of the Japanese soldiers had died. But in fact, several people survived, including Sakae Oba; he led a group of about 46 Japanese soldiers who survived the bloody war, turned up Mount Tapochau.
Under the command of Sakae Oba, his comrades carried out numerous guerrilla attacks, raiding American positions, and stealing supplies. They became a thorn in the side of the US Marines; Oba himself was nicknamed “the fox”. American soldiers often searched and set traps to catch Oban, but he was very clever to avoid these traps.
After the war ended, Oba and his teammates still did not believe it was true and accused the photos of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as fabrications. They continued their tactics for the next 16 months, harassing the tens of thousands of American troops stationed on Saipan and continuing their raids even though they had long since lost any enemies. It was not until November 1945 that Oba was convinced that Japan had surrendered after former Major General Umahachi Amo asserted that World War II was truly over.
When he returned to Japan, Oba did not receive the same welcome that the Japanese media and public received Onoda and Yokoi. He was treated as worthless because he was considered a coward who did not “death” with his comrades on the battlefield on Saipan Island. Not giving in to adversity, Oba did not stop striving and became a successful businessman. Sakae Oba’s life story has been written in many books, notably “The Last Samurai” which was adapted into English.
Born in a territory that was once occupied by the Japanese, Formosa (present-day Taiwan), named Attun Palalin. Nakamura was the Japanese name when he joined the Imperial Army in 1943. Nakamura was sent to the island of Morotai (Indonesia), which was attacked by American forces in November 1944.
Under the strong fire of the Americans, the Japanese retreated deep and eventually disappeared into the jungle to carry out guerrilla wars. Many Japanese soldiers suffered from starvation and disease, and the survivors were left disoriented with no supplies.
Nakamua secretly built a semi-permanent house right in the vacant lot of Garoca mountains. He worked in the fields, growing red peppers, bananas, taro and papaya. He also tamed wild boar and other wild animals by himself. Nakmura survived the crops while in his hometown everyone thought he was dead.
He himself was always afraid of his comrades trying to harm him, and even refused to surrender. After many years, only a few pilots and local residents had glimpsed him somewhere on the island, and no one knew who he was or where he came from.
After Hiroo Onoda showed up in 1974, all eyes turned to Nakamura, who was living somewhere on the island of Morotai. Aware of this lost soldier, the Japanese Embassy in Jakarta offers to help track down the mysterious soldier.
After 3 days of searching, on December 18, 1974, a group of Indonesian soldiers sang the Japanese national anthem in the hope that Nakamura would hear it as well as to soothe the spirit of the Japanese soldiers. The soldiers found Nakamura shivering in his tent. They took him to a hospital in Jakarta. While living on the island of Morotai, he befriended a hunter and once rescued a young girl from danger.
Because of these actions, he was called the “Good Japanese” by the islanders and received sympathy from the Indonesian people. Unfortunately, when he stepped out of the forest, Nakamura was without a home, without identity, without a state when Formosa had long since ceased to exist, as well as no longer the Emperor’s regime like the time he served. Because he is not Japanese, Nakamura is not welcomed by the media and the Japanese public. He only received a cash payment from the Japanese government.
Nakamura decided to return to Taiwan in 1975, he discovered that he had a son he had never met, and his wife had remarried after thinking that her husband was dead. His ex-wife later returned and married him, but the marriage did not last long as Nakamura died of lung cancer in 1979.
He has never lived a full life, either in Japan or in Taiwan, and is not recognized as a citizen in either country. Perhaps a part of Nakamura is still staying in the remote forest on Morotai Island and he will return there if given the chance.