← Back to the front page

40 Facts About the Japanese Who Refused to Surrender After WWII Had Ended

Khalid Elhassan January 3, 2019 25 min

Hiroo Onoda - Ishinosuke Uwano — Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who kept fighting for nearly three decades after WWII had ended. Observer

27. Sightings of Uwano in Sakhalin

After the war, Uwano’s family received scattered reports of sightings in Sakhalin, informing them that he had gone into hiding in its rugged and harsh terrain after he was cut off behind enemy lines. The last reported sighting was received by Uwano’s relatives in 1958, a full 13 years after the war had ended. After that date, no more was heard of him. In 2000, his family recorded his disappearance, in accordance with law for registering Japanese military personnel who did not return after World War II as war dead.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.