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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

1. Japan’s Longest Holdout Died Unappreciated and In Poverty

Teruo Nakamura, had not been a member of the Imperial Japanese Army, but of a colonial unit. Under Japanese law, that meant he was not entitled to back pay or a pension or any of the benefits afforded IJA soldiers. While Hiroo Onoda had been awarded about U$160,000 by Japan, equivalent to nearly U$900,000 in 2018 dollars, Nakamura was awarded only U$227 – equivalent to about U$1250 in 2018 – for his three-decades-long holdout in service to Japan. Teuro Nakamura returned to Taiwan, where he died of lung cancer five years later, in 1979.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Guardian, The, May 28th, 2005 – 60 Years After the War Ends, Two Soldiers Emerge From the Jungle

YourStory –This soldier kept fighting WWII 29 years after it ended

How Stuff Works – Japanese Holdouts

Mike Dash History – Final Straggler: The Japanese Soldier Who Outlasted Hiroo Onoda

Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 10th, 2014 – Hiroo Onoda: Hero, or Villain?

BBC News, 17 January 2014 – Japan WW2 soldier who refused to surrender Hiroo Onoda

Wanpela – Lt Ei Yamaguchi

Warfare History Network – Operation Removal: Taking the Japanese Holdouts Near Saipan

Wikipedia – Japanese Holdout

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.