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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

US Marines landing on Saipan in 1944. WWII Today

34. The First Famous Diehard: Sakae Oba

Compared to other Japanese holdouts, captain Sakae Oba’s resistance was relatively brief. However, it captured public attention and introduced the trope of Japanese holdouts to popular culture. Oba had joined the Imperial Japanese Army in 1934, and after years of service in China, he ended up in Saipan, three months before the US Marines invaded in June of 1944. Overcoming fierce resistance, the Marines gradually ground down the defenders. At the end of their tether, the Japanese decided to go out in a final blaze of glory, and launched a massive banzai charge – the largest of the entire war. Captain Oba was one of the few survivors.

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.