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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

33. Oba, “The Fox”

Sakae Oba took command of 46 surviving Japanese soldiers, and along with 160 civilians, headed into Saipan’s jungles. After hiding the civilians in caves and remote villages, Oba led his men in a guerrilla campaign, raiding American outposts and supplies, ambushing patrols, and sniping at sentries. Patrols sent to track down and finish off Oba’s force were unsuccessful. So was a massive dragnet, with American troops lined up across Saipan, separated from each other by only two meters, that swept the island from end to end. The chagrined officer in charge of the operation was reassigned, and the Marines nicknamed Oba “The Fox” for his elusiveness.

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.