8. Cut Off
With American forces overrunning the Philippines and overcoming organized Japanese resistance on the archipelago, Lieutenant Onoda scurried about the rugged terrain of Lubang. He was cut off from communications with his chain of command, and so did not receive official word of the Japanese capitulation in 1945. Without new orders countermanding his last received instructions to fight to the death, Onoda displayed a single-minded devotion to what he claimed was his duty, hid in the jungles and mountains of Lubang, and fought a deadly one-man war for 29 years.
For nearly three decades, Onoda survived with his tiny command in the dense thickets of Lubang. They erected bamboo huts and eked out a living by hunting and gathering in the island’s jungle, stealing rice and other food from local farmers, and killing the occasional cow for meat. Tormented by heat and mosquitoes, rats and rain, Onoda’s band patched their increasingly threadbare uniforms, and kept their weapons in working order.
