9. The Jerk Who Kept Killing People in a War That Had Already Ended
Japanese WWII holdouts – diehards who refused to surrender after Japan did, and kept fighting for years on end – are often depicted as paragons of steadfastness and devotion to duty. In reality, many were plain jerks. Initially, some diehards were genuinely unaware that Japan had surrendered. Once informed, most of them laid down their arms. Others, however, knew that the war had ended, but kept on fighting because their warped egos and macho pride refused to accept that they had lost.
The most famous of the latter jerk brigade was Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese Imperial Army lieutenant who, in 1944, at age 22, was sent on a reconnaissance mission to Lubang Island in the western Philippines. An intelligence officer specially trained as a commando, Onoda’s mission was to spy on American forces in the area and conduct guerrilla operations. He was ordered to never surrender, but was also ordered to never take his own life, no matter the circumstances. As seen below, he ended up twisting those instructions to justify a private one-man-war that lasted for decades.
