7. This Jerk Dismissed Japan’s Capitulation – and Specific Orders for His Surrender – as “Fake News”
Without clear-cut orders to surrender, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda chose to interpret his duty as an obligation to hide and fight on – for 29 years. For nearly three decades, Onoda survived with his tiny command in the jungles and mountains of Lubang. They erected bamboo huts and eked out a living by hunting and gathering in the island’s jungle. They stole rice and other food from local farmers, and killed 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.
During their long holdout, Onoda and his men came across various leaflets announcing that the war had ended. They dismissed them as “fake news”, enemy propaganda, and ruses of war. When they encountered a leaflet upon which had been printed the official surrender order from their commanding general, they examined it closely to determine whether it was genuine, and decided that it must be a forgery. Even when they recovered airdropped letters and pictures from their own families urging them to surrender, Onoda’s band insisted that it was a trick.
