6. Hiroo Onoda Went Beyond The Bounds of Reason to Continue a Private One-Man-War
As the years flew by, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda’s tiny four-man-contingent steadily dwindled, as he lost comrades to a variety of causes. In 1949, one of them decided that he had had enough, and simply left the group. He wandered alone around Lubang for six months, and eventually surrendered to the local authorities. Another of Onoda’s men was killed by a search party in 1954. His last companion was shot dead by police in 1972, when law enforcement came upon him and Onoda as the duo were trying to burn some farmers’ rice stores.
Onoda was thus finally alone, yet he kept on fighting. He insisted that he was being faithful to his last received orders, refused to acknowledge the authenticity of numerous leaflets that he came across containing new orders to surrender, and doggedly continued his one-man-war. Then in 1974, a Japanese hippie backpacker found Onoda in the depths of Lubang’s wilderness, befriended him, and managed to convince the holdout that the war had ended decades earlier. Even then, Onoda – still as big a jerk as ever – insisted that he would not surrender unless he received orders in person from a superior officer.
