← Back to the front page

Exposing Some of the Meanest and Pettiest Men in History

Khalid Elhassan January 20, 2021 32 min

Jane Greer - Out of the Past — Jane Greer with Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past. Associated Press

1. A Jerk Who Murdered Dozens, Then Lived a Long and Happy Life in Peace and Comfort

Hiroo Onoda in his Brazilian cattle ranch. Observer

Back home, Hiroo Onoda was so popular that he was urged to run for the Diet – Japan’s national legislature. However, he had trouble fitting in. A militarist through and through who thought the war had been a sacred mission, Onoda was unable to come to terms with the pacifist and futuristic country to which he had returned. Japan and its culture in the 1970s were radically different from what he had known growing up, and Onoda was troubled by what he saw as a withering away of traditional Japanese values. So troubled, that he decided to leave the country.

Within a year of returning to Japan, Onoda followed the example of his older brother, and emigrated to Brazil. There, he bought a ranch in Mato Grosso do Sul, and settled down to raise cattle. He tied the knot in 1976, fathered a family, and assumed a leading role in the local Japanese émigré community. He returned to Japan in 1980, where his wife turned to right-wing politics and headed a conservative Japanese women’s association. Throughout much of his remaining life, Onoda returned to Brazil every year for about three months. He died of heart failure in 2014, aged 91.

_________________

Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Arab America – Al Mutanabbi: The Greatest Arab Poet

Cracked – Howard Hughes Bought a Major Studio… to Ruin His Ex-Girlfriend’s Career

Crime Traveler – Homicidal Sleepwalking: To Kill While Asleep

Doyle, David W. – Inside Espionage: A Memoir of True Men and Traitors (2000)

Encyclopedia Britannica – Al Mutanabbi

Encyclopedia Britannica – Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov

Encyclopedia Britannica – Pierre Laval

Frondorf, Shirley – Death of a Jewish American Princess: The True Story of a Victim on Trial (2013)

How Stuff Works – Japanese Holdouts

Los Angeles Times, August 28^th, 2001 – Jane Greer, Star of Film Noir ‘Out of the Past’

Maas, Peter – Killer Spy: The Inside Story of the FBI’s Pursuit and Capture of Aldrich Ames (1995)

New York Times, October 9^th, 1988 – The Defense Pleaded Nagging

Onoda, Hiroo – No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War (1999)

Orkneyjar – Earl Sigurd the Mighty, the First Earl of Orkney

Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 10^th, 2014 – Hiroo Onoda: Hero, or Villain?

Thorwald, Jurgen – The Illusion: Soviet Soldiers in Hitler’s Armies (1974)

Time Magazine, October 15^th, 1945 – Devil’s Advocate

Wikipedia – Japanese Holdout

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.