25. The Strange Phenomenon of Japanese Who Kept Fighting After WWII Ended
When Japan surrendered in August of 1945, millions of Japanese military personnel were spread across vast swathes of Asia and the Pacific. Most of them overcame the shock of defeat and duly obeyed the orders to surrender, broadcast by Japan’s emperor and relayed through their chain of command. However, for a variety of reasons, a stubborn minority did not surrender. Some had no communication with their chain of command. As such, they did not receive official notice that the war was over and that they should surrender to the Allies.
Others received the orders to surrender, but dismissed them as “fake news”. They had been indoctrinated with the Japanese military’s bushido-based ethos of fighting unto death and avoiding the ignominy and dishonor of surrender. As they saw it, it was inconceivable that their leaders had actually gone ahead and accepted the ignominy and dishonor of surrender. That meant that the orders instructing them to surrender could not have possibly come from their government, but were an enemy trick or ruse of war. Thus was born the strange phenomenon of Japanese holdouts.
