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Offbeat Warfare Facts that Will Confound History Buffs

Khalid Elhassan February 15, 2021 36 min

Consolidated B-24 Liberator - Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress — Staff Sgt. Alan E. Magee poses for the camera halfway into his ball turret. Historic Wings

23. The Japanese Who Survived WWII’s Biggest Banzai Charge

Compared to some, Captain Sakae Oba’s holdout was relatively brief. However, his was the first holdout that captured widespread media and public attention, and thus introduced the strange trope of Japanese holdouts to popular culture. Born in 1914, Sakae Oba joined the Imperial Japanese Army in 1934. After years of service in Manchuria and China, he ended up in Saipan, three months before US Marines invaded in June, 1944. Overcoming fierce resistance, the Marines gradually beat back the Japanese defenders.

At the end of their tether, the Japanese higher-ups in charge of defending Saipan decided that they and what was left of their command should go out in a final blaze of glory, and die fighting. So they ordered a massive banzai charge – the largest such charge of the entire war. Captain Oba was among the few Japanese survivors. Rounding up and taking command of 46 other Japanese soldiers, along with 160 civilians, he plunged into the island’s jungles.

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.