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Overlooked Important WWII Figures from History

Khalid Elhassan October 20, 2019 31 min

7. Oba’s Guerrilla Campaign

Born in 1914, Sakae Oba joined the Japanese Army in 1934. After years of service in Manchukuo and China, he ended up in the island of Saipan, three months before the US Marines invaded in June of 1944. Despite fierce resistance, the Marines gradually beat back the Japanese defenders. At the end of their tether, Japanese commanders decided to go out in a final blaze of glory, and 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 struck off into the island’s jungles. After hiding the civilians in concealed caves and remote villages, Oba led his men in a guerrilla campaign, raiding American outposts and supplies, ambushing patrols, and taking potshots at sentries.

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.