Masashi Ito & Bunzo Minagawa
Sergeant Masashi Ito and Private Bunzo Minagawa of the Imperial Japanese Army were members of the Japanese garrison of Guam when that island was invaded by US forces in 1944. Most of the defenders were killed during the fierce fighting that ensued, but Masashi and Minagawa were among the few Japanese survivors.
Convinced by Japanese propaganda that Americans treated their prisoners barbarically, Ito and Minagawa were too afraid to surrender, and so they headed deep into the island’s jungles and hid.
There, they spent an exceptionally miserable 16 years, sleeping in the elements as their uniforms rotted away into tattered rags. As Minagawa described it: “we ate roots, worms, grass, and grasshoppers. It’s no use telling you because you wouldn’t believe it. You can’t imagine such a life. We were sleeping every night in the rain on the ground“.
The duo’s Robinson Crusoe existence took place only a stone’s throw from civilization: Guam is only 25 miles long and 8 miles wide, and at the time had a native population in excess of 60,000 people.
The holdout lasted until May 21st, 1960, when an emaciated and dazed Minagawa was discovered in the jungle and captured by Guam natives. Ito was taken two days later.
Asked by a reporter whether they had seen leaflets written by their relatives and dropped over the jungle years before their capture, they said “Yes, but we didn’t believe them. We thought it was propaganda“.
