2. Reality Finally Breaks Through
The Japanese of Anatahan were left to their own devices. From time to time, an airplane would drop leaflets over the island, repeating that the war was over and directing the Japanese to surrender. However, the marooned soldiers and sailors persisted in disbelieving the leaflets’ veracity. Things went on like that, for years.
That changed in 1950 when Kazuko Higa sighted a passing US vessel. She raced to the beach, flagged it down, and asked to be taken off the island. It was only then that the authorities learned that the Japanese on Anatahan did not believe that the war had ended. When the information was relayed to Japan, the holdouts’ families were contacted. They wrote letters to their kin, verifying that it was no enemy trick, and that the war had, indeed, ended years earlier.
