WW2 Japanese Officer fighting on Pacific Island for 30 years!

The Pacific theater of World War II was perhaps not as costly as the European stage, but it was equally brutal and terrible. By the time of the US entry into the war, the Japanese had taken much of the territory in the Pacific.  They challenged the US to a combined naval and terrestrial war, with the majority of battles occurring on sea close to islands and on the islands themselves. The US, with its immense industrial capacity and overwhelming resources, began to push the Japanese back after much struggle.  The increasingly desperate Japanese were losing ground and had dwindling resources, and this, in combination with their war strategy and their societal beliefs, led them to adopt a general doctrine for their troops.  This doctrine, or general order, was to struggle against the enemy until death and never accept surrender. Of course, there were Japanese who surrendered, however, there was also an overwhelming number of Japanese who refused to do so, causing heavy casualties to American forces.

This strategy of war is exemplified in the example of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese second lieutenant who fought in the Pacific.  Onoda was one of thousands of Japanese who were issued a final order in the closing years of the war, an order that told them to keep fighting, no matter what, until death or until the Japanese returned for them. Onoda, stationed on an island in the Philippines called Lubang, took this to heart. He, along with three other men, evaded the world and continued to conduct guerrilla attacks on the local people, believing them to be enemies. When word reached them through leaflets and radio announcements that the world was over, they believed it to be enemy propaganda. Onoda spent 28 years in the jungles of Lubang, continuing what he had been ordered to do. He believed the emperor was a sacred deity, and that the war was a divine mission.  This and his staunch belief in the Japanese military doctrine that dying was preferable to surrender led him to hold out as the last of his force. In his time on the island, he and his comrades killed about 30 villagers who they believed were enemies. Onoda, who was declared dead in 1959, was discovered by a Japanese student in 1974, and was eventually convinced by his brother and his former commanding officer that the war was over, and that Japan had lost. Onoda was principled soldier, reminiscent of the samurai of old, offering his sword to the Filipino President when he pardoned him for the crimes he committed while he believed he was at war. Onoda returned to Japan a hero, a reminder of the loyalty and determination of the Japanese in the difficult times, and a symbol of the old era.  With those feelings, however, there were bound to be pained remembrances of the Japanese actions of Nanking and Pearl Harbor. The era that Onoda returned to was vastly different that the near imperial era he had left, and the Japanese of the current era harbored significant antipathy towards Japanese participation in WWII. However, that did not translate into dislike of Onoda, who was welcomed with warm arms in Japan and enjoyed almost a celebrity status.

Onoda was a symbol of an era in the past, and his story is one of loyalty and determination.  However, it is also a nod to the harsh and desperate Japanese orders in WWII, orders that resulted in thousands of deaths on both sides that could have been prevented.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/world/asia/hiroo-onoda-imperial-japanese-army-officer-dies-at-91.html