Hiroo Onoda surrendered on Lubang Island in 1974, decades after V-J Day.
Onoda was a second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army who continued guerrilla activity in the Philippines after Japan’s 1945 surrender. He and several companions distrusted leaflets and other messages saying the war had ended, believing them to be enemy deception.
A Japanese adventurer, Norio Suzuki, located Onoda in February 1974. Onoda still refused to surrender until his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, traveled to Lubang and formally relieved him of duty. Onoda surrendered to Philippine authorities on 10 March 1974.
He was not the final Japanese holdout: Private Teruo Nakamura was arrested in Indonesia later that year. Onoda’s story is nevertheless one of the most famous examples of a soldier remaining in hiding long after Japan’s formal surrender.