Hiroo Onoda surrendered to Philippine authorities in 1974, nearly 29 years after V-J Day.
Onoda was a Japanese Army intelligence officer assigned to Lubang Island in the Philippines in December 1944. His orders emphasized guerrilla warfare and instructed him not to surrender. After Japan capitulated in 1945, Onoda and several companions continued operating in the island’s forests because they believed wartime leaflets and announcements were enemy deception.
Three members of his group died or left the struggle over the following decades. Onoda remained hidden until 1974, when his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, traveled to the Philippines and formally relieved him of his duties. Onoda then surrendered to President Ferdinand Marcos in March 1974.
Onoda was not the last Japanese soldier to emerge from hiding. Teruo Nakamura surrendered later in 1974 on Morotai, Indonesia. Shoichi Yokoi had been found in Guam in 1972. These cases show that Japan’s formal surrender did not immediately end every isolated individual’s belief that the war continued.