Hiroo Onoda was the Japanese intelligence officer who surrendered on Lubang Island in 1974, decades after Japan’s 1945 surrender.
Onoda was a second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army and had been sent to Lubang in the Philippines in 1944. He was ordered to conduct guerrilla warfare and avoid surrender. After the war ended, he and several other Japanese soldiers remained in hiding because they believed the conflict was still continuing.
Onoda spent nearly 30 years in the island’s forests. Leaflets, newspapers, and other messages telling him the war was over failed to convince him that Japan had surrendered. His companions gradually died or surrendered, leaving Onoda alone for many years.
He finally emerged on March 9, 1974, after his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, traveled to Lubang and personally ordered him to stop fighting. Onoda is often called the last Japanese soldier to surrender, but Teruo Nakamura surrendered later in 1974; Onoda was the last Japanese commissioned officer to do so.