Hiroo Onoda became famous for surrendering in the Philippines in 1974, decades after Japan’s 1945 surrender.
Onoda was an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer stationed on Lubang Island in the Philippines. His orders were to continue guerrilla operations and avoid surrender, and he remained in the jungle after the war ended. Although leaflets and search efforts attempted to tell him the conflict was over, he believed many messages were enemy deception.
Onoda finally emerged on March 9, 1974, after his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, traveled to the Philippines and formally relieved him of his duties. He surrendered his sword to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in a ceremony on March 11, 1974.
Onoda was not the last Japanese holdout overall. Teruo Nakamura, a Taiwanese-born soldier, was found and surrendered in Indonesia later in 1974. Shoichi Yokoi had been discovered in Guam in 1972. These cases show that Japan’s surrender did not immediately reach every isolated soldier.