Teruo Nakamura became the last confirmed World War II holdout after being arrested in Indonesia in 1974.
Nakamura was a Japanese soldier of Taiwanese Indigenous heritage who remained hidden on Morotai, an island in Indonesia, after Japan’s 1945 surrender. Indonesian authorities arrested him on 18 December 1974, making him the last confirmed Japanese military holdout of World War II.
He is sometimes confused with Hiroo Onoda, who surrendered earlier in 1974 on Lubang Island in the Philippines. Onoda was more widely publicized and had held out for nearly 29 years, but Nakamura remained in hiding for several months longer.
Nakamura served in the Imperial Japanese Army and had been reported missing after the war. His identity and wartime service were handled differently from Onoda’s, and his return to Taiwan received less international attention. The stories of these holdouts illustrate how isolated Japanese soldiers in remote areas sometimes failed to receive, believe, or act on reliable news that the war had ended.