Hiroo Onoda surrendered in the Philippines in 1974 after nearly 29 years hiding from the war’s end.
Onoda was a second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army who had been sent to Lubang Island in the Philippines in December 1944. He was ordered to conduct guerrilla operations and was specifically told not to surrender. After Japan’s defeat, he and several companions remained in the island’s mountains, treating wartime leaflets and messages as enemy deception.
A Japanese adventurer, Norio Suzuki, located Onoda in February 1974. Onoda still refused to surrender because he required a direct order from his former commanding officer. Major Yoshimi Taniguchi traveled to Lubang and formally relieved him of duty. Onoda surrendered to Philippine forces on March 10, 1974.
Onoda was not the last Japanese soldier to surrender after the war. Teruo Nakamura, an Indonesian-based Taiwanese soldier serving in Japan’s forces, was arrested later in 1974. Shoichi Yokoi surrendered on Guam in 1972. These cases explain why the end of combat and the end of every isolated holdout’s resistance were not the same event.