Hiroo Onoda

Hiroo Onoda was a second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army stationed on Lubang Island when the war ended in 1945. He and three comrades stayed behind, dismissing surrender leaflets and letters from their families as enemy propaganda. They lived on foraged fruit, hunted game, and stolen rice, occasionally exchanging rifle fire with locals and police. One man surrendered in 1950; the other two were killed in 1954 and 1972. In 1974, a Japanese adventurer named Norio Suzuki tracked Onoda down, but the lieutenant still refused to stand down until Major Yoshimi Taniguchi arrived from Japan to…