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Something wrong?A Japanese soldier who refused to believe World War II had ended, carrying on a one-man guerrilla campaign in the Philippine jungle for 29 years until his former commanding officer flew in to personally relieve him of duty in 1974.
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In their own words 7
, Some dreams are best not to wake up from.
Lieutenant Onoda, Sir, reporting for orders.
People cannot live completely by themselves.
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About this person
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 formally end his mission. Onoda surrendered on 10 March 1974 and returned to Japan as a hero, published an autobiography, then moved to Brazil to ranch cattle. He came back to Japan in 1984 and died there in 2014 at 91.
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