Imperial Japanese soldiers who kept fighting after the surrender of Japan in 1945
Japanese holdouts (
Japanese: 残留日本兵,
romanized: Zanryū nipponhei,
lit. 'remaining Japanese soldiers') were soldiers of the
Imperial Japanese Army and
Imperial Japanese Navy during the
Pacific Theatre of
World War II who continued fighting after the
surrender of Japan at the
end of the war. Japanese holdouts either doubted the veracity of the formal surrender, were not aware that the war had ended because communications had been cut off by
Allied advances, feared they would be killed if they surrendered to the Allies, or felt bound by honor and loyalty to never surrender.
After Japan officially surrendered at the end of World War II, Japanese holdouts in
Southeast Asia and the
Pacific islands that had been part of the
Japanese Empire continued to fight local police, government forces, and Allied troops stationed to assist the newly formed governments. Many holdouts were discovered in the jungles of Southeast Asia and the Pacific over the following decades, with the last verified holdout, Private
Teruo Nakamura, surrendering on the island of
Morotai in 1974. Newspapers throughout East Asia and the Pacific reported more holdouts and searches for them were conducted until 2005, but the evidence was too scant, and no further holdouts were confirmed.
Some Japanese soldiers acknowledged Japan's surrender and the end of World War II but were reluctant to demobilize and wished to continue armed combat for ideological reasons. Many fought in the
Chinese Civil War, the
Korean War, and local independence movements in Southeast Asia such as the
First Indochina War,
Malayan Emergency, and the
Indonesian National Revolution, and these Japanese soldiers are not usually considered holdouts.
History
Individuals
Lieutenant
Hiroo Onoda in 1944 while on Lubang Island, Philippines before becoming a Japanese holdout.Sergeant
Shoichi Yokoi was discovered on
Guam on 24 January 1972, almost 28 years after the
Allies had regained control of the island in 1944.
Person
Date found
Duration since WWII end
Location
Short summary
Yamakage Kufuku
January 6, 1949
3 years, 130 days
Iwo Jima
Yamakage Kufuku and Matsudo Linsoki, two Imperial Japanese Navy machine gunners, surrendered on
Iwo Jima.[1][2] While the original news article did not correctly report their names, their correct names became known when they co-wrote a book in 1968 of their experiences under the names Rikio Matsudo (松戸利喜夫) and Kōfuku Yamakage (山蔭光福).[3]
Matsudo Linsoki
January 6, 1949
Yūichi Akatsu
March 1950
4 years, 210 days
Lubang, Philippines
Private 1st Class Yūichi Akatsu continued to fight on
Lubang Island in the
Philippines from 1944 until surrendering in the village of
Looc in March 1950.[4]
Murata Susumu
1953
8 years, 120 days
Tinian, Mariana Islands
Murata Susumu, the last holdout on
Tinian, was captured in 1953.[5]
Shōichi Shimada (島田庄一)
May 1954
8 years, 271 days
Lubang, Philippines
Corporal Shōichi Shimada (島田庄一), who was holding out with Lt. Onoda, continued to fight on Lubang until he was killed in a clash with Filipino soldiers in May 1954.[6]
Noboru Kinoshita
November 1955
10 years, 89 days
Luzon, Philippines
In November 1955, Seaman Noboru Kinoshita was captured in the
Luzon jungle, but shortly afterwards committed suicide by
hanging himself rather than "return to Japan in defeat".[7]
Bunzō Minagawa
May 1960
14 years, 261 days
Guam
Private Bunzō Minagawa held out from 1944 until around mid-May 1960 on
Guam.[8]
In January 1972, Sergeant
Shoichi Yokoi, who served under Masashi Itō, was captured on Guam.[10][11]
Kinshichi Kozuka
October 1972
27 years, 59 days
Philippines
In October 1972, Private 1st Class Kinshichi Kozuka, who had held out with Lt. Onoda for 28 years, was killed in a shootout with the
Philippine police.[12]
In March 1974, Lieutenant
Hiroo Onoda surrendered on Lubang after holding out on the island from December 1944 with Akatsu, Shimada and Kozuka. Onoda refused to surrender until he was relieved of duty by his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, who was flown to Lubang to formally relieve Onoda.[6]
The Asahi Shimbun reported in January 1980 that Captain Fumio Nakahara (中晴文夫) was still holding out on
Mount Halcon in the
Philippines. A search team headed by his former comrade-in-arms Isao Miyazawa (宮沢功) believed they had found his hut.[14][15][16] Miyazawa kept looking for Nakahara for many years.[17] However, no evidence that Nakahara was still alive at the time was found.
Groups
Second Lieutenant
Sakae Ōba, a Japanese holdout, photo from 1937.
Captain
Sakae Ōba, who led his company of 46 men in
guerrilla actions against United States troops following the
Battle of Saipan, surrendered on December 1, 1945, three months after the war ended.
On January 1, 1946, 20 Japanese Army personnel who had been hiding in a tunnel at
Corregidor Island surrendered to a U.S. serviceman after learning the war had ended from a newspaper found while collecting water.[18]
Lieutenant Ei Yamaguchi and his 33 soldiers emerged on
Peleliu in late March 1947, attacking the
U.S. Marine Corps detachment stationed on the island believing the war was still being fought. Reinforcements were sent in, along with a Japanese
admiral who was able to convince them that the war was over. They finally surrendered in April 1947.[19]
On May 12, 1948, the
Associated Press reported that two unnamed Japanese soldiers had surrendered to civilian policemen in Guam the day before.[20]
On June 27, 1951, the Associated Press reported that a Japanese
petty officer who surrendered on
Anatahan Island in the
Marianas two weeks before said that there were 18 other holdouts there. A
U.S. Navy plane that flew over the island spotted 18 Japanese soldiers on a beach waving
white flags.[21] However, the Navy remained cautious, as the Japanese petty officer had warned that the soldiers were "well-armed and that some of them threatened to kill anyone who tried to give himself up. The leaders profess to believe that the war is still on." The Navy dispatched a seagoing
tug, the Cocopa, to the island in hopes of picking up some or all of the soldiers without incident. After a formal surrender ceremony, all the men were retrieved.[22] The Japanese occupation of the island inspired the
1953 Japanese film Anatahan[10] and the
1998 novel Cage on the Sea.
In 1955, four Japanese airmen surrendered at
Hollandia in
Dutch New Guinea: Shimada Kakuo, Shimokubo Kumao, Ojima Mamoru and Jaegashi Sanzo. They were the survivors of a bigger group.
In 1956, nine soldiers were discovered and sent home from Indonesia's
Morotai island.[10]
In November 1956, four men surrendered on the Philippines' island of
Mindoro: Lieutenant Shigeichi Yamamoto and Corporals Unitaro Ishii, Masaji Izumida and Juhie Nakano.
Alleged sightings (1981–2005)
In 1981, a
Diet of Japan committee mentioned newspaper reports that holdouts were still living in the forest on
Vella Lavella in the
Solomon Islands. However, it is believed that these were hoaxes made up to lure Japanese tourists to the islands.[23] Searches for holdouts were conducted by the Japanese government on many Pacific islands throughout the 1980s, but the information was too scant to take any further action, and the searches ended by 1989.[24] In 1992, it was reported that a few holdouts still lived on the island of
Kolombangara, though subsequent searches were unable to find any evidence. An investigation into similar reports of holdouts on
Guadalcanal in 2001 failed to turn up evidence.[23]
The last report taken seriously by Japanese officials took place in May 2005, when two elderly men emerged from the jungle in the Philippines claiming to be ex-soldiers.[25] It was initially assumed that the media attention scared the two men off as they disappeared and were not heard from again.[26] Suspicions of a hoax or a kidnapping attempt later mounted as the area where the alleged soldiers emerged from is "notorious" for ransom kidnappings and attacks by Islamist separatists.[26][27] It is unknown how many or if any legitimate Japanese holdouts remain today, but after over three quarters of a century since the end of the war, harsh jungle terrain, and equatorial climates, it is highly unlikely that any are still alive.
The National WWII Museum reported in 2022 that surviving veterans are "dying quickly", as those who served are now "in their 90s or older".[28]