Japanese Soldiers

Fending For Themselves When War Ended

Groups of Japanese soldiers remaind on many islands long after World War II had ended; not knowing the Emperor of Japan had surrendered.

These soldiers believed they were still at war and were still prepared to give their lives for their Country and Emperor. Oblivious that throughout the waring world peace had been declared.

Living, Often on dense jungle covered islands; alone or in groups they scraped a living off the land or from the waters where they were. Previously most had been farmers or fishermen until they were conscripted to fight as soldiers.

The regular Japanese soldiers who were educated in warfare and were well trained; when war arrived they became the Officers and non-commissioned officers of the Army. They commanded the peasants who had been recruited to go to war.

Although they were trained below par, and were poorly equipped they were proud and believed that they were doing their duty by fighting for their emperor and country.

As within all walks of life; some people see their situation more clearly than others; and soon rise through the ranks when their abilities gain attention by their superiors. One such person Shoichi Yokoi, from the moment he enlisted his keeness was spotted and he quickly rose to the rank of lance-corporal.

Keeping troops well supplied in war is always difficult even if the organisation is in place, however, supplies were often short in such a widespread war so wherever the Japanese Army went they commandeered the local's supplies.

The Japanese Soldier On Guam

Take Shoichi Yokoi, Born in 1915 and recruited in 1941, to serve in Manchuria, before being sent to Guam in 1944. The battle as we know was intense with high numbers killed on both sides when the American Marines attacked with all their might.

Yokoi's long ordeal began in July 1944, when US forces stormed Guam as part of their offensive against the Japanese in the Pacific.

The fighting was fierce, casualties were high on both sides, but once the Japanese command was disrupted, soldiers such as Yokoi and others in his platoon were left to fend for themselves.

From the outset they took enormous care not to be detected, erasing their footprints as they moved through the undergrowth. Hiding like the annimals that live there; never wanting to be seen.

In the early years the Japanese soldiers, were soon reduced to a few dozen in number. To start with they caught and killed local cattle to feed off.

But fearing detection from US patrols and later from local hunters, they gradually withdrew deeper into the jungle. There they ate venomous toads, river eels and rats.

Yokoi made a trap from wild reeds for catching eels. He also dug himself an underground shelter, supported by strong bamboo canes.

For most of those 28-years that Shoichi Yokoi, a lance-corporal in the Japanese Army of world War II, was hiding in the jungles of Guam, he firmly believed his former comrades would one day return and defeat the US forces.

When he was eventually discovered by local hunters on the Pacific island, on the 24th January 1972, the 57-year-old former soldier still clung to the notion that his life was in real peril.

Yokoi's Nephew

"He really panicked," says Omi Hatashin, Yokoi's nephew.

Startled by the sight of other humans after so many years on his own, Yokoi tried to grab one of the hunter's rifles, but weakened by years of poor diet, he was no match for the local men.

As they led him away through the jungle's tall foxtail grass, Yokoi cried for them to kill him there and then; he wanted to die proudly without humiliation.

"He feared they would take him as a prisoner of war; and that would have been the greatest shame for a Japanese soldier and for his family back home," Hatashin says.

Using Yokoi's own memoirs, published in Japanese two years after his discovery, as well as the testimony of those who found him that day, Hatashin spent years piecing together his uncle's dramatic story.

His book, Private Yokoi's War and Life on Guam, 1944-1972, was published in English in 2009.

"I am very proud of him. He was a shy and quiet person, but with a great presence. He was an extremely resourceful man," Hatashin says.

Keeping himself busy looking after his underground shelter also kept him from thinking too much about his predicament, or his family back home, his nephew said.

Return To Guam

Yokoi's own memoirs of his time in hiding reveal his desperation not to give up hope, especially in the last eight years when he was totally alone; his last two surviving companions died in floods in 1964.

Turning his thoughts to his aging mother back home, he at one point wrote: "It was pointless to cause my heart pain by dwelling on such things."

And on another occasion, when he was desperately sick in the jungle, he wrote: "No! I cannot die here. I cannot expose my corpse to the enemy. I must go back to my hole to die. I have so far managed to survive but all is coming to nothing now."

Two weeks after his discovery in the jungle, Yokoi returned home to Japan to a hero's welcome. He was besieged by the media, interviewed on radio and television, and was regularly invited to speak at universities and in schools across the country.

Hatashin, who was six when Yokoi married his aunt, said that the former soldier never really settled back into life in modern Japan. Everything was different to how he remembered it; modern -life was too fast for him; preferring the more casual life he left behind.

He was unimpressed by the country's rapid post-war economic development and once commented on seeing a new 10,000 yen bank note that the currency had now become "valueless".

On his return to Japan he expressed embarrassment at having returned alive, rather than dying in the service of the emperor. Japan had changed utterly during his three-decade absence.

Some found his nostalgia and loyalty inspiring, others found it absurd. He married in 1972, within months of his return and died in 1997, aged 82.

He longed to meet Emperor Hirohito; in the end he was granted an audience with Emperor Akihito in 1991.

According to Hatashin, his uncle grew increasingly nostalgic about the past as he grew older, and before his death in 1997 he went back to Guam on several occasions with his wife.

Some of his prize possessions from those years in the jungle, including his eel traps, are still on show in a small museum on the island.

Shoichi Yokoi, was given a hero's welcome on his return to Japan; but never quite felt at home in modern society.

The Last Holdouts

Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, led a guerrilla task force on the Philippine island of Lubang for many years after the end of the war. He doggedly refused to lay down his arms until formally ordered to surrender. He was repatriated in March 1974.

Private Teruo Nakamura, a conscript from Taiwan, was found growing crops alone on the Indonesian island of Morotai in December 1974. He was repatriated to Taiwan where he died in 1979.

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