Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Never Give Up, Never Surrender

Episode Date: June 22, 2022

On September 2, 1945, on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri, the Japanese Empire formally and unconditionally surrendered.  With that, the second world war was over and everyone stopped fighting, went home, and lived happily ever after.  Except, not everyone.  There were a surprisingly large number of holdouts who either didn’t know that Japan surrendered, or didn’t believe it.  Learn more about the Japanese soldiers who never surrendered on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes Try Ka'Chava, your daily super blend for health-conscious people on-the-go https://www.kachava.com/Everywhere -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Search Past Episodes at fathom.fm Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast." or "Everything Everywhere is part of the Airwave Media podcast network Please contact [e-mail] to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On September 2, 1945, on the deck of the battleship USS, Missouri, the Japanese Empire formally and unconditionally surrendered. With that, the Second World War was over, and everyone stopped fighting, went home and lived happily ever after. Except not everyone. There were a surprisingly large number of holdouts who either didn't know that Japan surrendered or didn't believe it. Learn more about the Japanese soldiers who never surrendered on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Thurline podcast from NPR. The Japanese Empire at its height was pretty big. At its peak in 1942, it encompassed 7.4 million square kilometers or 2.9 million square miles. Almost all of East Asia and Southeast Asia were under Japanese control. In addition to major cities like Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Jakarta, this included a large number of small islands and remote areas. There were thousands of Japanese soldiers who were stationed in these remote outposts.

As the war wore on, Americans didn't bother to try and conquer every single outpost and capture every Japanese soldier. They would often bypass islands, knowing that if they could capture strategic islands, the Japanese they skipped couldn't be supplied or evacuated. As the war dragged on by August of 1945, the Americans were on the doorstep of mainland Japan. The Soviets had entered the war, the British having finished up against Germany, were on the way, as were potentially hundreds of thousands of troops from Europe. With all of this and the detonation of two atomic bombs, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito decided to surrender unconditionally. On August 15th, he addressed

the Japanese people by radio for the first time in history. It was the first time anyone outside of the Emperor's inner circle had ever heard his voice. When the final surrender document was signed in September of 1945, everyone assumed that that was it. The Japanese system was very hierarchical, and when the Emperor said it was over, then it was over. For the most part, it was over. 99.9% of all Japanese soldiers lay down their weapons and were done. There was certainly a great deal of disappointment amongst the military and the civilian populace in general. After all, surrendering to a foreign enemy and having them occupy your country is something that no one really wants.

The problem was many of the remote outposts had been cut off from contact with the rest of the Japanese military. In several cases, soldiers were instructed to go into the jungle to survive and harass the enemy, and not to stop unless explicitly ordered to stop by their commanding officers. The end result was that for many Japanese soldiers, the war never ended. The reason why the war never ended was different for each soldier who didn't surrender. For some, they just didn't know that the war was over. For others, they had heard the war was over, but they simply didn't believe it. They thought it was propaganda.

Yet others had bought into the Bishito spirit of never surrendering and simply refused to surrender. The majority of holdouts didn't last very long. In the initial weeks and months after the surrender, most of those who didn't surrender came in from the cold when they finally realized that the war was in fact over. For example, Captain Sakai Oba led a group of 46 soldiers and about 200 civilians on the island of Saipan after the Battle of Saipan for 16 months before eventually surrendering on November 27, 1945. Lieutenant Iiyama Gucci led 33 men on the island of Pelolu, constantly attacking American soldiers on the island until a Japanese admiral came to the island to tell them that the war was over. They finally surrendered in April of 1947. On January 6, 1949, Yamakaji Kufuku and Matsudo Linsoki, three and a half years after the end of the war, finally turned themselves in on the island of Iwojima. However, a bunch of soldiers who stubbornly spent a few months or even years in a jungle isn't really what this episode is about.

This episode is about the really hardcore holdouts. For years, Japanese soldiers kept coming out of the jungle and turning themselves in. And when I say years, I mean years. In June 1951, almost six years after the end of the war and seven years since the Americans invaded the island, a Japanese petty officer surrendered on the island of Onitahan in the Marianas Islands. He indicated that there were still 18 men on the island who thought that the war was still going on. The men had lived on fish, coconuts, and wild lizards for years. In 1945, an American bomber had crashed on the island and they were able to salvage enough from the plane to create

shelter, clothing, and other tools. Eventually, a ship was sent to the island, and all the men gave themselves up after a surrender ceremony on the beach. This incident was the basis of the 1953 movie, Anitahan. Murada Sasumu came out of hiding on the island of Tinian later in 1953. Soichi Shemada was killed fighting Filipino soldiers in May of 1954. In November 1955, Noburu Kinoshada was captured in the forests of the island of Luzon and the Philippines, and he later committed suicide rather than deal with the indignity of capture. In 1956, nine soldiers were found and surrendered on the Indonesian island of Moratai. Also that year, four men came out of hiding on the island of Mindoro in the Philippines.

In 1960, two soldiers, Private Bunzo Minigawa and Sergeant Masashi Ito came out of hiding on the island of Guam. These guys were living in survival conditions for over 15 years, and we still haven't gotten to the really interesting stuff yet. On January 24th, 1972, 27 years after the end of the war, perhaps the best known example of a Japanese holdout came out of hiding in Guam. Sauchi Yerkoi. Yerkoi was originally one of ten men who went into hiding in Guam. By 1964, there were only three left, and two of them ended up getting killed in a flood. Yerkoi survived by hunting at night when nobody could see him.

He made his own clothes, and he lived in a cave. Eventually, he was caught by two fishermen fishing in a river. He thought that they were going to attack him, so he attacked first and the other two men subdued him. He was shocked that they gave him warm food and eventually went with him to the authorities on the island. It turns out that he knew the war had been over since 1952, but he thought that a Japanese soldier should never surrender. He ended up returning to Japan to a hero's welcome. He became a regular on Japanese television and was the subject of a documentary film. He made a trip to the Imperial Palace and said for the cameras, quote,

Your Majesty's I have returned home. I deeply regret that I could not serve you well. The world has certainly changed, but my determination to serve you will never change." End quote. Japanese tourists to Guam still visit Yerkoi's cave to this day. However, Yeroy wasn't the last Japanese soldier who was still in hiding. Later that year, Kinshiki Kuzuka was killed in a shootout with Filipino police. Two years later, in March of 1974, Hiro Onoda, who was actually in hiding with Kuzuka for several

years, surrendered. However, he refused to surrender until his commanding officer from the war flew to the Philippines to formally relieve him of duty. The very last Japanese soldier that was found, Tiro Nakamura, was found by the Indonesian Air Force on December 18, 1974, 29 years and three months after the surrender of the Japanese. He actually didn't come forward to surrender voluntarily. He was found by a search plane and then arrested by soldiers. Nakamura was Taiwanese and 9,000. Nakamura was Taiwanese and not Japanese, in fact, didn't even speak Japanese or Chinese. So when he went home, he went directly to Taiwan instead of Japan and never received the hero's reception that other holdouts did.

While Nakamura was the last Japanese soldier to be found, that doesn't mean he was the last Japanese holdout. None of the last holdouts came out of hiding voluntarily. They were all found or captured somehow. This then raises the very reasonable question. Were there other holdouts who were never discovered? Could there have been Japanese soldiers who were, never surrendered and lived the rest of their lives in hiding never having been found.

The answer is, there probably were. A Japanese newspaper reported that Captain Fumio Nakahara was still holding out as late as 1980. He was reportedly hiding near Mount Halcon in the island of Mindoro in the Philippines. A search team was sent there, and they supposedly found his hut, but they didn't find any evidence of him or that he was alive. There were sporadic rumors as late as the early 90s of Japanese holdouts in the Philippines and the Solomon Islands, but no substantial evidence was ever found. The phenomenon of soldiers from a war going decades without surrendering was really unique to

the Japanese Army in World War II. If you remember back to the episode I did on the last Germans to surrender in World War II, they were just a forgotten team of weather observers on a remote island, and they were only there for a few months. I can't think of any other war where so many soldiers simply refused to surrender for so long. In a way, you kind of have to respect them. They said they would never surrender, and they didn't. For years, they were willing to live in primitive survival conditions

in order to keep the oath that they took, even though their cause was ultimately a failure. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I've had a whole bunch of boostograms this week, and I'll be reading some more of them in future episodes. But today's comes from Dave Jones.

He sent 2112 sets on the episode on Horses in North America, and wrote, An episode on Collingrad Oblast would be great if you get a chance one day. Collingrad has an interesting history. Today it's an exclave of Russia, but it used to be a part of Germany and it was called Koinsberg. And I have put it on my megalist for future episodes. Dave also sent another 2112 sat boost for the episode on tornadoes.

He wrote, We've had multiple outbreaks and single F5 tornadoes in Alabama. The most destructive one I've ever witnessed was in 2011 near me in a place called Shoal Creek. An entire nursing home was literally ripped out of the ground. Even the concrete footers were gone. An F5 is a very nasty thing, and you never want to get caught up in one. Thankfully, they're rather rare.

If you look at the list of F5 tornadoes in history, they usually only occur several years apart. However, in 2011, there were six, three of which were in Alabama. And believe it or not, there hasn't been a tornado with an F5 rating since 2013. The distribution is really kind of weird. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you two can have it read on the show.