Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 441 - Never Surrender! The WW2 Soldier Who Kept Fighting Until 1974

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Have you heard of Hiroo Onoda? The Japanese 2nd Lieutenant was sent to the island of Lubang in The Philippines at the end of 1944. And he kept fighting for Imperial Japan for the next 28+ years, hiding out in the jungle, occasionally running raids on local villagers, shooting and killing random people he thought were enemy combatants, and refusing to believe that the war had ended back in 1945. Visit CrimeWaveatSea.com/SCARED  to claim your fan code in order to register and join us November 3rd-7th, 2025!!! Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch.

When does a war truly end? That's the question at the center of today's episode. Does it end when victory is declared or does it end when the loser formally surrenders? Does it end when the soldiers are sent home, or at least many if not most of the soldiers, the ones who aren't needed for the occupation and rebuilding of the losing side? Does it end when the losing country has been readmitted to the UN or another international governing body? When it's been given the same rights as every other nation and the international community is positive that there is no fascist dictator 2.0 coming to send

the country back into totalitarianism? Or does it end when all of the fighting ends, when every last soldier has laid down their arms? If that last answer is true, then I guess World War II was still going strong in the mid-1970s. While the overwhelming majority of soldiers who served in both sides of the conflict either unfortunately died in action, returned home, or were declared missing, perhaps they died, perhaps they went off to live new lives somewhere else, a very small number of them decided to keep fighting, past the official end date of September 2, 1945, and almost all of them were Japanese. After Japan officially surrendered at the end of World War II,

numerous Japanese holdouts in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands that had been part of the Japanese Empire continued to fight local police, government forces, local villagers, and allied troops unwilling to accept the idea that the great empire they called home could possibly lose. Many of them were captured in the next few years, killed themselves, or finally defected, i.e. gave up and ultimately returned home. But there were some soldiers who simply could not be captured, who refused to surrender, who refused to accept that Japan had lost and the war was over. Their training went too deep. They had too much honor. they refused to defy their orders, to never surrender or take their own lives.

They were excellent soldiers, excellent to a fault. One of these men was Hiro Onoda. In the final months of World War II, Onoda was stationed on Lubong, a tiny island in the Philippines. At the Futamata branch of the Nakano Military School, his training had defied the widely distributed Senjinkan battlefield code instructions, which forbade Japanese combatants from being taken prisoner and instructed them to die fighting or via self-sacrifice instead. But Onoda was told to fight no matter what. His mission was to destroy

the Lubong airfield and appear by the harbor, plus any enemy planes or crews who attempted the land. And that was a mission he would try to accomplish for three decades. With a few other holdouts, Onoda remained hidden in the jungle amongst stinging ants and snakes like the highly venomous Philippine spitting cobra living on a diet of mostly bananas, coconuts, stolen beef, and stolen rice. Convinced that the continual leaflets being dropped by the Japanese government informing them that the war was over was actually nothing more than allied propaganda. He was going to complete his mission even if he was the last Japanese soldier left on Lubong.

And eventually he was the last soldier. And he still kept fighting. Never surrender! The super strange story of Hiro Onoda. Right now on this biographical, historical, World War II did not end for everyone in 1945 edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. Well, happy Monday and welcome to the Cult of the Curious. I am Dan Cummins, the Suckmaster, possible lunatic, guy who tries really hard to pay attention to alarm balls, and you are listening to Time Suck.

Hail Nimrod, hail Lusifena, praise be to good boy Bojangles, and glory be to Triple M. Stick around today for our updates. I got a good one regarding the Cult of the Curious 3 out of 5 stars private Facebook group. And now who else needs an escape today? Who else wants to get lost in a story? Yeah, me too. So let's head towards a topic that brings us back to a subject we've covered many times on Time Suck

in some shape or form, World War II. Today, however, we will not be taking a big picture to look at the battles and campaigns since Hero's life was so fascinating and ultimately didn't really have that much to do with what was actually going on in the war and what happened afterwards. Since time pretty much stopped for him in 1944,

at the end of 1944, beginning in 1945. Dude was literally a living time capsule. We won't be looking at the war in the Pacific either. If you'd like a refresher on that episode, you can head on over to episode 323. In that episode, we covered how Imperial Japan had a ferocious fighting force, how they despised their enemies, possibly even more than the Nazis did, and how they really did like a lot of raping. Like I can't see how they weren't the rapist soldiers of the modern era, or maybe even of all

time, amount of raping. I wish I was kidding about that. We covered how their empire was sustained by soldiers who believed in the most extreme version of militarism, that it should dominate the political and social life of the nation. Most Japanese citizens of the day were contemptuous of the softness of the US and European democracies, where loyalty and patriotism were tempered by silly woke shit like the rights and well-being of individuals. Get out of here. Stop bitching about what you want personally. Just dedicate yourself to only doing what's best for your nation until you're dead, maggot.

Sacrifice. Help the rich get richer. Help Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg get more megayachts. That's what being a good citizen in the United States of corporate America is all about. Sorry, I got sidetracked. Refocusing. Most Japanese citizens of the 1940s were contemptuous of the softness of the U.S. and European democracy. They really were. And that mentality of, you know, thinking that loyalty and patriotism are just the end-all

be-all of life can get you into some pretty strange places. Hiro Onoda might be the best example of this. I'm very excited for you to hear this. This is fucking insane. I've wanted to do this episode for a long time and oh it was everything I hoped for and more. Not much to go over for this one in terms of episode structure. It's pretty straightforward. We'll meet Hiro Onoda and see how he was sent down the path that led him to become the second to last firmly documented holdout of the Japanese military. Yeah, at least one other dude stayed in the jungle thinking the war was still on even fucking longer than this guy. And a few other soldiers, they might have stayed out in the jungle a lot longer.

But before we do that, let's go back to the question I posed up top. When is the war truly over? Perhaps because we live in such a media-driven culture, even more so than we did back in the 1940s with radio and newspapers, our image of a finished war might be something like the scenes of V-Day or the liberation of Auschwitz. People cheering in the streets, soldiers marching back to safety with rescued prisoners, spontaneous kisses, waving flags and banners, you know, it all looks so good, so victorious, so complete. But there's a lot of shit left to do, even after the treaties are signed.

One of the post wartime issues, a big issue, is the deceptively straightforward question of how do you get everybody back home who fought? American soldiers were primarily transported back to the US through a military operation called Operation Magic Carpet, which primarily utilized Navy ships like aircraft carriers to bring troops home from both the European and Pacific theaters. The first place soldiers came home from was Europe, since Germany had been defeated first. And to figure out exactly who got to come home first, a point system took into account various factors like how long somebody had served, how decorated they were, how close together their eyes were, which makes sense, right? If you had eyes, you know, right next to each other, almost touching or maybe even barely touching, kind of like a cyclops,

you know, it was a lot harder for you to stay alive during the war since you had almost no peripheral vision and you could never tell who might be sneaking up on you. It was harder for you to shoot people since your vision was always, you know, a little blurry and you probably were usually seeing double and stuff. And that was just some silly, silly gooseery. They didn't take eye spacing into account as far as I know. But there were also other factors. Soldiers were awarded 12 points per dependent child, up to a maximum of three kids. No bonus points for kicking out a whole dozen for some reason.

Initially, a total of 85 points was needed for eligibility. Soldiers who had earned that number of points were to be demobilized as soon as transport back to the U.S. was available. And then once all those dudes had been sent home, the rest were taken back to the states as well. You know, like lower and lower points were taken back. It was far from a perfect system. Some soldiers and designated specialties were declared ineligible for demobilization, despite having

accumulated the 85 points, and officers were not initially included in the point system for demobilization. By the time Japan surrendered, the public pressure over rapid demobilization for soldiers and their families had increased greatly. A lot of people were real fucking annoyed that they still hadn't made it back home. Even though the war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945, there were still a lot of soldiers stuck in Europe to start off 1946. The points required for demobilization were reduced several times reaching 50 points on December 19th 1945. 10 aircraft carriers, 26 cruisers, and six battleships were converted into troop ships

to bring soldiers home from Europe and the Pacific. But racial segregation on these troop ships to bring soldiers home from Europe and the Pacific, but racial segregation on these troop ships would slow shit down. For example, in December of 1945, the Navy barred a hundred and twenty-three African-American soldiers from sailing home because they could quote not be segregated on a troop ship. Fucking irony of that. These guys have been drafted to fight a war mostly when you really boil it down against racism since Nazis were motivated primarily by trying to take over the world and ethnically cleanse it and the Japanese had their own racial motivations and now they're stuck in Europe after the war has ended because of their own nation's racist policies. We truly are.

Such a fucking stupid species sometimes. Also complicating troop removal was the US government trying to figure out how many soldiers they needed to leave behind in Europe and Asia to help nations recover from the war and make sure the Nazis and the Japanese didn't somehow rise back up with a new leader, try starting shit again. On January 4th, 1946, the War Department backtracked on its previous promises of early demobilization and announced that the remaining 1.55 million eligible servicemen would be demobilized can't wait to never have to say that word again I don't like it would be

demobilized and discharged over a six-month period rather than the three months they had previously announced and perhaps unsurprisingly this announcement generated immediate protests from soldiers around the world 4,000 soldiers in Manila and the Philippines would demonstrate against the cancellation of a repatriation ship on Christmas Day 1945. On January 6, 1946, 20,000 soldiers marched on Army headquarters in Manila to protest.

The protest spread worldwide, involving tens of thousands of soldiers in Guam, Japan, France, Germany, Austria, India, Korea, the US, England, elsewhere, where roughly 500 disgruntled soldiers confronted Eleanor Roosevelt. That was in England. Although a few soldiers were arrested, most commanders took a tolerant approach to these demonstrations. Excuse me.

In Washington, D.C., Army Chief of Staff and future president, General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered an investigation of the Manila demonstration and concluded that the main cause was acute homesickness and recommended that no mass disciplinary action be taken against these demonstrators. The military then sped up demobilization by liberalizing the point system and Eisenhower banned further demonstrations and threatened court marshals for future participants. Military also took steps to make service abroad more appealing for those waiting to come home. Basic training for new soldiers also was shortened from 17 to 8 weeks to try and, you know,

replace the people who were being lost. The army also offered free travel to families of servicemen to go visit them if the soldier agreed to remain overseas for two years. Occupation troops in Europe were offered a 17-day European tour, a little vacation tour, for the nominal price of between 25 and 35 bucks. But all that wasn't enough to keep the number of soldiers they needed there. Rapid demobilization in the view of military planners left the U.S. military understaffed to accomplish its post-war responsibilities. In addition, the number of conscripts being drafted into the Army was smaller than those needed to replace demobilized soldiers.

The rapid demobilization of the US military after World War II, in the words of one scholar, reduced the army to quote, a state of near impotency, weakened the prestige of our national policy and endangered the security of the nation. However, other scholars have pointed out that the US military in Germany were still able to perform occupational duties control the German population and suppress local uprisings Occupation of Japan was more straightforward Than the occupation of Germany started with how Japan's Japan soldiers were sent home At the end of World War two Japan's military was stretched across much of Asia in the Pacific

largest battlefield of any war in human history, including remote places like New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, which had limited roads and telephone lines, not to mention the airfields and docks you would need to transport to large numbers of soldiers. Over three and a half million soldiers were stationed outside of Japan at the war's end. That's a fucking crazy number. Japan's military had grown to roughly six million men by 1945. And Japan had the difficult task of bringing them home at the same time as they were dealing with the horrendous fallout of the atomic bombs that had just decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Japan suffered between 2.6 million and 3.1 million total deaths during World War II. And so many other cities, not just Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have been bombed, like severely bombed. In one night, for example, in March of 1945, 16 square miles of Tokyo was firebombed into fucking rubble. They had a lot of shit to deal with. Along with uniformed soldiers, there were also civilians, including colonial officials, merchants whose industries relied on the war effort, Japanese who had been living in places like Manchuria or Taiwan for a generation or two already. Territories they had conquered leading up to World War II that the Japanese had just lost. Not only did a whole bunch

of Japanese need to be repatriated, so did their colonial subjects. There was a huge, enormous mess to clean up. Many Koreans in particular were not only in Japan in large numbers but also in China, Manchuria, and Taiwan. Hundreds of thousands of them had to be taken out or had been previously taken out of Korea and forced to work abroad. And now they needed to get back home. And with Japan in shambles, the Allies stepped in to repatriate these poor people, which wasn't merely an act of charity. Getting everyone in their quote rightful place, Koreans in Korea, Japanese in Japan, etc. would help ensure that Japan couldn't rebuild their overseas empire.

The end of the war also meant that many of these post-colonial territories were struggling to feed their people. So repatriating all the Japanese nationals would help relieve various economic burdens these territories were dealing with. Finding there were strong humanitarian concerns of what might happen to the Japanese abroad, if they were left to the mercy of their former subjects who fucking hated them, partially because they were so fucking rapey. Getting all of them back to Japan could avoid mass slaughters. And thus there was a sense of urgency. Repatriation needed to be done quickly. From September of 1945 to the end of 1946, around five million Japanese who had been living or fighting abroad were returned home. The Allies used their own ships and whatever Japanese shipping was available. Liberty ships, the iconic cargo vessel on which US wartime logistics relied on, were now carrying disarmed Japanese soldiers and civilians back home.

Right, there's so much work to be done following a war, right? Which I hadn't really thought about before, not in this amount of detail. Another solution to the task of transportation was for the Allies to take the remnants of Japan's Navy and merchant fleet and press and them into service as people movers. For military vessels like cruisers and destroyers, the Allies sailed them to Japanese shipyards that were still operational and removed their weapons and then sent them off to transport repatriates. But the Allies efforts to do all this were slammed with labor shortages as American GIs were trying to get home en masse. So to cope with the demand of operating these vessels and also repatriating Japanese on land, the Allies relied heavily on the same Japanese sailors who used to be manning Japan's naval and merchant vessels.

In places like the Philippines and Korea, the U.S. Army temporarily retained Japanese POWs and surrendered personnel for the task of handling repatriation, and also keeping basic infrastructure running until they could be turned over to the governments of former Japanese territories. Governments needed to be completely rebuilt. In many stages of repatriation, the Allies had a heavy managerial and planning role, but relied on what remaining pieces were left of Japan's colonial bureaucracy to make its day-to-day operation happen. With some U.S. Liberty ships, some were crewed entirely by Japanese sailors, who were responsible for sailing, maintaining, and repairing the ship on their own with light allied supervision.

This likely made the task of transportation easier on the repatriates who could communicate with Japanese crews, since obviously they spoke the same language. As an aside, this close relationship between the remnants of the Imperial Japanese bureaucracy and the Allies in a managerial role is often cited as a reason why the Allied occupation of Japan, generally speaking, went a lot more smoothly than the occupation of Germany. Former Nazis, not quite as easy to work with. Gotta say, I'm not too shocked about that. Nevertheless, in some cases in Asia,

there were simply too many people to find in return. In China, while the vast majority of Japanese had repatriated by the end of 1946, the US estimated that by as late as 1949 there were still around 60,000 Japanese nationals stuck in Manchuria due to China's Civil War that took place from 1945 to 1949. Repatriation of Japanese and Soviet controlled areas ran into problems as well, thanks to the Soviet Union no longer being interested in playing nice with Allied powers as the Cold War

began to ramp up. Also some soldiers who had been living abroad had simply decided they didn't want to go home. They'd fallen in love with some woman overseas, started a family, hail Lucifina, they made lucrative business connections, or they just preferred wherever they ended up to, you know, where they were from for just fucking whatever reason. Maybe they had better hot dogs or ice cream or something. This was common in French Indochina and Indonesia where the allied ships were much slower to arrive, which offered Japanese soldiers a longer opportunity to contemplate their situation and consider alternatives.

Also, some Japanese soldiers worried that they would be arrested for war crimes if they stepped foot on a ship. And rumors were spreading that there was a famine in Japan, and their nation had no food to spare for any returning soldiers. Meanwhile, anti-colonial wars were heating up in both French Indochina and Indonesia. Both sides wanted the Japanese to participate. In Indochina, for instance, the Viet Minh, although they had hated the Japanese occupation, were short of weapons, munitions, and trained officers,

and convincing Japanese soldiers to desert and join them promised access to all three. Meanwhile, the French and British were recruiting Japanese soldiers through Operation Masterdom to fight the Viet Minh. A similar situation arose in Indonesia which had declared independence from the Netherlands in August of 1945. The Dutch had ordered the Japanese, awaiting repatriation to join them and fight the Revolutionary Army and some obeyed. order the Japanese awaiting repatriation to join them and fight the revolutionary army and some obeyed. Others joined the revolutionaries. As you can see, a lot of Japanese soldiers ended up fighting in different wars or they found other things to do for months or even years before coming home. It was tricky, very very difficult to round everyone scattered across the thousands and thousands of miles of mainland Asia and men who had been stationed on literally hundreds of

little islands all across the Pacific and get them all home. Especially in the days before laptops and satellite Wi-Fi and smartphones and digital databases used to track everybody. So it makes sense that some soldiers would slip through the cracks. If a few guys were hiding out in some remote jungle, how would anyone back home know that they were alive? And not just a few more of the thousands and thousands of soldiers who had died in the jungle and hadn't been found.

Today, almost 80 years after the end of the war, over a million Japanese soldiers are thought to have died in World War II. Or who were thought to have died in World War II are actually officially listed as missing still over a million. After a few years following the end of the war, locating missing troops, so many missing troops, making sure you know anyone who might be stuck abroad to get back home was just no longer a top priority for the Japanese, the US or anybody else. There were more pressing concerns like rebuilding so many different nations. And for the US making sure those rebuilding efforts were

led by us or our allies not the Soviet Union newly communist China or any of their allies Suffice to say there was a whole lot of shit going on then a couple people slip into the cracks not a priority Which actually makes a story even crazier because hero and Oda and his fellow soldiers They didn't slip through the cracks a lot of people were trying to get these guys to come home for a lot of years. For decades they were the targets of relentless campaigns by the Japanese and Philippine governments who released flyers, dropped photos of their families, played personalized messages begging these soldiers to come out of hiding. They sent fucking family members to wander around in the jungle literally calling out for them, hey, it's me, come home, and more.

But these soldiers simply ignored all of that. You'd think they'd be within their rights to suspect a trick one time, even two or three times, but after decades, even when they had a transistor radio and were hearing about trade deals made between Japan and the US in the post-war era, well, they thought that was a trick too. They thought damn near everything was a trick. The longer they stayed in the US in the post-war era. Well, they thought that was a trick too. They thought damn near everything was a trick. The longer they stayed in the jungle, and holy shit were they in the jungle so long, their paranoia just deepened and deepened.

Their wartime training had also gone too deep, heroes in particular. And to discover how we got that training, to discover how growing up in Imperial Japan could really fuck you up, and then getting specialized military training could fuck you up even more and turn you into more of a robot than a human, let's head into today's Time Suck Timeline. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a Time Suck Timeline. Hiro Onoda was born in the town of Kainan in the Wakayama Prefecture on March 19th, 1922. And I want to visit Japan. So bad.

I have to look at so many fucking videos this week to figure out how to say so many of these words. And I know I say that about so many places, but I do always mean it. There's just so much world to explore out there. And with Japan, part of the appeal for me is the Japanese language and accent. I love it. If I could learn one Asian language I think it would definitely be Japanese. I truly love the way it sounds. I love watching TV shows, movies, or the dialogue is in Japanese. I get to hear it while I read the subtitles to

understand what the fuck's going on. The dudes, they just sound so manly and the women sound so lovely. Random aside I know. Not much is known about Hiro's early life. He was the fifth of seven children, five boys and two girls. His oldest brother Toshio attended the preeminent first high school in Tokyo. Went on to study medicine at the Tokyo Imperial University. He would go on to become a medical officer in the army, stationed near the border between Korea and Manchukuo.

The next oldest son was Tadao and then there was Chie, Hiro's older sister. There was a third son named Yoshi, but he died in childhood and then Hiro was born. His little brother of two years was Shigeo and the last was Keiko, born when Hiro was seven. By the time he was attending at Kainan Middle School he was crazy about Japanese fencing, a sport called kendo. Although he wasn't really good at school he did like to go because after classes he could then go to the kendo gym and practice with a bamboo sword until he was all worn out. His specialties were a jumping body

attack and side attack to his opponent. His teacher, Izaburo Sasaki, was sixth rank at the time, a level of mastery called Rokudan. To achieve that, the practitioner had to train for at least five years and be at least 29 years old. What you had to do to achieve these ranks is pretty crazy. Achieving the seventh rank meant that you would become, quote, versed in justice while the eighth required at least 31 years of training. And actually more than that, because it was 31 years of training after you reached the

age of 13. And you had to be at least 46 years old. Kendo, all about commitment, discipline, patience, a never-ending quest to try and perfect its movements. Sasaki, still at the sixth rank, was a small man but was reputed to be the most skillful kendo practitioner in all of the Wakayama Prefecture. Hiro looked up to him. He was the smallest boy in his class. He wanted to figure out ways to defend himself from older, bigger bullies. But there was one boy in his class that Hiro could never beat. A boy named Kaoru Kobaya who would go on to

attend Waseda University and become a seventh-rank kendo master. By the time they got into the fifth year of school, the last, Hiro still had not beaten him once and asked Kouru, or Kaoru, if they could spar so we could beat him just that one time. And Kaoru agreed to spar as many times as it took for that to happen. And then it only took one round. Hiro expertly dodged and lunged forward and to the right, changing his sword or clanging it, I guess, sorry, clanging his sword against Kaoru's breastplate. Afterward, Kauru said offhandedly, that was some thrust, Onoda. Sounded like a compliment, but for Hiro, it hit home. He'd done a good job technically, but he didn't sense in himself that he had fought for the right reasons, for honor and duty. No, it was he was fighting for ego. He was fighting for personal pride, which is actually against the spirit of Kendo.

Now he resolved to become more disciplined. The same year, 1939, Hiro graduated, went to work for a local trading company named Tachima Yoko, which specialized in lacquer wear. Lacker wear, it's any objects decoratively covered with lacquer. Hard and usually a shiny coating or finish made from resin extracted from trees and waxes since ancient times, since antiquity. Lacquerware, mostly like small containers, could be a large container. A lot of it's like tableware, a variety of small objects carried by people. And ancient lacquerware has been around in Japan for over 13,000 years. Hiro took the job knowing that he'd be eventually sent to their branch in Wuhan, China.

It was a long way to go for a 17-year-old, but Hiro craved independence from his parents and thought that China would offer plenty of opportunities for him to work hard and make that motherfucking money. But really, he did hope to make a lot of money. And Wuhan was where his older brother, Tadao, was stationed as a first lieutenant in the army. He arrived in Wuhan in the middle of April of 1939, immediately went to see Tadao in the officer's quarters. Tadao was shocked to see him.

What on earth was his little brother doing there? What a fun moment for those two. Hiro explained himself and Tadao said that under no circumstances could he be responsible for looking after Hiro in China. China was a dangerous place for the Japanese. He might be killed. He wasn't wrong. In the early 20th century, Wuhan was China's major industrial powerhouse city, producing iron and steel, silk and cotton, tea packing, food canning, and more. Its output was essential to the coastal port cities, feeding them commodities like tea, meat, tobacco, etc.,

producing essential materials like iron, steel, silk, etc. In 1900, the American magazine Colliers published an article about the boom town of Wuhan, calling it the Chicago of China. Two years before Hiro arrived, the city was seized by the Japanese as part of their endless quest for imperial might during this era. Back on July 7th, 1937, outside of Beijing, Japanese and Chinese troops had clashed, marking the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, a war that has been called the Asian Holocaust due to the massive scale of atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers against Chinese citizens. According to a Library of Congress resource guide, quote, with half of China ruined, 20

million Chinese military and non-military dead, and 480,000 Japanese soldiers killed on Chinese soil, the eight-year conflict was one of the bloodiest in world history. Also, over 200,000 Chinese women and girls as young as 12 would be forced into prostitution, forced to endure rapes, beatings, murders at the hands of Japanese soldiers. It's not known how many Chinese women were raped by Japanese men since there was so much shame in reporting rape back then. But I imagine the true number was probably in the millions, at least the hundreds of thousands.

This unbelievably brutal conflict started when Japanese forces conducting military exercises near Beijing claimed that several Japanese soldiers participating in the exercise were not accounted for after the exercise. After the Japanese request to enter a nearby town to conduct a search for these soldiers was denied by the Chinese, the Japanese launched an all-out assault. Within a few days, what started as a local conflict had escalated to a full though undeclared war between China and Japan. Japan's imperial ambitions would lead it to invade China's great cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, committing so many atrocities against the local population along the

way. Most historians believe that the atrocities against Chinese civilians by the occupying Japanese forces, especially in Nanjing, were somewhere between 40,000 and 300,000 unarmed citizens were massacred, where between 20, 20 and 80,000 women are estimated to have been raped over a period of only about six weeks, where systematic actions ordered by high level officials in Tokyo to crush the Chinese will of continuing the resistance just kept occurring. Yeah, it just shows how brutal this war was.

By December, Japan had established the puppet nation of Mengjiang in the Inner Mongolia region of the Republic of China. A group of Chinese communists held out in their base Japan had established the puppet nation of Mengjiang in the Inner Mongolia region of the Republic of China. A group of Chinese communists held out in their base in northwest China. And as the war went on for several years, it looked to many as if China would eventually surrender and accept peace on Japanese terms. But Japan didn't only want China.

In 1938, Japan declared the new order for East Asia. Japan announced that it would seek the permanent stability of East Asia, neighborly amity and international justice, a joint defense against communism, the creation of a new culture, economic cohesion and cooperation, an overall climate of peace, and they'd barely rape most people more than probably one or five times, as long as Japan could be in charge of fucking everything. As a response, in July of 1939, the U.S. announced its withdrawal from a commercial treaty it had with Japan. Two months later, in September, as World War II began in Europe, Japan announced its neutrality in the European situation.

It was too busy fucking hammering the shit out of China. By February of 1940, the Japanese government announced a record high budget, with over half its expenditures going directly to the military. They were continuing to build up their war machine, and to use it to hammer other Asian nations. That September, the Japanese occupied Vietnam and established several bases in French Indochina. Local French administrators were now only figurehead authorities, puppets. All of this is going on as Hiro is getting acclimated to his new home. And that's why his brother warned him to be careful. Plenty of Chinese people in the area.

Well, plenty of plenty of people all over Asia. Fucking hated the Japanese and would have loved to see them dead. After meeting with his brother, Tadao agreed to buy Hiro a suit and Hiro chose an expensive one. Pretty funny. One made from good English expensive woolen material. It was custom made by Taylor, much to Tadao's chagrin. Classic little brother move taking advantage of big bro's generosity. Hero would need the suit for his new job of keeping branch accounts. He would live in the company's third floor dormitories. Offices were on the second floor. Showroom was on the first. Pretty easy commute.

All of that in a building on a busy downtown Wuhan street. After about a year of working in that office, he was made a buyer. Now he got to travel. He got sent around each day to nearby towns to visit suppliers. Because his boss was afraid people wouldn't respect hero because he was so young about the 18 year old at 1936 Studebaker Gorgeous old car looks fucking gangster Hero loved it. He's kicking ass. He loved taking the car to the French concession where he would dance almost every night There was a fancy little dance hall, cost a lot of money, but somehow Hiro had gotten his older brother Tadau to agree to pay for half of his living expenses. So he had the funds to party. Some of that money went to cigarettes. Hiro smoked about 20 a day.

Of course he did. It was the 1940s. Everybody fucking smoked. Doctors were being paid by big tobacco companies to tell their patients that smoking was harmless. It was good for you. It relaxed you. Hiro also played the popular Chinese tile-based game of mahjong, sometimes all throughout the night. Playing that led him to becoming pretty fluent in Chinese. January of 1941, Hiro's brother Tadau Onata is sent to the army accounting school in Tokyo, and Hiro is left to fend for himself in Wuhan. In response, Hiro works harder and dances harder. He now knew he's probably running out of time to fuck around and have fun, make some good money.

In only two years, he knew he'd be drafted into the Japanese army. And since he had grown two or three inches taller and had no ailments, he was pretty sure he'd be put into Class 1A. Class 1A was the classification for soldiers who were deemed, quote, fit for active service with no reservations, meant you were going to be fighting. If he was lucky, he thought back then, maybe the war would end before he needed to be drafted. He liked it in China. He liked the French dance hall, the pretty girls, his cool ass car. He liked smoking cigarettes and playing mahjong until the wee hours of the morning.

In the war, if the war would just end, right, he could keep rising up in the ranks through this company that he worked for, make more and more money, maybe make enough money to start up his own company in China, which was a dream of his. But of course, the war would not end. And before going any further, this feels like a good spot to take this week's first of two mid-show sponsored breaks. All right, now we return to August 1st, 1941 when the U.S. begins to push back against Japan.

On August 1st, 1941, the U.S. under President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to push back against Japanese imperial ambitions. The employees imposed an oil embargo on Japan, cutting off some 80% of its supplies. This threatened to cripple both the Japanese economy and military strength once strategic reserves ran dry unless alternative oil sources could be found. Japan considered this move an unspoken declaration of war and unbeknownst to the U.S. military, they decided to strike back. Just before eight o'clock in the morning, December 7th, 1941 local time, Japanese military aircraft attacked the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The attack left 18 US naval ships sunk or damaged and over 300 planes

destroyed. More devastating, the Japanese attack killed 2,403 and wounded another 1,178. It was a declaration of war and the US officially declared war back against Japan the next day, December 8th. and the U.S. officially declared war back against Japan the next day, December 8th. Japan had just taken a huge risk, poked a big fucking bear. They knew that the industrial capacity of the U.S. meant that it could win a war through its sheer capacity to renew its supply of ships and armaments as well as recruitment of troops. But Japan felt that if they could act quickly enough and cripple the U.S.'s naval capacity in the Pacific, perhaps they could stop the U.S. from interfering with Japan's expansion into Southeast Asia. And that, by the time the US would get its shit

together, then maybe it would be too late to fuck with mighty Japan. So with that mindset, Japan went full speed ahead with their ambitious plans for Asian domination. Within weeks, targets included Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, and the Dutch Indies, rich in oil, rubber, tin, and bauxite, places that fell to the Japanese. Meanwhile, hero's life was changing too. The dance hall, just about everything else, now had to close shop on the eighth day of each month as a contribution to the Asian war effort. The Japanese newspapers in Wuhan began to call anyone who frequented the French concession the vermin of Asia.

And anyone who was in the concession late at night ran the risk of being picked up by the Japanese military police. The time for fucking fun was over. Only war now. If you're drinking, you're trying to fuck, you're not keeping your mind sharp. You're not preparing to fight. Deprived of his greatest pleasures, Hiro now turned to another pastime, singing. He hired some of the boys in the band at the dance hall to give him singing lessons, and Hiro practiced mostly the blues and tangos.

Sometimes sitting up all night listening to records on an electric Vic- bleh! On an electric Victrola, which is fucking adorable. But this wouldn't last long. Hiro's time to leave was coming soon. On May of 1942 Hiro got called in for his army physical, which he was dreading. He did pass it immediately, got that Class 1A, just like he feared that designation. He was now required to report to the 61st Infantry Regiment in Wakayama. December 10th, gone are his dreams of becoming a business mogul in China. He'll only be able to keep working for about six more months. Also that May, the Philippines, Hiro's future jungle home is captured by Japanese forces. The Japanese had numerous naval victories in the

South China Sea, Java Sea, and the Indian Ocean. In August of 1942 Hiro quit his job with Tajima Yoko and returned to Japan's Wakayama prefecture. Once back home he spent his days swimming in the nearby ocean, his evenings practicing kendo, his beloved kendo at the gym. It's nice a life. He also wanted to be really in shape for when the time for war came. He promised his mother that he would come back a private first class and ten days after he was inducted in mid-December he was assigned to the 218th Infantry Regiment along with new inductees from his area. And then before the year was over, they would ship out. Fu had no idea where he was going to be sent, but soon that would be revealed.

Nanchang, the capital of the province of Yangxi back in China. Nanchang was the site of a series of major insurrections organized by the communists back in 1937. Eventually known as the Nanchang Uprising, the movement succeeded in holding the city for a few days and a core group leading the movement would soon help form the People's Liberation Army. In 1939, after the Japanese captured Wuhan, they set their eyes on Nanchong since it was a major supply line between the 3rd and 9th war zones, as well as the location of numerous airfields. A battle began on March 20, 1939, when the Japanese troops launched heavy artillery shelling. In addition to conventional artillery fire, the Japanese bombardment also utilized toxic

gas produced by Unit 731, which had been deployed occasionally in the China field of operations. We had an episode on Unit 731 early on, way back in November of 2017. And man, those guys did this sick sick shit. The city fell on March 27th with the Chinese defenders suffering heavy casualties. For Hiro being sent to Nanchang was actually a lucky break. His older brother Tadao was there. Once again he's following his bro to China but Nanchang would also have its hardships for one it was fucking freezing. When he ate Hiro's rice sometimes would literally freeze in the bowl. He was relieved to find out that he was assigned to a genial and good-spirited squad leader who had chosen Hero personally because he thought he could make a good soldier. To prove him right, Hero and his fellow ambitious cadets would march three and a half miles an hour,

occasionally even reaching speeds of five miles an hour, which is hauling ass for a group of dudes carrying heavy packs marching. Remembering his kendo training hero never broke ranks physically He was considered an excellent soldier just tall enough at five foot four to man most weaponry But also small and svelte enough at a hundred and thirty hundred and thirty two pounds to move discreetly Small but strong the pack he carried weighed over 60 pounds around half his body weights a pack He could carry you know when he's marching up to five miles an hour. Soon, Hiro would face combat for the first time. It happened in a place called Onyi, between Nanchang and Chuchiyong,

where his squad was assigned to clean out a troop of enemy guerrillas. The battalion worked out a plan where the resistance leader would be captured alive. Unfortunately for Hiro, during the operation he injured his right foot, and that prevents him from taking an examination for officer's training school. But his brother Tadau is able to intervene on his behalf, and on August 1st Hiro is transferred to a preliminary officer's training unit. There men are divided into two groups. Some go on to more advanced officer's training while others remain non-coms.

Fortuna Hiro is in the first group. He'll get extra training from Lieutenant Tsunenori Ono, the regiment's standard bearer. Instead of going back to his company, he stays with the training unit, is given two weeks training each in machine guns and horsemanship. After that he has another week of drills and firing their regimental artillery. In the meantime, Tadau is transferred to a new division being formed down in Korea. When his initial officer's training is done, Hiro is assigned to a reserve officer's training school in Kurume, a port in Kyushu, Japan, where he arrived January 3, 1944. The school was known as the Devil's Kurume because it was such a tough training camp. The officer in charge of hero's class, Captain Shigeo, Shigeo Tomi.

Yeah, Captain Shigeo Shige Tomi. Shige Tomi. Oh my god, so many words to fight through this one, but it's a great story. It's worth it. This captain had a motto, better to sweat on the training ground than to bleed on the battlegrounds. That's a pretty good motto to me. He trained his 50 soldiers constantly in suicide attack maneuvers, shouting shit at them like

you're stupid and you've got everything backwards when they fucked up, which was good for Hiro. He decided to try and become an officer pretty much on a whim because he wanted to impress his fellow soldiers and commander because the outfits look cool. But like his experience beating his rival in Kendo in high school, he now learned what it really meant to be a soldier, like spiritually, how to truly conduct oneself with honor and humility in the Imperial Japanese Army. And he started to take his training very seriously. And because of his hard work, he was made into an officer. On March 5th, 1944, while Hiro was out on maneuvers, he got a message telling him to return to base to see a visitor.

It was his brother, Tadau. I love how close these two are. He'd been attached for temporary duty to a division command in Korea. He had been in Pyongyang for a while, but as of March 1st, he had been ordered to the 23rd Army Headquarters in the Chinese province of Guangdong. He'd taken a plane from Hakata in a day or two. He will take one, but he had just enough time right now to come see his little brother. They talked for a while and just as Tadao started to leave, he said, Be strong. It won't be long before you're going to need all the strength you have. He could not have known how true those words really were. Hero replied, Don't worry. I'll die like a man. Well, Tadao said,

There's no point in rushing off to get killed. But you'd better be prepared to die in case your turn comes. And then just before they got to the front gate, Tadao had something else to say to his little bro. He said, have you ever had a woman? Such a big bro thing to say. Hiro smiled mysteriously. Apparently he had really had some fun, thanks to that French dance hall. And Tadao clapped him on the shoulder and told him to take care of himself. And then Hiro had one last request. Give me 50 yen to remember you by, he asked. Such a little bro move. And Tadau gave baby bro 100 yen.

In August 1944, Hiro finished officer training, became an apprentice officer or junior officer. He had to remain there for another four months before his commission as a second lieutenant became official. The usual procedure was for apprentice officers to go back to their former units. But the war situation in the Pacific was so serious by this time that half of the men who had come for training from China were going to be reassigned to units of the Western Army in Kyushu. But Hiro was not in that group so he expected to be sent back to China. He was dreaming about delicious Chinese food that he had come

to love when he got called to headquarters and was given the following message. You are hereby ordered to the 33rd Squadron in the Eastern Sector. Hiro had never heard of this 33rd Squadron in the Eastern Sector, but he was told he would be stationed at a place called Futamata, north of Hamamatsu. So he'd still be in Japan. Hiro had no idea what all this meant, but he assumed he was heading out on some kind of special mission. And he was right. After his graduation ceremony, August 13th, it's a second lieutenant. It is now off to Futamata, where he would arrive August 16th.

Training, however, would not begin until September 1st. So he did have a two-week leave he was able to take. He used it to visit Tokyo, partially because he wanted to get a company officer's sword belt from his oldest brother, He used it to visit Tokyo, partially because he wanted to get a company officer's sword belt from his oldest brother Toshio, who is a major now in the military, and had been transferred to the Army Medical Administration in Tokyo. I do love how close he is with his brothers. At his brother's house, Hiro told Toshio about his upcoming mission and said he had no idea what it was, and his brother seemed startled. It's this, Toshio said.

And then he stuck out the index and middle fingers of his right hand and made a motion like he were pouring water into a teapot. Hiro assumed he was being secretive because his wife was nearby. What he managed to puzzle out later was a karate thrust into an opponent's eye, I guess. That's what he said, the pointed fingers. And the teapot suggested giving somebody a dose of poison. At least that's what he thought this all meant. So now he wondered was Hiro going to be a spy?

He had heard rumors of so-called pacification squads. These units that infiltrated behind enemy lines and tried to break down defenses from within. Hiro was not able to get any more info from his brother about all this. The next day Hiro went to pay his respects to the Imperial Palace, to Yasukuni Shrine, our shrine, the Shinto shrine, and then another Shinto shrine, the Meiji shrine, and proceeded to Wakayama to see the rest of his family. Then on September 1st, time to report for his new mission. He shows up at the Futama branch of the Nakano Military School, unsure what to expect.

The building was no more than a small collection of decrepit army barracks located a little more than a mile away from the train station. At the opening ceremony, the commander, Lieutenant Colonel Mamoru Kumagawa, addressed the class of 230 officers saying, the purpose of this branch school is to train you in secret warfare. For that reason, the real name of the school is to be kept absolutely secret. Furthermore, you yourselves are to discard any ideas you may have had of achieving military honors." So he was essentially being trained to become an agent of the Japanese version of the CIA and Japan had been doing this in secret for a long time. Prior to 1894 when the first Sino-Japanese war began, Japanese operatives posing as businessmen and as

Buddhist missionaries in China and Russia had established detailed intelligence networks for the production of maps, recruiting of local support, and the gathering of information on opposing forces. Japanese spies would often seek to be recruited as personal servants to foreign officers or as ordinary laborers to be used on construction projects on foreign military projects or construction groups on foreign military projects. In July of 1938, after a number of attempts to penetrate the military of the Soviet Union had failed, Army leadership felt that a more systematic approach to the training of intelligence operatives was required.

Lieutenant Colonel Shun Akiyosa was instructed to organize a curriculum of a special training school to be located in Nagano, Tokyo. Thus, the Nagano school was born and now Hiro was one of its students. Then Lieutenant Sawayama, one of the instructors, started asking rapid-fire questions. What did they think of Foto-yama or Foto-mata? If the troops were stationed here, how many battalions would there be? What was the principal industry? How much food could the town provide for troops? And none of them had any idea.

They had just gotten there. And that he said was what was meant by intelligence. They would need to gather this kind of information about the areas they would be sent to. And soon classes would begin. They would cover military forms, procedures, but their instructors emphasized that if they needed to, they could break the rules through four hours of training in the morning, four hours of training in the evening. The officers were packed into tiny classrooms where they learned everything there was to know about secret warfare,

how to confuse, frighten, and surprise an enemy by any means necessary. They were encouraged to think for themselves, to make decisions where no rules existed, even conduct that would be considered disgraceful, like abandoning a besieged platoon, was considered good in secret warfare because it meant that you would stay alive another day to keep fighting the enemy Also, it was okay to be taken prisoner because you could then give the enemy false information which went against you know normal You know Japanese wartime tradition Indeed they were taught that there might be times when it was best to try and get captured Yeah, and again the far cry all this stuff is a far cry from the mainstream Japanese idea of death before dishonor.

In the conventional military, anyone who escaped a prison camp and returned to Japan would be court-martialed for cowardice, as well as socially ostracized. But not here. In October of 1944, American forces landed on Leyte, an island in the Philippines, and the overall situation became so grim that for the first time Japan now had to consider the possibility of a mainland U.S. invasion. On November 30th, the class received orders to withdraw from the school. Then they were given word that 43 of their trainees, of these trainees, would be sent to the Philippines for secret disruptive guerrilla warfare maneuvers. And that number included Hiro. He had no illusions about what he was

being sent out to do. He believed that he would probably be sent off to an island to fight and die in secret and his parents would never get to see their son receive recognition or honors and that didn't bother him. At this point he was all in with the Japanese military. He just wanted to bring honor even if it was in secret to Imperial Japan. His ego is gone he just wanted to be useful to his country even if it meant dying in secret. Gone was the young playboy who wanted to drink and dance, wear fancy suits, drive a cool car, make big money in business. Now he had been replaced by a very serious soldier. One who placed

little value on his own hopes and desires and instead thought of the bigger picture. What did his nation need from him? Before heading out, Hiro was sent back home to Wakayama for the first time in three months, where he asked his mom for a dagger that had been handed down from his great-grandmother. His mother said gravely as she gave it to him, if you are taken captive, use this to kill yourself. That's some fucking crazy shit to hear from your mom. Even mom, all in, when it came to the Japanese warrior sentiment of death before dishonor.

That's fucking hardcore. And it was the norm. That was just the Japanese way at the time. Hiro agreed, but he knew he wouldn't do that, because he had been instructed not to. He also wanted to take something to remember his father by and settle on a bamboo incense tube. Later, his two brothers would tell him that when their mom said he had taken the dagger and incense, they thought he was going to commit ritual suicide rather than go to war.

That obviously was not the case. The hero just thought the incense might be comforting someday. He gave one last message to his mom before he left. He left her a note and in it he wrote, My work being what it is, it is possible that I may be reported dead when I am not. If you are told I have been killed, do not think too much about it, because I may well show up again after a few years." And with that, he's off.

He and 21 officers, you know, 21 fellow officers, had received orders to proceed to the Utsunomiya airfield, 60 miles or so north of Tokyo, and board a transport plane. But then once they got there, they discovered the plane had to be repaired repaired He had to spend a few days at a local inn during that time He and his fellow officers received news that American forces had landed at San Jose on the island of Mindoro In the Philippines the nation's seventh largest eighth most populous island. This is not good They would leave Utsunomiya airfield on three airplanes airplanes a number 97 converted heavy bomber transport and two number 100 heavy bombers. And that was on December 17th. But because of delays, they would not make it to Clark Air Force Base,

a base that had previously belonged to America and would soon belong to the US again in Luzon, the largest and most populous island in the Philippines, until December 22nd. When they landed, an air raid warning was in effect, but a hero was surprised to see maintenance crews walking around as though nothing was happening. Apparently, they knew that the bombs would be heading to Manila that day. Clark was tomorrow. They had been told that they had to make contact with the Special Intelligence Squadron of the 14th Area Army.

They were contacted by two officers who had been sent from the squadron to wait for them. They then went back to Manila to report that the unit had arrived and came back the next day. Finally, on the 24th, a hero squad departs. That same day, a low-flying US B-24 Liberator bomber dropped Christmas cards on the city, addressed to the Philippine people saying, We are now in the South Pacific hoping to ring in a Happy New Year with you. Yep, the Americans are close. The Americans are launching a massive assault on the area. Hero and the other officers will be first tasked with trying to repel this assault.

A big task. The local special intelligence squadron is headquartered in what had been a foreign residential building in Manila. It's a two-story concrete building with a sign over the entrance that said Institute of Natural Science. Their Hiro and his fellow officers are greeted by the squadron commander, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi. The major informed Hiro that he along with five others will be stationed with the Sugi Brigade as the 8th Division from Hirasaki is known. The Sugi Brigade was in charge of defending the west central part of Luzon. Its headquarters were in Lipa. On December 26, 1944, in the middle of the night, the six officers destined for the Sugi Brigade left Manila in a truck with Major Taniguchi and a bunch of ammunition

They arrived at division headquarters in Lipa just before dawn the headquarters were simple Just round huts like the ones the locals lived on lived in Be funny if they lived on them, you know, like the it was a it was very simple headquarters It was a lot like the round huts that locals would live on top of you know How it is in the Philippines. People they build a nice house and then they live on the roof and they're afraid to go inside. No, they had like little round huts with plain boarded walls thatched with palm leaves. Inside one of these huts were a number of other officers. Lieutenant Colonel

Motoyama of Strategic Command, Major Takahashi of Intelligence Command, Captain Yamaguchi of the Rear Squadron, First Lieutenant Kusano of the Intelligence Squadron, and a few others. I'm pretty fucking pumped, I feel like I just nailed those names. Two officers from Hiro's group, Shigeru Moriguchi and Shigeichi Yamamoto, were called over in order to lead an attack on the city of San Jose with 50 troops. Next, Shin Furuta and Ichiro Tataku were assigned to lead a guerrilla group on the island of Mindoro. Now it was Hiro's turn. Major Takahashi said, apprentice officer Anoda will proceed to Lubong Island, where he will lead the Lubong Garrison in guerrilla warfare.

It was the first time Hiro had ever heard of Lubong. Lubong is the largest amongst seven islands in the Lubong group of islands, an archipelago situated to the northwest of the northern tip of the island of Mindoro. Seven islands of the some 7,641 islands that make up the Philippines today. That's a lot of islands. It's about 75 miles southwest of Manila by sea. The islands originally settled by the indigenous Tagalog people, the largest group of people living in the Philippines before the Spanish showed up as colonizers back in the 16th century.

And these islands look like paradise. Lubang has long sandy beaches, lush rainforests, picturesque coastlines of rocky cliffs. Beginning with the Cove at the southernmost point, there's headlands with rocky cliffs that drop dramatically into the sea. Behind the Cove, forested mountains. The top of the southern headland, a meadow where today you can see traditional Filipino-style houses with floors of bamboo slats, walls of woven bamboo mats and roofs of palm leaves. It's a small island, just 48 square miles. About 20,000 people live there today, spread across

the island and farms in a few small towns. A bit more than half that lived there when Hiro arrived, around 12,000 people. Hiro arrived there ready to fight and he would not be alone. Also on the island would be a group of soldiers from the 357th Independent Regiment, the Airfield Garrison, a radar squad, an air intelligence squad, and a navy group, but no officers, as well as an air maintenance crew of about 55 men. After his arrival, Hiro received his formal orders and Takahashi specified Hiro's aims. Hamper the enemy attack on Luzon. Simple but tall order. The first thing he needed to do was destroy the Lumong airfield and the pier at the harbor. These were his two main goals. These will be his two main goals for so

fucking long. This episode is about to get real surreal. If the enemy was still able to land on the airfields, he was to destroy their planes and kill their crews. Ordinarily there would be two leaders he would report to for a mission like this but there wasn't another person to spare. So Hiro along with the other officers only reported to General Akira Muto, chief of staff for the 14th area army. Muto impressed on them that the war was not going very well for Japan and needed all the help they could get. The division commander also had some instructions the hero would take very very seriously. Maybe way way way too seriously. He commanded that whatever hero and his fellow men did, they were to never kill themselves.

And he told them they might end up fighting alone on the island for like a long ass time. Like it might take like five years for them to you know for Japan to come back and get them. But he said that eventually just be patient eventually the army will come back for you. And he said that until Japan sent somebody to retrieve them even if they had been whittled down to just one soldier, Hiro had to continue mounting attacks against the enemy. He had to keep trying to destroy this airfield and this pier. And when Hiro accepted these commands, holy fuck, he accepted them deep down into his bones. Over the following several hours, he will learn all about Lubong with the help of a map.

But even so, Lubong was no bigger than a playing card on this map. Almost no information about his terrain on it, so not very helpful helpful Major Takaguchi promised to give him a better map Once the Lubong airfield was built by the Japanese like built up more the meantime Hiro was to gather equipment dynamite land mines hand grenades and more which he did load it onto a truck Then on December 30th 1944 he received 5,000 yen in military currency from Major Takahashi What he did not get was a better map and that will suck for him in the coming decades. After he got his money was time to load up onto the truck. On the truck was also a sergeant named Suzuki and six of his men who were going to Lubong to retrieve some aviation fuel. The truck soon stopped to

the side of the Banzai bridge where Hiro found a quote native motor sail vessel. I'm sure exactly what kind of boat that means but that's what he wrote in his memoir. Probably simple fucking canoe or something. I don't know. Simple sailboat. Waiting for him. The captain told him to load up his shit. He did. Around 9 p.m. that night the boat departed. Around 1 a.m. they passed the island of Carregador in the mouth of Manila's Bay. Instead of following the shoreline, or I guess it's Carregador. I don't know, I think I'm saying it right there. Instead of following the shoreline, they continued to sail west due to enemy torpedo boats constantly popping in and out of offshore waters.

Around dawn, the island of Lubong began to appear on the horizon. Gradually it grew larger, and before long, Hiro could make out the individual palm leaves through his binoculars. There were mountains, but small ones, around 1800 feet high, and the whole island island was narrow about six miles from north to south, 18 miles from east to west. They were now rapidly approaching the pier in Atilkit. The same pier Hiro had been told to destroy. The captain ordered the crew to camouflage the ship with palm leaves. Once ashore, Hiro boarded a truck set off for the small town of Lubong on the west end of the island. There he went to meet Lieutenant Hayakawa, one of his contacts, who would give him the soldiers he needed. When he handed the lieutenant his orders he looked confused. Didn't they mean boats? he asked. There had been some kind of mix-up. The

code they were using to division headquarters had no word for guerrilla warfare. Instead they'd used the word for guerrilla and then another word they can also be interpreted as meaning boat and because of that the garrison commander thought the hero had come to lead them away from the island on something called guerrilla boats. They'd already prepared some canoes for this. To hero this mix-up revealed something beyond a simple misunderstanding. It meant that the men did not want to wage guerrilla warfare. They wanted to get the fuck off the island and the unfamiliar words have been interpreted to mean what they wanted to hear. He took this as an ominous sign that things for Japan

really not going well. There was other bad news too. Hiro couldn't destroy the pier until Japanese troops had gotten everything off of the island that they needed to get off. Hiro soon realized he had another problem. He was supposed to lead a mission but if someone higher said they couldn't spare the troops he needed for that mission, oh well, he was shit out of luck. It's a little bit chaotic. The island is in chaos as Japan scrambled to keep the Allies from crushing them as Germany is getting brutalized in Europe. On his own, Hiro was transported, excuse me, on his own.

Hiro now transports his munitions to the foot of a mountain where he then falls asleep on the grass. Just two days later, 8 in the morning, January 3rd, 1945, one of Hiro's lookouts spots an enemy fleet. Here we fucking go. There were two battleships, four aircraft carriers, four cruisers, and enough light cruisers to make up a total of 38 or 37 maybe? Is that 37, 38 warships? And if that wasn't enough, the sea was peppered with landing craft. The massive Battle of Luzon, where Japan would see roughly 200,000 of their soldiers killed, was about to begin. Hiro quickly composed a message to headquarters, and 30 minutes after it was dispatched, the airfield garrison caught a signal ordering all units in western Luzon to take up battle stations, which seemed to indicate that the message had been received. Still, everyone on the island is anxious. What

if a small portion of the fleet breaks away and attacks the island of Lubong? In preparation, Lieutenant Hayakawa put his troops on high alert, had them move caches of explosives further inland, but in the end not a single ship would move towards Lubong. So Hiro now had some men prepared to blow up the pier. No more their boats were leaving and they wanted to make things hard as hard as possible for the enemy if landing craft did come over. On February 1st the US began landing operations in west central Luzon, unfortunately Hiro. This would happen on the shore opposite Lubang. In preparation he and those with him moved their

supplies further inland so they didn't get to blow up the pier. They were going to, they were starting to get ready to do that. Didn't happen. But and now many of his men are too sick to work, including Lieutenant Hayakawa who had a kidney problem, had to stop frequently to rest and drink coconut milk. Everybody's fucking stressed out. They got some bug going around. No matter how hard Lieutenant Hiro tries, he cannot convince anyone that guerrilla warfare is now a necessity. They don't want to fight. Instead most of the men around him start talking about committing suicide, giving up their lives for the Emperor.

Nobody wanted to blow up the airfield or the pier. They didn't see the point. A resistance as futile as Sentiment had seemingly infected the minds of his fellow soldiers. They'd also heard the enemy now had steel plates to make new runways in record time anyway. And they had those damn Higgins boats. We talked about a few months ago here in Time Suck. So even if the Japanese destroyed the pier, the Americans could still storm the shit out of the beaches. Still, Hiro wanted to do something, anything, to help the Japanese war effort. So he turns to subterfuge. Using old parts of planes to look like new planes. That way enemies from above might bomb the rubble, waste their bombs.

You know, not realize they're bombing useless parts. And that happened. That worked. When Allied bombers did soon fly over his island, they bombed the decoys. Then Japan's 15th and 16th Coastal Advanced Squads arrived at the harbor in the little village of Tilkit, a place full of mostly Japanese soldiers still. The arriving soldiers were members of suicide squads. Men in small wooden boats loaded up with explosives. The idea was that when a ship appeared offshore, these squads would blow them up by running their boats into it. Fucking hardcore, man. Death before dishonor. But before they did that, they needed to be fed first, and there was already a strain on the local islanders to feed the men that were there. And as their rice supplies dwindled, the men became more and more

unruly. Now, not only would they not consider beginning guerrilla warfare, they barely consider being useful soldiers on any level. Lieutenant Hero began to hope that the enemy would just come ahead and you know, fucking get land on the island so those fellow soldiers would have to fight. And that would in fact happen in just a few short weeks. And before we explore this fight, I want to take today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those sponsors. Now let's return to February of 1945,

when some American soldiers land on the west side of Heroes Island. On February 28th, 1945, about 50 American soldiers landed on the west side of the island near a village called Tomebo. The Americans moved cautiously, disembarking from their landing craft, stepping gingerly over the terrain, their rifles ready.

It doesn't say in sources if this is a soldier, I'm guessing it's probably Marines, but possibly not. Hiro thought this was a trick of some kind, something was wrong. They just weren't enough for them to capture the island. They must know that. He thought he wondered if maybe a bigger force was coming in behind them to ambush him after baiting the Japanese in. Another lieutenant on the island was especially gung-hoed to go fight though, saying he would take a couple of men over there and just fucking wipe them out. And Hiro was like, I don't know about that. That seems like a bad idea. Maybe you should wait.

But this lieutenant would not listen. He hopped into a truck with 15 men, machine guns, and drove off. Rest of the day passed. Hiro did not see the Americans again. Then around one o'clock in the morning that night, two other officers showed up with the remains of a different crew of men from near the airfield. 30 minutes later they spotted flames rising in Lubong. Seemed like the small force of Japanese soldiers who had taken off with that gung-ho lieutenant

had come under enemy fire but there was no way to be sure. Then a fleet of American ships appeared and began their bombardments until kit. Palm trees and parts of houses are flying through the air and soon the entire town has been fucking decimated. Then a few men who had rode off with that gung-ho lieutenant returned. He wasn't with them. He had been killed along with almost that entire squad. After about two hours the bombardment ended but as soon as it did shells from enemy landmortars

began raining down on the encampment. Hero was in, enemy planes swooped down dropping 200 pound parachute bombs. Just then American troops landed in earnest an entire battalion of Marines so the probably was the Marines before to led by four tanks they marched off toward the village of Vigo a mile or two west of Tilket one unit split off continued westward towards Lubong hero knew it was now time to head to the fucking jungle and hide however the intelligence squad and the coastal attack squad disagreed on what to do. They wanted to hold out where they were, fight until the bitter end, which wouldn't be very long. As enemy shells

began to fall, Second Lieutenant Hero ordered whoever was underneath him in the chain of command to retreat now. Wounded soldiers who were able to walk to move deeper into the mountains carrying as many provisions as they could. And they would walk for about 30 minutes before they heard guns coming from the exact direction they were walking towards. The enemy had cut off their retreat. Hero now sent a lookout ahead to confirm the enemy position and the guy soon limped back with the fucking bullet in his leg. Also mortars were getting closer to their new position. Luckily they were able to take cover, hide for the night, but only after Hero lost the tip of his finger to

an enemy bullet. Man talk about a close call, holy shit. The following night, the group he was with carried out a raid on troops, blocking their retreat and took heavy losses. They now had lost literally all of their other commanding officers, every single other lieutenant. Now, 2nd Lieutenant Hero finds it difficult to get the remaining troops under his command to listen to him. He said the remaining troops are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, firing willy-nilly, scaring themselves and each other.

Hero tried to remain calm, all things considered. He had a plan. They needed to retreat to a small mountain range covered with dense forestry in the center of the island. But first, they still needed to wipe out more enemy troops to the rear. He waited until March 2nd to try this. That night, he took 15 men with him and crept ahead. They discovered that the airfield had been claimed intact.

The pier also had not been blown up. Hero and the others had not accomplished either of the two main objectives they had been sent to the island with. Still, he thought he could accomplish other objectives and he would accomplish those objectives in time. First, he needed to make it to the hills though. And they did. They reached the spot he had in mind and the enemy had withdrawn far enough for them to

not have to engage with them. On their way back, they found the body of a soldier hero had shared numerous conversations with on the island private first-class Morinaka With a dagger his mom had given him a hero cut off the man's little finger Put it in an inner pocket in his jacket So we could hopefully take it back to Japan and the man's family so that you know while they might not have a body they could at least be able to cremate some of their child's remains. And nearly everyone in Japan is cremated by the way, like over 99% of people. On the morning of March 3rd, more scattered Japanese troops arrived to join Hiro and his

men. Later that day, a message came back from the sick tent asking for explosives. When Hiro asked what was up, a young man said that they had 20 sick men all gravely wounded and that they wanted to kill themselves. And blowing themselves up seemed like the most efficient way to do it. That's fucking hardcore. These guys were literally begging to be given permission so they could explode themselves. Hero gave his consent, but asked them to wait to blow themselves up until the enemy was nearby. So they wouldn't just waste dynamite.

That is so darkly funny to me. Okay, alright, alright, alright, fine. You can have some dynamite. But first, you gotta promise me, you're not just gonna fucking waste it, right? Just on blowing yourselves up selfishly. Lure over some Americans, right? Lure them over. Tell them you got beef jerky or comic books or posters of pinup models, you know, whatever Americans like, and then you can blow yourselves to smithereens if you take some of them with you. Later, Hero came back, found no trace of the tent or the corpses. Nothing was left but a huge gaping hole in the ground. They truly did blow themselves the fuck up. That's a wild way to go out.

Day or two later, Hero and some remaining soldiers would actually run into an American scouting party. They threw some hand grenades in their direction, scared them away. Then the next morning they killed an American soldier. When they got to the top of the mountain where all of their reserve stash were supposed to be, nobody was there. The other Japanese soldiers had been ordered to retreat to Tilkit or to Vigo. Lieutenant Ayakawa had ordered his men to the upper reaches of the Vigo River, but then was killed along with 10 of his men.

The 15th Coastal Attack Squad led by Captain Suki had attempted to storm the enemy barracks at Tilkit, but failed. Captain Suki would soon fall ill and die. The 16th Coastal Attack Squad would launch an unsuccessful raid in the Tilkit area and later hide along the hills south of the port, and Hiro never heard from them. As far as he knew he was the only Japanese officer left on the island now. At least one trained for combat. There were two non-coms, non-combatant officers named Corporal Shoichi, Shimada and Corporal Yoshio Fujita. The only people he was now able to communicate with were the ten members of the garrison unit, four members of the air intelligence squad,

four members of the air maintenance crew, and two members of the air intelligence squad, four members of the air maintenance crew, and two members of the Navy squad, 20 in all. Everyone else appeared to be either missing or dead. Despite this, Hiro still hoped to lead these remaining men in an attack on the airfield. He still wants to fucking get that airfield and orders them to stretch out their rice supply as long as possible.

He figured if they only ate four bowls a day, they could hold out until August. But within just a few days the men began to argue over portion sizes and even started to steal from the communal rice stash. So when corporal Fuhita asked Hiro if he could lead some of the men somewhere else so they couldn't all be ambushed and eliminated once, Hiro was like yeah fuck it get away from my rice. Better to have them somewhere else or didn't have to keep such a close eye on them. So now the remaining 20 men break into two separate cells. Hiro joins up with Corporal Shimada and one private. The others split into four small groups. Now Hiro wants to move the main supply stash to a new area so American GIs won't

be able to find it. And on April 18th, Hiro begins that process. Unfortunately, while he's in the middle of that process, an enemy cleanup squad storms into the woods firing like crazy. Right? Shit. The private that Hero had added to his team is almost immediately shot and killed. None of the other groups who had split off showed back up after hearing gunfire to help him out, except for one dude, private named Kinshichi Kazuka, who had been with an air intelligence squad until they abandoned him when he came down with acute nephritis and inflammation of his kidneys. After wandering around in the foothills for over a week living on nothing but tubers and leaves from potato vines and coconut milk, Kazuka recovered enough to join Hiro and Corporal Shimada.

And now the three men wander around for a few weeks, quietly scavenging whatever they can find to eat. This fucking sucks so bad to go through this. Then in May of 1945 Lieutenant Hiro, Kazuka and Corporal Shimada heard mortars and machine guns. It was coming from the vicinity of the island's south shore. It was immediately clear that one of the other Japanese groups had been attacked and surrounded. Hiro later found out that a group of survivors from Captain Tsuki's squad, that 15th Coastal Attack Squad, had made their way to a beach, they were resting there when they were attacked. All but two were killed.

This would be the last organized enemy attack on Japanese survivors. But afterwards the American squad would patrol the ridge every morning for weeks, occasionally firing a couple shots. Meanwhile, in a very different part of the world, on May 8, 1945, World War II in Europe comes to an end. As the news of Germany's surrender and Hitler's suicide reaches the part of the world on May 8th 1945 World War two in Europe comes to an end As the news of Germany's surrender and Hitler's suicide reaches the rest of the world Joyous crowds gathered to celebrate in the streets clutching newspapers right declaring victory in Europe Lieutenant Hiro and the two dudes he is now with on the island have no fucking idea. This is happening

And they won't have any idea about what will happen at the end of the summer when the u.s drops a bomb on the city of hiroshima august 6 1945 And they won't have any idea about what will happen at the end of the summer when the US drops a bomb on the city of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945. Three days after the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, August 9. As far as Hiro knows, though, Japan, they're still doing great. You still win the war. You still got to fight. At 7 PM, August 14, 1945, President Harry S. Truman announces the unconditional surrender of Japan

to reporters gathered at the White House. The next day, Japanese Emperor Hirohito broadcasts a surrender to the Japanese people on Radio Tokyo. Then on September 2nd aboard the Missouri, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces Army General Douglas MacArthur signs the instrument of surrender for the UN and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz signs it for the US. Japanese representatives signed it as well and delegates from other allied nations including China, the UK, Soviet Union, France, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, the all-witness ceremony. And with that the war with Japan is over for most people. Following day, September 3rd

Japanese General Tamayuki Yamashita, military governor of Japan to the Philippines, also surrenders. But Hiro Onoda and his fellow soldiers, they got no fucking clue. Any of this has happened. They still fully believe World War II is on! Oh, it is not even close to being done! Nothing is over!

Nothing! You just don't turn it off! Yes, that was Rambo. I haven't pushed that button in a while. Oh, it is not even close to being done. Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! Yes, that was Rambo. I haven't pushed that button in a while, and I'm gonna be pushing it quite a bit today, because it's perfect for the story. He is like a Japanese Rambo at one point in the story. Quick note going forward. Most of the information comes from Hiro's autobiography,

but he did leave out some important details. Mostly how he and his fellow couple of remaining soldiers would not just steal from the island's villagers for the next three decades, but that they would also kill them. They shot and killed around 30 people over the years, thinking that they were still fighting. Such is something to keep in mind about his adventures going forward. So now it's around the middle of October, 1945, when a hero and a handful of remaining soldiers first see leaflets urging them to surrender. They had just killed a cow in the mountains.

They were trying to haul its meat back to their hidden jungle camp when they run into five or six islanders who flee after tossing them a piece of paper, kind of throw it in the on the ground in their direction. Printed on the paper in Japanese is a statement saying the war ended on August 15th come down from the mountains and Hiro mm-hmm. He didn't trust that shit for a second For one thing just a few days before a Japanese patrol have been fired on by American soldiers Why would that happen if the war was over? Huh? They threw it away. Nice try assholes You're gonna have to do better than that to trick second lieutenant hero, Onoda Hero stayed living in the woods on the slopes of the mountain along with a few soldiers

he'd managed to pick up for his cell. They set up little tents, spread boards on the ground to sleep on. Sometimes they were able to supplement their rations of rice with some stolen beef or harvested bananas. Mostly however, they just laid low. They didn't even tell a few other small cells of Japanese soldiers still on the island where they were. This shit is so crazy. In Hiro's mind, the most important thing was carrying out the objectives of the guerrilla warfare campaign he'd been assigned. Objectives he didn't even tell Corporal Shimada or Private Kazuma about. It was top secret. Around the end of 1945, a Boeing B-57 flew over their hideout, dropped a load of big thick pieces of paper. Printed on the front were surrender orders from General Yamashita of the 14th Area Army and a directive from the Chief of Staff. Anded on the front were surrender orders from General Yamashita of the 14th area

army and a directive from the chief of staff and on the back was a map of Lubong with places where the leaflets were dropped marked with circles. But were these leaflets genuine? Fuck no! Nice try Yankee scum! I mean they were for sure genuine but Hiro didn't think so. One thing that bothered Hiro about these leaflets is that they claimed to be in accordance with a direct imperial order. Neither Hiro nor anyone on the intelligence squad had ever heard of such a thing though. The leaflet also seemed to imply that the general was issuing the order to himself. Later Hiro would find out that this was simply a translation error.

But at the time it seemed like important evidence that the whole thing was an enemy trick. So he began the new year 1946 still determined to fight the war. Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! He and his men rarely heard guns anymore except for some occasional machine gun fire. But there was an aircraft carrier off the coast. Why was that there if the war was over?

At the beginning of February, Corporal Shimada and some scouts ran into some Philippine soldiers in a truck at the bottom of the mountains. The Filipinos thought they were being attacked and immediately opened fire killing the two scouts. So now Hiro definitely thinks the war is still on. Hiro refuses to give his last few men any extra rations of rice. Determined he'll need to be stingy with it to keep the campaign going. Right? It's gonna last for years possibly. Then it marched more leaflets to surrender or dropped. Then in April, 41 Japanese soldiers left on Lubong along with Corporal Fajita all surrender. There's a lot of fucking guys still hiding on the island. It's crazy. The ones who surrendered would continue leaving notes for another, for the holdouts now that said shit like, nobody's searching for you

now, but the Japanese. Come on out. But Hiro and a few others with him, they weren't going to be so easily tricked nice try go fuck yourselves traitors we still fight for the honor of imperial Japan they now assumed that the Americans were forcing the Japanese they had taken prisoner to attempt to trick the remaining soldiers into surrendering every time the searchers called out to a cell Hiro would simply move them to a new location that summer allies dropped even more leaflets, now with messages handwritten in pencil and quote good Japanese, which did make an impression on Private Akatsu. He asked Hiro if he'd ever wondered if the war was really over. Hiro said he didn't think so, but Corporal Shimada said,

I sort of have a feeling that it is. Kazuka remained silent. Hiro worried he was losing his grip on his men, decided to go investigate for himself now. If he came back, he said, they would know that the war was over. If he didn't, they would know to stay hidden. It was still ongoing. Hiro also wanted to try to rescue the Japanese soldiers who he thought had been taken prisoner. Men who had been tricked by other prisoners. He thought if he could get into the prison where they were being held they could all escape together But then Kazuka spoke up. Why did Hiro need to do this? He said that Hiro was the one who had led them so far and they needed him to keep leading them Hiro admitted that he didn't want to risk his life to save a bunch of quote nincompoops who had gotten themselves captured harsh words

Pulling out pulling nincompoop out of the insult drawer. Shit's getting serious With that Shimada agreed to keep fighting and Akatsu did too. Hiro would just turn 24. Corporal Shimada is 31. Kazuka is 25 and Akatsu, or Akatsu, excuse me, is 23. The four of them made up the last Japanese resistance on Lubang now. Just four dudes. Everyone else has been killed, they've been captured, or they've surrendered. These four would now move from place to place careful not to stay at one location for too long. In the first year they slept squished together in one little tent trying their best to stay dry to the

island's rainy season which lasted from July all the way until mid-October. Still rain would come often into the tent, their skin would turn white when the rain finally ended they would race out into the open, marveling at the sight of the stars above. Captain Shimada, as the oldest and most experienced, regaled them with stories of his life. He had grown up in a gawa not far from the northwest outer edge of Tokyo. He'd come from a farming family. In the off season, he had gone into the mountains to tend to a charcoal kiln, as was the tradition in his village. Living alone in little huts, the young men of his village would learn to forage for themselves and the skills he picked up now came in very handy for him and his fellow soldiers in Lubang. Shimada

taught Hiro how to weave straw sandals, how to make a net for fishing and other shit. Kazuka meanwhile was quiet and reserved, the son of a farmer in Hachioji, a distant suburb of Tokyo. His family was well off. He had owned a racehorse. A katsu, as Hiro would later write, quote, was the weakest of us, both physically and morally. Fucking a katsu. He was always the one falling behind, losing track of the others. So he was put in charge of gathering firewood, bringing a fresh drink of water from the nearest

creek. While Shimada did most of the hard physical labor, and Kazuka and Hiro made tools, stood guard, planned overall movements, kept the fucking mission going. And yeah, they're still planning on waging guerrilla warfare. They still had some supplies. Each man had an infantry rifle, two grenades, two pistols, plenty of ammo. But they had very little rice and for a long time they ate so little they were too weak to transport much from location to location. When their rice finally ran out they went and found the rice that had been hidden for some other Japanese troops on the islands, but then that ran out too. They might have been able to ask the islanders for food as they had done when they first arrived,

but the islanders had long ago now allied themselves with the Americans, even working as guides. They were fucking enemies now. Since they carried knives, cut down trees, and guns for protection, the four Japanese soldiers were eager to steer clear of them. But when the islanders set up camp in the mountains while they cut timber they often left some sacks of rice hanging in the trees around their camps and Hiro and his men would start to look for these sacks though they were careful not to take the rice when the islanders were nearby since that would be a sure sign that the Japanese were still present. This was their life now. Wandering around the island, stealing rice here and there, killing a cow from time to time, trying to get by a cobra, hiding in the jungle, and they'll do this for decades. The mountains provided the best cover, that's where they tended to hide the most.

The southern side features small sandy beaches, rugged sea-torn cliffs. Most of the island's population of 12,000 lived in the south, so they almost always avoided the southern part of the island. Gradually the soldiers developed a circuit of sorts, moving from point to point, staying at each location between five and, or excuse me, three and five days. A full circuit would take a month. They went fast. Usually took about two months,

since they sometimes stayed at some locations longer if there was food there, especially beef or bananas. All the while, Hiro kept a careful mental tally of their movements. He fully believed that once they finally ran into some other Japanese soldiers, some reinforcements, he would need to provide his reports so they could plan a counterattack. Their first objective, once more soldiers arrived any fucking day now, was to recapture

that airfield and destroy it. So he focused on that. He also made a complicated plan for how many bananas they could harvest without exhausting the island's natural supply. But that plan started to get off track because once again people are stealing food. Even just four soldiers left it was impossible to stop anyone from taking more than their fair share. Especially since eating was largely their only pleasure. The only thing that filled their days marked the time as they you know hung out on the island. If he cracked down too hard on his

remaining three men they might you know form a mutiny. He wondered how long could all of them keep going like this. A long time. Turns out a real long time. A katsu finally deserted though in September of 1949, four years after the four of them had first come together. He had disappeared three times before, but each time Shimada would find him bringing back, knowing where he would set up camp and find food, because they'd all been doing this, you know, together for so long now. They thought of a katsu as weak and ultimately unhelpful so they never told him much about what they were up to fearing that he would someday be captured by the enemy and divulge their mission secrets and maybe that war on him maybe had the

effect of making him feel left out not wanted thus not loyal to them so they weren't you know shocked when he finally bounced for good. Shimada went out to look for him for a little while but he came back a week later without Akatsu and completely worn down. They would later be very surprised to learn that Akatsu had surrendered near a small village on the eastern end of the island, but not until nearly six months after he had left the group. He had just grown sick of them apparently and decided it would be better to be on his own and that eventually he couldn't take being a solo anymore. Now, 10 months after Akatsu's departure, they found a note on the ground saying, When I surrender, the Philippine troops greeted me as a friend. And it was written in Akatsu's handwriting.

So was this genuine? Fuck no! Do they think Hiro Onata was born yesterday? No! You have to do better than that, you white devils, you Caucasian cocksuckers! I mean, it was 100% genuine. But Hiro not buying it for a second. Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off!

Soon after they found that note, the remaining three men spotted a light aircraft circling slowly in the sky above Vigo. And they took this to mean that Akatsu had sold them out, told Allied scum where to find them. The war was still on, and it was still fight for the glory of Imperial Japan. So they moved to the other side of the island. Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. The very next day they were faced with more trickery. They heard a loud speaker now seem to be coming from the north and a voice was saying, yesterday we dropped leaflets from an airplane. You have three days that is, 72 hours in which to surrender. In the event that you do not surrender in that time we will probably

have no alternative but to send a task force after you." The voice was Japanese, with no trace of an accent, but the word choice. Ah! Sounded American. Japanese didn't typically refer to three days as 72 hours. Further proof! The enemy had no honor. Clearly, the Americans are desperate.

They're losing the war. Hiro and his men just needed to hang on tight a bit longer, and then they would team up with reinforcements, and they would fucking crush the Allies and be heroes. Japan probably controlled all of Asia by now. For Hiro in particular, regarding why he was so reluctant to accept all these offers as being legit, he'd come to the island on the direct orders of the division commander.

And he believed that if the war was really over, there would be another order from the division commander releasing Hiro of his duties. Three days after the announcement, the three Japanese musketeers spotted a Filipino task force from a distance of about 150 yards. These troops, about six of them, were on a road that ran through a forest of palms. In the front was a man in a white hiking hat that they thought could have been a katsu. They couldn't be sure, but as they hid over the following days, they convinced themselves that Akatsu had indeed betrayed them and had sent enemy troops after them to find and kill them. Motherfucker! They began to move through quicker a quicker circuit of their campsites.

This time they vowed to fire on anyone they came across, even islanders, since they assumed islanders were actually enemies in disguise. Since whenever they had shot one in the past, troops would arrive soon afterwards. Weird. And I did mention that they sometimes shot villagers. I did. I just wanted to remind you again that before this is all said and done, Hiro and his men will shoot and kill an estimated 30-ish random villagers and wound dozens and dozens of others. And they also sometimes wounded each other. They didn't always agree on what the right next move was. They break into fist fights.

And Hiro thought that was a good thing. I gave them a chance to test their strength. As the months and years wore on, they discovered that more and more islanders were leaving rice in their pots. A sign the island was getting more prosperous. Sometime around 1950, they saw electric lights shining in the port village of Tillic. The ships coming into Tillic were changing too. At first there had been small vessels that looked like little wooden shoes to them from afar, but now there were these big ocean liners. There was also a new lighthouse on Cabra, a neighboring island they could see. The soldiers were confused by this, but didn't take any of this to mean that the war was over, so they didn't give up. During the next rainy season they built a better shelter with a roof

made of palm leaves, confident that the search parties would not come to look for them in the bad weather. Mostly they were cheerful, but sometimes Shimada got moody, said things like, I wonder whether it was a boy or a girl. His wife had been pregnant with her second child when he left for the war nearly a decade ago now. February of 1952, a light aircraft from the Philippine Air Force began circling above the island. The three soldiers heard the loudspeaker but couldn't make out what it was saying, but they thought it was calling their names. And then the airplanes dropped some leaflets and flew off.

But they weren't the same type of leaflets as before. They were personal letters. One was from Hiro's oldest brother, Toshio. They said that the war had ended many years back. That his parents were both well. All of his brothers were out of the army, alive. There were also letters from Kazuka's and Shimada's families, along with family photographs even. Even a photo of Shimada's second girl, a child, or second child, a girl. Hiro had only one thought

regarding all this. Quote, the Yankees had outdone themselves this time. Nice try motherfuckers! Ah, shit. You must really be desperate to do this. Japan must be kicking the shit out of you. No surrender. He wondered how on earth they had managed to get these photographs. He just couldn't figure out how they'd pulled that off,

but he knew it was a trick. And Shimada agreed with him. Shimada said, it's supposed to be a photograph of my immediate family, but the man on the left? Not my immediate family. He's only on the left? Not my immediate family. He's only a relative. I think this is just another enemy hoax.

Well done gents. No one's gonna trick you three. You're too clever. Nothing is over. Nothing. You just don't turn it off. They don't turn it off. About a month later, they heard another loudspeaker, a Japanese voice said, I was staying at the

Manila Hotel when I heard that you were still on the island. I came to talk with you. I'm Yutaka Suji of the Asahi newspaper. And Hiro said dismissively, they're at it again. And he and Ishimada who shook his head decided to move camps. Kazuka too was like, you have to do better than that. As they now move their camp, they find a Japanese newspaper. It was the first one they'd seen in seven years. There was a story in bold type, circled in red pen, about how Lieutenant Colonel Nobuhiko

Jimbo had gone to the Philippines to persuade the Filipino government to cancel its missions against the Japanese soldiers on Lubong. They paged to the rest of the newspaper, were impressed by how the enemy had devised some means to get fake articles inside a real Japanese newspaper, but also they fucked up. They wrote about quote missions. If there were still missions being carried out, well then the war was still on wasn't it? Never surrender, never back down! When reinforcements show up, holy shit, oh they're gonna have a good laugh. June of 1953, Shimada is wounded badly in the leg in a fierce gun battle with enemy fishermen. They come across a group of 16 local fishermen minding their own god damn business.

And they decided to quote, clear them out as in massacre them. They fired on them, the fishermen scattered, of course they did. But then one grabbed a gun. Pursuing him, the party was surprised by another fisherman who had a gun. Who then fired two shots before he ran off. And the first hit Hiro's ring finger on his right hand. Man, another finger injury. The second went right through Shimada's right leg. Hiro carried him into the forest now. While Kazuka covered their rear from more ruthless fucking fishermen firing back. Acting like they're just doing some harmless fishing on the beach. When really they're just doing some harmless fishing on the beach

when really they're hoping to ambush these guys, stopping from finally destroying the airfield and the pier. Hiro soon found that the bullet had entered the inner side of his knee, the inner side of the knee of his companion, had gone through, quote, slantwise. Hiro took off his loincloth now, used it as a tourniquet, tying off this guy's leg above the wound, so that's cool. I'm sure that loincloth that he'd been wearing in the jungle gathering his ball sweat for literal years was super clean.

Definitely not bacteria on that thing. The good news was that it appeared the bullet had not damaged the bone. Hero was able to seal the wound off with cow fat and make a splint from knee to ankle. Very impressive they were able to do this. After that he will boil water every day bathing the wound before sucking on the opening to bring out blood, possibly infected blood, and then apply more fresh cow fat. Fucking nurse hero. This is nuts. Kazuka took charge of standing guard while he's doing this. After about 40 days of this shit, there's finally a thin layer of skin over the wound. Shimada can move his leg at the knee, but his big toe is rigid for some reason.

It makes it hard for him to get around quickly. However, by the end of October, 1983, he's able to walk around with his gun on his shoulder, although he still limps. By God, they've done it! They've survived another clash with the enemy. But by the end of the year, Shimada seems gloomy. He just didn't have the vitality he had before the injury. His hair got much grayer. He's talking to himself a lot, staring at that photograph of his family.

He's almost 40 years old and he's starting he's starting to act like a little crybaby bitch, not willing to fight for the glory of Imperial Japan anymore. Come on, Shimada, fucking nut up already. But for real, how are all three of them not so depressed? Also how crazy is it to be a villager on this island? To be like, hey, hey, be sure and bring a gun with you when you go fishing. What? Why? Well, there's a couple of Japanese soldiers out in the jungle. They will shoot at you.

What do they do now that they're fighting World War II? But the war ended almost a decade ago. I know, but they don't. Around May, 1954, another voice on a loud speaker now says, I am Katsuo Sato, former chief of staff for the Naval Air Force. I would like to meet you in Locke. Locke is kind of a kind of a county, also a tiny little village on the island. Hiro felt that this was clearly a trap. He thought, why would a naval officer come looking for army men?

Almost got me, Yankee cocksuckers! Or Hirohonota is exactly wet behind the ears though, is he? Not his first rodeo! Well, actually, it is my first rodeo. But holy shit, has this rodeo been going on for a fucking long ass time. Like a crazy amount of time. And we all just wished that the rodeo clowns would show up and just call it off or something. But never surrender!

Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don just call it off or something. But never surrender. Nothing is over. Nothing. You just don't turn it off. Meanwhile, after Shimada had recovered enough to move, they changed the location of their camp, but in doing so, they caught sight of a search party and had to head back down to the South Shore. But then another search party was waiting for them there. Damn it.

There were about 35 of them. Instead of shooting, Hiro and his two fellow soldiers decided to run into the woods, mostly since Shimada, still not quite strong enough to mount a proper attack. Once in the woods, they debate about what to do next. Kazuka wants to cross the mountains. Hiro says they should go around them to conserve energy. Meanwhile, Shimada says he just wants to stay where he is. After all this time, is Imperial Japan finally gonna lose World War Two thanks to in-fighting? Shimada wants to stay put. That doesn't set well with Kazuka. To him this

is tantamount to a declaration of betrayal. Hiro tells Kazuka to calm down though. Don't let them divide us. He says it was fine to hide out for a little bit. Next day Kazuka and Hiro will go get some fruit. Decide to lay them out to dry. Right? Make some old-school school fucking fruit roll ups they can eat later. They set out for a cliff by the valley where it would be easier to catch some sunlight and dry that banana out. They sliced up their bananas, laid them out by a cliff, head back to where they were now making their camp.

But then a couple days later they find out that Shimada, fucking Shimada, it's always done with that mopey son of a bitch now. Well he had moved the dried fruit down into the valley where it was highly visible. What the fuck, Shimada? Why not just surrender on behalf of all of Japan and lose the war already? This isn't good. It will signal to anyone who comes looking that they're near, especially the search party that they'd just seen recently again down by the beach.

For the moment, however, Hiro decides they should just leave the fruit after eating some of it while it's still light out. But then while Hiro was cooking up some other shit to go with their fruit, he sees slight movement. A man who looked like an islander had spotted the fruit and was climbing down into the valley to fucking eat it, and Hiro was like, uh-uh, not on my watch. He actually did react a bit like that. He fires on this guy. This guy is trying to get some banana screams, throws himself behind a rock, probably just again some fisherman. Kazuka now hides, so does Hiro.

But Shimada continues to stand holding his gun, but not firing. He just, you know, he's just kind of dead behind the eyes. And then a shot rings out and Shimada falls forward. The shot had not come from the valley, but from the slope across the river. So the two remaining soldiers scramble up the bank and run. They leave everything else behind, tools, ammo, bolo knives, and more. Hiro wouldn't know until much later that Shimada had gotten hit directly between the eyes by a Philippine Army Mountain unit doing combat drills May 7, 1954.

Ugh. Well now, after the infamous World War II battle for bananas, after the Lubang dried fruit ambush, they're down to just two dudes. All of Imperial Japan is counting on them to take out that airfield, to destroy that pier. Fucking never surrender. Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off!

Ten days later on May 17th, a Philippine Air Force plane, trailing a streamer behind it, passes over several times over the island, drops leaflets again. A loudspeaker keeps saying, Oh no, Onoda, the island, drops leaflets again. A loud speaker keeps saying, Onoda, Kazuka, the war has ended. I'm sure they're like, Jesus Christ, you guys. Still, now they're not going to fall for those tricks. He might have been born at night, but he wasn't born last night, okay? A few days after that, there was a noise in the forest that sent the two running. Hiro would only find out years later that Toshio, his brother, and Kazuka's younger brother, Fukuhji, were on the island looking for them. Those fucking traitors.

Two months after Shimada was killed, they go back to the beach and pray for him, vowing they will avenge his death. It was the first time that Hiro had cried on the island. A few months later, Hiro will find a Japanese flag in which the names of his family and some of his relatives have been written. Instead of thinking this was a ploy, however, he starts to think that maybe it was a fake message from Japanese headquarters. He has some pretty interesting rationalization and reasoning here. He figures that using some kind of simulation, the Japanese government figured out how to win World War II. He thought that a World War II victory was near. He thought that if a Japanese spy was sent to contact Hiro, but was intercepted by the Americans, the Americans would find out the Japanese were planning to take over this very

crucial to the whole World War tiny ass airfield on a barely populated island. So in order to block that move, the Americans would transfer sea and air forces to Manila, thus releasing pressure on Japanese troops in New Guinea, Malaysia, and French Indochina. From the Japanese viewpoint then, it was a good idea to make the Americans think that a spy was being dispatched to Lubong, so the flag, obviously intended for Hiro, was supposed to fall into enemy hands, and then the Americans were going to use it to try and lure super spy Hiro out. But he was of course not going to fall for that because his leaders had tipped him off. Japanese headquarters had taken the precaution of writing the names of one of his cousins

and a sister-in-law slightly incorrectly. Fucking boom! Game set match! The Japanese commanders had thought of everything. Ho ho ho! Just you you wait Yankees. Soon, very soon, Hiro Onoda will be living in California, and he will be the only one living there because the Emperor of Japan will have given him the entire state as a gift for his loyalty and extreme dedication. He didn't of course think that about California, but he did He did now think his island is crucial to Japan winning all of World War II. He's been in the jungle for a long time. He's got a little bit nuts. Kazuka agreed with him about how important their mission is and how their superiors could clearly send them a warning with

a flag with the two misspelled names. And of course he thought this because Hiro has been brainwashing him. Hiro has been teaching him the principles of secret warfare. Soon after this, more and more fake but real leaflets are dropped on the island but now the two soldiers oh they're happy to see them they're overjoyed oh how they laugh at the sight of all these leaflets. They took all these leaflets as evidence the Japanese must be planning something to reconquer the Philippines once and for all. The fake messages kept adding up like one containing a picture of Hiro Onodo's family that featured his

parents his older sister Chi-Ii, and her children, his younger sister Keiko, and a neighbor not related to them. Nice try. Bingo! Why the fuck is a neighbor in the photo, huh? Come on! He didn't just crawl out of the cabbage patch. He didn't just fall off the termite truck. The turnip truck! You gotta try harder to get a guy like this. Nothing! You just don't turn it off! You gotta work a little harder to get a guy who's not falling off the termite turnip truck thing. Another time, Kazuka got a picture of his family, but it was obviously fake.

Because they were standing in front of a new house that didn't belong to them. It's actually so sad. They just didn't know that Kazuka's family had moved, right? And they moved because Tokyo had been reduced to ashes, or the parts that they lived in. Because the flyers were printed on cheap paper, they also assumed there must be many other soldiers on the islands and other islands across the Pacific. And so all of these messages, far from convincing them that the war is over, actually reaffirmed their belief that the war is still fucking on

and that a Japanese counterattack is gonna come any day now. And if they're not on the islands, the advance party won't be able to finally recapture that airfield. Their mission is so important still. This is so crazy. They still think they're gonna recapture that airfield. It's early 1958 now.

They've been hiding out of the jungle for 13 years. That is hard to fathom. I've been on multi-day camping trips, like sleeping in a tent. After about three days, like four tops, I'm very ready to go home. Take a nice shower, watch some TV. 13 years! And not on a relaxing lane on a fucking beach vacation drinking Mai Tais, you know, tropical island type 13 years. No, tropical island, but continually worried about the enemy capturing or killing them. So you got to keep moving around the jungle. Hope you don't get bit by a literal venomous cobra 13 years. I don't know how they had had the will to keep going.

In the spring of 1958, and they're not even close to that, the Philippine Air Force begins building a radar base on Lubang Island. On the mountain, the Japanese soldiers had come to know is 500. To do so, they had to build a road, the island's first paved road. And one day, Hiro and Kazuka decide to check out how the road is coming along and see if they can sabotage its construction for the glory of Japan. And then they notice that somebody caught sight of them. So now they fire on some poor, random construction worker trying to kill him. And because of because of that in May of 1959 a large search party arrives in Japan to look for them again. And what do they do? They hightail it out of the area, find another place on the island where the loudspeaker can't reach them.

They did not hear the Japanese national anthem or the Japanese folk songs and popular songs the search party played for them. But that party was not gonna give up quickly. By late November, they're still there. was the search party played for them, but that party was not going to give up quickly. By late November, they're still there. Hiro and Kazuka decide to go investigate to see what tactics they're using, and they hear the voices of their brothers over the loudspeakers now. Even Hiro had to admit, that voice sounds pretty good. Doesn't sound like a recording. Their tricks are getting better.

He crept to the top of a little mountain, looked down, saw a man that, damn, if he didn't look exactly like his brother, had the same height and build. Holy shit. They cloned his brother! They fucking cloned him! How crazy is it that they were willing to go to those lengths to catch him? But for real, he did think it was amazing that the Americans had obviously found a random prisoner who looked a little bit like his brother, and who they then dolled up to look more like his brother and forced this guy to learn to imitate his brother's voice perfectly. He actually thought that.

Toshio began singing his high school's fighting song, but towards the end his voice cracks with emotion. So sad, right? He wants his little brother, please just come home. Stop this madness. And Hiro takes hearing his brother's voice crack is a sign that he's not his brother, that he's an imposter for sure. Oh no, he's not an imposter. It was just Toshio's last day on the island. He started to choke up.

Soon after that the search party departs, but they did leave a lot behind. They left newspapers, magazines, all of them recent depicting life in Japan. Hiro, of course, thinks this is all obviously fake. Right? If the war was over and Japan had lost, there shouldn't be any life in Japan. It should just be rubble. Everyone should be dead. And that's what he thought because according to a popular battle cry in Japan in the early 1940s before he left home, this popular battle cry was one million souls dying for honor. It meant that the population of Japan would rather die than surrender. All of them. If necessary, the women and children would kill as many Americans as they could with bamboo sticks until they were killed. Hiro had been brought up with this mentality

and thought a thriving and prosperous Japan would only exist if the war was either won or still going on. Despite this belief, there is a lot for him and Kazuka to try and make sense of. Time had frozen for them, right? The start of 1945, really 1944, when they kind of like started their mission. It was now 15 years later. They read about how somehow the Japanese empire had become a democracy. The military was reformed. Interesting. They read about how China was now a communist nation under the leadership of some clown named Chairman Mao. Hiro thought it was clear that Mao must have come to power with the support of Japan because Japan would obviously still be

dominating China, right? He assumed that probably the eastern part of Siberia must have broken away from the Soviet Union, joined the Asian League, probably Java, Sumatra too. That meant that Japan was just, you know, a few strategic alliances away from now completely dominating the East. He found it weird that the US and Japan were doing a lot of trading with each other, considering the US was their sworn enemy, but Hiro worked that out in his head eventually with enough thinking he had a lot of time to think he decided that since the military had been reformed there was probably now some kind of separation between military and economic spheres so Japan and the US you know yeah

they would just like trade with each other and compete economically while obviously killing each other on the battlefield and if that sounds weird weird, it's because it is. It makes no sense. But it made sense to Hiro. Also, anything that didn't make sense to him, he would just, you know, write it off as, well, propaganda. Just nonsense. Like a piece about Tomoyuki Yamashita, the commander of the 14th Area Army to which Hiro belonged, saying that he had been executed for a bunch of war crimes what There was another article he thought was made up to an article about the futomata school Where Hiro had received his secret training for the mission he was on the pen of the government had been investigating the school for quote secret warfare And found that nobody was quite sure who was issuing the orders and under what authority they were to do so

Hiro thought this was a secret message to tell him that his division had not forgotten him because clearly he thought everyone at the school knew where the orders had come from. So yeah, that's how Hiro was able to rationalize away all the signs that the war had ended a long time ago. So much cognitive dissonance, so much sunk cost fallacy. Meanwhile, life on Lubong is getting harder. Their clothes always rotten from the rain. They're still wearing rags from their original uniforms. The same clothes for 15 years.

They had to undergo constant tedious repairs, sewn with a piece of wire for thread. They would use a hemp-like plant that grew in the woods there. Assuming this wasn't enough though though they had to start stealing from the islanders to do that the soldiers would scare them off with gunfire or fucking kill them. Make off with anything in their stores, canteens, tents, shoes, blankets. Oh and I should add that just a reminder that again they killed around 30 villagers in various skirmishes. Around 1965 synthetic fibers appeared on Lubong and they gratefully accepted some articles of clothing made from them and by accepted I mean stole from villagers. Also stole

some vinyl plastic which they used you know for helping the rain to wrap up their guns and stuff stay dry. By this time their principal food is bananas boiled with dried meat and coconut milk. They come up with their own little recipe. Sometimes they hunt for water buffaloes. Sometimes they kill horses. For each animal they could make about 250 slices of smoked meat, which would last them about four months if they ate a slice a day. Sometimes they also managed to steal canned goods from the islanders like coffee and when they stole it they called stealing it stepping out for the evening. And again how weird is this for the villagers?

Mom how many times have I told you you have to lock your doors at night? Do you want a couple middle-aged Japanese World War II soldiers to keep stealing your shit or to execute you for war crimes against Japan? I wonder if some parents worked these two dudes into like fables for their kids. You gotta be good. You gotta listen to mom and dad because if you don't what's gonna happen? I know mom. Japanese World War II soldier goes we'll sneak into our rooms and shoot us dead. That's right, sweetie. Surprisingly these two guys were rarely sick going through all this. They took careful pains to keep track of their health, monitoring their urine for signs of dehydration,

monitoring their stool for signs of malnutrition. They would bathe in the rivers, brush their teeth with fiber from palm trees. As a result, Hiro only would get a fever twice during his entire roughly 30 years on the island. They were also careful to never leave traces of their campsites. They would even wash rocks they cooked on so they wouldn't have oil on them. All this was to keep the area under their control until the rest of the Japanese showed up. They also decided in the early 1960s to take a POW. They grabbed some local islander and interrogated him for information. They snuck into this poor dude's farmhouse while he was out. When he came home, fucking kidnapped him. BAM!

Dude, had to have been the last POW taken during World War II. Because he was taken in 1964. Oh my god, after taking this very confused man out into the mountains, he told him everything he knew, which wasn't much. He told him what the price of cigarettes was. What the average pay for a day's labor on the island was. He didn't have World War II updates, or he wouldn't give them up. He didn't have any because, you know, the war had been over for almost 20 years. Hiro and Kazuka eventually decided they learned all they were going to from him and they let him go. They still were not captured after doing that shit. In late 1965 they have now been in the jungle for over 20 years. They would acquire more information through a new transistor radio they stole. They

took the radio from a cabin along with some socks, shirts, and some trousers. The radio was a Toshiba eight transistor set. Seemed to be in good shape. When they turned it on, the first thing they heard was a man speaking in Japanese. Today being December 27th, this is my last broadcast of the year. Listening again next year, in the meantime, Happy New Year to you all. Over the following weeks, they would start listening to more stations. Japan, shortwave radio, broadcast from Australia, broadcast from the BBC. Once again they didn't believe anything they heard. They were impressed though that the Americans kept getting better at subterfuge. So good they could fake such

well-produced legitimate sounding broadcasts. At this point in the story I started to think of Dumb and Dumber going through all this. Just very funny for me to picture just a clueless Japanese Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. Hi y'all. Hey, alíjopa. Hey guys, we're going on a national bikini tour and we're looking for two oil boys who can grease us up before each competition. I love the scene. You are in luck. There's a town about three miles that way. I'm sure you'll find a couple guys there. Okay. Thanks. They just do not understand what's happening around them. Hiro and Kazuka even thought it was plausible that Japan had hosted the Olympics while World War II still raged on,

even though they had American athletes, because they had always heard that there were no national boundaries in the world of sports So yeah, you'd be having like a world war and still you know send some athletes around a year after they required acquired the radio These two suffer a setback regarding their plans of world domination Kazuka injures his foot. He had stepped on a thorn that went deep into his heel. Hiro got it out, sanitized the injury as best he could. He is fucking good at survival, my god. But by the next morning the leg was swollen all the way up to the thigh. Over the next week it would go down, the swelling. Excuse me, but then while they were walking one day Kazuka's leg crumpled underneath him. His leg then swoll again with infection. Now he can't walk.

And he would be bedridden, well, ground ridden, I guess, through much of the rainy season of 1966. And they spent those months mostly listening to the radio, hearing mainly about horse races and music programs. Now let's fast forward all the way to the fall of 1972. This pair had spent the late 60s and early 70s living as they did on the island, moving from place to place constantly, you know, settle down in one spot for a little time, steal from some islanders, sneak off, avoid detection. Hiro Onoda is 50 years old now. He's been on the island since he was a few months away from turning 23. He's been there over 27 years. He has been hiding in the jungle on this one little island for the majority of

his life. Overwhelming majority of his adult life. That is fucking insane. Same for Kishichi or Kenshichi, Kazuka. He's also 50. He's also been there for over 27 years and they still think the war is ongoing. This is a long-ass war. They still think Japan can win. They still think they need to retake that airfield. You mean not good like one out of a hundred? I'd say more like one out of a million. Thinking about their odds. So you're telling me there's a chance.

In early October, the two began to take down the rainy season's structure, start up towards a ridge. They intended to make a bonfire of the islanders' rice to show the islanders and whatever Japanese watching that their presence on the island was still very fucking strong. They'd have to be careful though, because the island now had police. As they climbed the ridge, they spotted some islanders gathering rice, their military targets, and they fired their guns on the islanders, and they scattered. These guys must be so tired of this shit. The islanders are like, god damn it, how are they still out there?

As Kazuka set fire to a small pile of rice now, Hiro gathered up some of what the islanders had left behind. Two bottle knives, cigarettes, matches, some coffee. With their important World War II military mission now complete, some matches, some coffee. With their important World War II military mission now complete, they decided to head off but noticed another pile of rice sacks. Should they make another bonfire? Hell yeah they should! That'll teach those villagers to side with the Yankee scum.

Setting down their packs and guns, they start to build the next bonfire. But just then shots ring out on both sides of Hiro. Hiro dives for his gun. Kazuka can't get to his. Hero dives for his gun. Kazuka can't get to his. He has been shot in the shoulder. Gunfire is still incoming. Hiro fires a couple of shots off. Gives him enough time to flee. Kazuka though does not follow him because he's been shot again in the chest this time. A second later blood begins to pour out of his mouth and he falls forward dead. Another casualty of World War II. How crazy is it that that is actually a true statement?

This dude literally died fighting in World War II in 1972. I know it's tragic, but it's also like, it's what the fuck? In his mind, he is still very much fighting in World War II, and he dies in 1972 in combat. Less than a year from when the United States is going to withdraw their last troops from the Vietnam War. And now Hiro is alone. And is he going to lay down his gun?

Fuck no. His mission far from over. Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! Over the next few days he moves to a place called Kam on a point settles there to build a new mountain hut As he's looking around a helicopter appears overhead. It was yet another search party They would once again call out to the loudspeakers this time to say onota wherever you are come out. We guarantee your safety

He's like, yeah, right more lies still not falling for it But he is sick of hiding He has had it he He's close to snapping. Oh that's it. I've had it with this dump. We got no food. We got no jobs. Our pets heads are falling off. That's my favorite dumb and dumb quote. Our pets' heads are falling off! Instead of hiding, on the evening of November 19th, he walks out into the open, along a paved road below the radar base, starts chasing a man with a rifle. He's kind of snapping a little bit.

And then I guess he remembers at some point he can be easily shot and killed, and he comes to his senses somewhat and disappears again. He was now going to sneak back off into the mountains, but then he hears his sibling's voices coming over the loudspeaker. Tadao talked about how he had moved to Brazil with his family. Both his sister, Chie, and brother, Toshio, tell funny stories about their shared childhoods. And this time he is convinced it actually is their voices, but he is worried that the Americans have captured his family and put them up to this to destroy his very important mission. Uh-uh. So he keeps hiding. One evening about two weeks later,

he goes to the place where Kazuka had been shot. There he finds a book and inside it is a message from his brother Tadau, telling him to leave anything he wanted to say in the book. He also saw that a tombstone had been placed where Kazuka had fallen. Someone put a wreath of flowers and some incense. Another sign that there were Japanese people nearby. He still doesn't know what to do though. He decides that the next morning he will leave his hiding place and go up into the valley for fresh water.

There he finds newspapers talking about Kazuka's death, which mentions erroneously that he'd had some money tucked into his pocket. Nope. It was tucked into his belt. Boom! They almost had him. They almost tricked him, but not quite. That was an obvious sign that the newspapers had been doctored in Hiro's mind. One step forward for this guy, two steps back. Hiro now decides that this

new expedition of people trying to find him are actually a group sent by the Japanese government to conduct a detailed survey of Lubong. Since the radio had said that Japan had become a major economic power, it might have been that one aim of the search party was to spread a lot of money around Lubong. When the islanders over, bribe them. The appeal, this appeals to Hiro, or excuse me, the appeals to Hiro to come out then, were intended to throw American intelligence off track. Looking at it this way, the pleas were really pleased for him not to come out, since the search party would have to go back to Japan without accomplishing its real objective. This is what he's

rationalizing. If they really wanted to come out, he figures, they would have given him a telephone so he could speak to an intelligence agent or a machine gun so he could defend himself. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either, but it made sense to Hiro. And so back into hiding he goes, waiting for reinforcements. He spends New Year's Day of 1973 on the south shore of the island, alone. On January 3rd, he headed up toward the port village of Tilik. On the way he hears a recording that says, Hiro, this is Tadao, again it's his brother.

Many of the Surge Party have left and the soldiers who are here are only trying to protect us. They are not trying to kill you. If a Philippine soldier points his gun at you, I would jump in front of it to prevent him from shooting. I know you have had the experience of seeing Kazuka killed before your eyes and I don't suppose you would believe anything I say, but if you don't get in touch with us, there is nothing we can do.

Be brave. Act like an officer. Hiro, thinking his brother means that last part in code, keeps on walking. Thanks for the tip, bro. Haha. Part of the mission. Still on! God, this dude truly will not quit. For the next three months, he expects a secret agent to come any moment and establish contact with him, but nothing happens. Then he realizes that maybe Lu Bong has declared itself independent and has joined a federation. He has started to think exists

between Japan, China, and other Asian states. And if that's true, a Japanese base will soon be built on the island and all he has to do is wait for that to begin to happen. In late February of 1973 the loudspeaker appeals start yet again. They've been trying to get this guy to fucking give up for almost 30 years now. This one coincides with the search party consisting of primary and middle school kids now as well as soldiers to make it seem less threatening. Soldiers who had been at the Futamata school with Hiro. Still he will not give up. No surrender. Two months later the island is quieted down yet again.

No surrender. Two months later, the island is quieted down yet again. Toward the end of April, he goes to one of his former huts on the mountain, finds a note his elderly father has left for him now. His father had written, not even an echo responds to my call in the summery mountains. And the hut was also a new military uniform and an outfit worn by one of his primary school classmates. In pen, Hiro writes a note back, go fuck yourselves, traitors! Goonies never say die! No, what he really wrote was, Thank you for the two uniforms, and the large hat which you kindly left for me. In case you were not sure, let me inform you that I am in good health. Hiro Onoda, Army Second Lieutenant.

After a couple more months, my god, the rainy season arrives, and Hiro spends more time in his hut, patching his clothes, waiting for the rain to stop, preparing for battle. He also was thinking a lot about life. Something told him that the Japanese and the Filipinos are cooperating with each other now. If so, should Hiro trust the Filipinos? He decides in the end, after a lot of thought, no he should not. That fall and winter come and go, and for the 29th time, Hiro celebrates New Year's Day on Lubong Island. February 16th, 1974, Hiro was gathering more bananas around a river.

How sick is this guy getting at bananas? When he notices another newer Japanese flag beside the one that had been placed by the search party the year before. And then he heard voices. He quickly took off but remained close by so he could see who it was. He saw two men carrying guns. He couldn't tell who they were, where they came from. After three more days of hiding, he creeps back towards the bananas and spots something large in the river. Looks like a mosquito net, big enough for two. He quickly assumes that he had run across some policemen camping. And he would have to take them down. My god. But instead

he spots a man building a fire. And this guy did not have a gun. Hiro calls out to the man. The young Japanese man stands up, turns around, his eyes are round. He wears a t-shirt, dark blue trousers, rubber sandals. He looks surprised. He faces Hiro and salutes. He seems excited and happy now. He says, I'm Japanese. I'm Japanese. Hiro's first thought is, of course, this is a trap. The local police have gotten a Japanese person to come out here and lure him out. Keeping his rifle ready, Hiro asks the man if he is from the Japanese government. No, he says. Well, then who are you?

I'm only a tourist, the man says. Then he asks if he is really Hiro Onoda. Hiro nods. I know you've had a long hard time, the man says. The war is over. Won't you come back to Japan with me? His use of polite Japanese expressions tell Hiro that he had grown up in Japan, but it can still be a trap Hiro says that the war had not ended for him and if anyone wanted to go back or him to go back

He would need to have proper orders This is Hiro's first meeting with a man named Norio Suzuki. So who is this guy? He's an interesting dude Norio Suzuki was born April of 1949 in China. He studied economics at Hosei University but dropped out, decided to explore the world. He toured Asia, the Middle East, and Africa before returning to Japan in 1972. In October of 72, he read about Kazuka's death and wanted to see if he could find the last remaining Japanese soldier on Lubang. He expressed his decision this way. He wanted to search for quote Lieutenant Onoda, a panda and the abominable snowman in that hoarder. He's not kidding. Suzuki was wearing thick woolen socks with rubber

sandals. The islanders or really anyone familiar with the islands or carrying out a tactical mission would never have done something like that and that's a sign to Hiro That this guy actually is who he says he is He offers Hiro a Marlboro cigarette and Hiro accepts. He agrees to talk but he says they'll have to go somewhere else Not out in the open. He has to hide Before they start to walk off together Suzuki gives Hiro a novel Then they go off to a rice field they start up a slope to the north as. As they do, Suzuki says, if I tell the embassy that I met you, they won't believe me. Will you let me take a photograph for proof?

And he points to his flash attachment and says, this will make light. It ought to, Hiro says. It's a flash bulb. Oh, you know about flash bulbs, Suzuki seems surprised. This guy fucking knows about anything. Anyone recent? Or recent at all. They go about 50 yards. They sit down. Suzuki tells him the emperor and the people of Japan are worried about him. He describes how Japan had lost the war, but it had now been a peaceful and very prosperous

nation for many years. Hiro doesn't believe him. He's just repeating the same propaganda. He's been reading about these fake newspapers for decades, but he does let him take a picture. Then Suzuki says he's not too confident about his photography skills. Could Hiro let him take a picture in the daylight the next day? Hiro does not immediately agree, but they keep talking and Suzuki finally asks, what will get Hiro to come out of the jungle? Orders from Major Tanaguchi, he says, his superior. He says this because he wanted

the majors involved in secret warfare, General Tokuyama and Major Takahashi to stay out of this, in case it's a trick. By way of testing Suzuki, Hiro proposes something else. Why doesn't he come to camp with Suzuki? Why didn't he go to camp with Suzuki and stay with him? Then Suzuki can take his picture in the morning. His real aim is to keep Suzuki under his supervision for the entire night. But to Suzuki, Hiro had just willingly agreed to spend a night and morning with him and he's elated. That night Hiro ate canned beans, smoked

cigarettes with the kind young man, answered Suzuki's questions about life on the island, how he'd managed to survive for so long. Suzuki tried to give him some nude pictures of some models at one point, but Hiro turns him down. He's like, I've been beating off the jungle for 30 fucking years, nothing but a very dirty and calloused hand. I don't need no pictures. The morning Suzuki takes his photo, then takes a picture of both of them so that nobody will think he faked the shots. Suzuki even is able to convince Hiro to let Suzuki hold the rifle in the photo, but Hiro still will not go with him and leave the jungle. But he said if he received direct orders, he will go back to Japan willingly.

They agree now to set up a message box where Suzuki can leave anything he wants to pass on to Hiro. Then after Suzuki departs and Hiro goes as far away as possible, and then Hiro goes as far away as possible just in case this is a trick and that guy's a spy after all. March 5th, 1974 now. Heroes hide down the mountains when he hears the excited voices of some islanders. He thought maybe Suzuki had come back, two weeks had passed, enough time to go back to Japan and then return to Lubang. Two mornings later he remembers the message box, decides to go check it. A brand new plastic bag was

taped there. The islanders had left. Also two copies of Army orders are inside the bag. One was from the 14th area army headquarters the other from the special squadron. They mentioned that he would be given oral instructions by Major Taniguchi himself as soon as he can make it to the meeting point. Hiro had no idea what these oral orders might be right to continue fighting to go to a new location. Was this possibly a trick? Had the enemy found out how to get to him at last? Hiro doesn't want to let the last 30 years go down the drain because of a trick and also he has to find out if this is legit. March 9th, 1974 Hiro watches and waits from the bushes. His plan is to wait until dusk.

It was possible to move without being detected. But when you were still able to see people's faces that way, you know, he'd be able to make sure the person he was meeting was truly Major Taniguchi. Also, he'd have a better chance of getting away, you know, if that's what he needed to do. Just after 2 in the afternoon, he creeps cautiously out of his hiding place, crosses the river, makes his way through a grove of palms, comes to an area where the islanders cut trees for building. For safety, he camouflaged himself with sticks and dried leaves before proceeding across the small river. My god. It was still only about four o'clock now, so he has plenty of time to change into a camouflage of fresh leaves. Does that. Starts up a little hill, gets to higher ground. It's the place where he had talked to Norio Suzuki two weeks before, roughly.

He was still afraid it might be a trap though, so he waits and watches, focusing on a yellow tent with a Japanese flag waving above it. After a tense 30 minutes, Hiro decides to come down. The sun is setting. It's their appointed meeting time. It's now or never. Suzuki stands out in an open clearing. Slowly he turns around and he sees, and when he sees Hiro, he comes towards the soldier with his arms outstretched. comes towards the soldier with his arms outstretched. It's Anoda, he shouts, beside himself with excitement as he rushes to clasp Hiro's hands. Major Taniguchi, it's Anoda. And now in a tent of shadow moves. Is it really you, Anoda, a voice says. I'll be with you in a moment. Hiro can tell from the voice it is

really Major Taniguchi. A few moments later the major emerges and Hiro barks, Lieutenant Anoda, sir, reporting for orders. He is still in fuck, after all these years. He is still totally like soldier mode. Major Taniguchi then hands him a package from the Ministry of Health and Welfare. A pack of cigarettes with the chrysanthemum crest of the emperor on them. Hiro accepts, holds it up before him in the way that demonstrated proper respect for the emperor, and awaits his orders.

Taniguchi now begins to read. I'll play some traditional Japanese military music behind this. Command from Headquarters. 14th Area Army orders from the Special Squadron Chief of Staff's Headquarters September 19, 1900 hours. In accordance with the Imperial Command, the 14th Area Army has ceased all combat activity. In accordance with the Imperial Command, the 14th Area Army has ceased all combat activity. In accordance with the Military Headquarters, Command Number A2003, the Special Squadron and the Chief of Staff's Headquarters is relieved of all military duties. Units and individuals under the command of the Special Squadron are to cease military activities and operations immediately and place themselves under the command of the nearest Squadron are to cease military activities and operations immediately and place

themselves under the command of the nearest superior officer. When no officer can be found, they are to communicate with the American or Philippine forces and follow their directives. Special Squadron Chief of Staff's Headquarters, 14th Area Army, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi." And then the major added, that is all. And after all this time, after Japan flies one of his old commanding officers thousands of miles away, 30 years after losing World War II, Hiro still thinks this shit is a fucking trick. Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! He doesn't believe it in this moment. He thinks for sure that the Major will come up to him and whisper his real orders.

What they're going to be. Since Suzuki is still present, he has to be quiet. Maybe Taniguchi is waiting for more privacy. But Major Taniguchi says nothing else. He just slowly folds up the order. And now, Hiro finally begins to realize this is it. There was no trick, no secret message. This was the end. There had been no tricks this entire time. They really had lost the war. They'd lost it three decades ago.

He had been hiding in the jungle for most of his life for nothing. He killed so many villagers who were innocent. He ran from his siblings time and time again. And this intense realization is too much for him to handle. And this poor bastard has a bit of a psychotic break. How could he not? Suddenly Hiro blacks out. His brain simply cannot handle the idea that A. Japan's military once so superior had somehow lost and B. That again he'd wasted the past three decades.

He wishes suddenly that he would have died with his fellow soldiers in the initial attack on the island. Hiro now eases off the pack that he had always carried with him and he sets his gun down on top of it and in a stupor he is taken inside the officer's tent. He is asked if he needs to get some rest, some food. He doesn't. That night he will not sleep at all. He will talk a lot. He will begin giving a report of his reconnaissance and military activity for the past nearly 30 years on Lubong, technically 28 years and 109 days after the end of the war. One hell of a field report. He started in a professional military tone, but as he progressed throughout the story,

he will have to stop several times to collect himself. His mind will go blank. He'll go quiet, stare off into the distance. It seems so surreal. Finally, an hour before sunrise, he is finished telling his tale. He still can't sleep. He's not used to a plush cot in a tent. That morning Taniguchi tells him that President Marcos of the Philippines wants to meet him. So he shouldn't shave off his beard because the president has specifically requested that he come as he was in the mountains. Two hours later, Hiro's oldest brother Toshio arrives. We finally found you, he exclaims. He gives Hiro a suit, gives him a camera. They walk out onto the road making sure people are standing on every side of Hiro so the islanders can't take a shot at him. They fucking hate this guy. Of course they do. He's been shooting them for three decades.

He's taken to the mayor's house in the nearest village where he rests for a bit before Hiro takes his brother and others into the mountains to retrieve Kazuka's rifle and his own sword. He marches firmly and proudly as ever as he does so. On March 11th, the formal surrender ceremony is held by the president of the Philippines, Ferdininand Marcos in Manila. It's filmed, shown on news programs around the world. Marcos grants Onoda a full pardon for any crimes committed while in hiding. In return a hero hands over his weapons including his sword which he does formally, a formal surrender given by a World War II soldier not only after World War II has ended,

but after the Korean War has ended, after the Vietnam conflict has ended. Finally, it is time for Hiro Onoda to go home and he receives a hero's welcome upon his arrival in Japan. The Japanese government offers him a large sum of money in back pay, which he refuses. When money is pressed on him by well-wishers, he donates it to the Yasukuni Shinto shrine. Onoda is reportedly unhappy at receiving this attention and also disappointed in witnessing what he believes to be a withering of traditional Japanese values. He's having just a bit of culture shock. Japan is almost unrecognizable to him now.

He soon starts writing his autobiography, No Surrender, My 30 Year War. It becomes a bestseller. It's the main source for our episode today. Then in April of 1975, he follows the example of his elder brother, Tadau, leaves Japan for Brazil, where he becomes a cattle farmer. A cattle farmer who understood the real reason he was there. No one told him anything, but Hiro Onoda, thanks to his intelligent training, knew he fucking needed to raise a secret Imperial Japanese army where no one will expect it. The Amazon rainforest. And rumor has it, he is still building that army today.

Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! Nobody does actually move to Brazil to work with cattle with his brother. He gets married in Brazil in 1976, quickly assumes a leading role in the Jamek colony, a Japanese Brazilian community in the little central west town of Terenos. Interestingly today Brazil has the most Japanese people and people of Japanese descent of any nation in the world outside of Japan itself. With around 50,000 Japanese living there and another 2 million plus people living

there of Japanese descent. The two nations have had a great relationship since the beginning of the 20th century. Onoda also allowed the Brazilian Air Force to conduct training sessions on the land that he now owned, that he bought with his book money. But then after reading about a Japanese teenager who murdered his parents in 1980, Onoda decided he needs to return to Japan. Does so in 1984, establishes the Onoda Nature School, an educational camp for young people, held in various locations in Japan.

Then in 1996, Onoda visits Lubong Island again, after his wife, Machi, arranged a 10,000 US dollar donation on his behalf to the local school, as a way of apologizing for terrorizing those motherfuckers for three decades. A local town's council presented Onoda with a resolution, asking him to compensate the families of seven people whom he allegedly killed. And about 50 relatives of the victims staged a protest against his visit.

It's not quite clear from sources if he ended up giving them that money, but I think he did. After 1994, Onoda will spend three months of the year in Brazil, the rest in Japan. Twenty years later, he'll be awarded the Santos Dumont Medal by the Brazilian Air Force for his generous use of his land for training drills. They give him that medal on December 6th or that award December 6th. I guess it is a medal sorry December 6 2004. Finally January 16 2014 Anoda dies of heart failure resulting from pneumonia at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo. He was 91. Still ended up having a big full life after all that shit.

As for Norio Suzuki, the young man who found him in the jungle after finding Onoda, Suzuki quickly found a wild panda and then he claimed to have spotted a Yeti. Not kidding. From a great distance, in July of 1975, hiking in the Himalayas, he was, to put it mildly an interesting dude. He got married in 1976, did not give up his quest to also find that yeti, get a closer look at it, really document it, like get a photo, and he will die in November of 1986 in an avalanche while trying to get a picture of a fucking abominable snowman. Seriously. Dude literally died trying to find a yeti. And you know what? Maybe he died after he found one. Maybe he found that Yeti. The mythical beast then roared an

avalanche into existence so he wouldn't be able to tell anybody. Who knows? I wasn't there and you weren't either. His remains were discovered a year later and returned to his family. With that, let's get out of this strange, strange timeline. Good job, soldier. You've made. Such a weird life. It's a wartime story of bravery and courage certainly, but very misplaced bravery and very misplaced courage. On the island of Lubong, Hero followed his orders to engage in guerrilla warfare. Holy shit, did he follow those orders. But in 1945, when Japan surrendered, Inoda thought it was a ruse. So he continued living by the principles he had been taught to never, ever surrender.

Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! To inform such soldiers hidden in the jungle that they could now return home, Japan dropped leaflets from the air, but Inoda still did not believe the news. He was sure it was allied propaganda. In 1949, one of the other rogue soldiers he was with, Yuichi Akatsu, surrendered to Filipino forces.

Inoda thought this could pose even greater danger to him, and he became more cautious. Another one of the soldiers, Shoichi Shimada, shot dead in 1954. Then Private First Class Kinshichi Kozuka, his final ally, also shot by local police much later in 1972. Each incident further cemented Onoda's idea that the war was still going. If there was no war, why were they being attacked? I mean, probably because you were killing locals. But he didn't make that connection. What's extra crazy is that Hiro never accomplished any of his mission goals that he was given when he first set foot on Lubong in 1944. He never did retake that airfield. Never did destroy the pier. Over the years his life became fully about evading detection and

survival and he did succeed wildly on that front. By the time Norio Suzuki set out to meet him, he was days shy of 52 years old, but in great shape all things considered. Onoda told Suzuki that he would only surrender after receiving official orders. Suzuki returned to Japan with photos to prove the encounter and to locate Onoda's still surviving commanding officer Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, for whom the war had long ended. Finally, after receiving his orders, Hiro surrendered. But Onoda struggled to adapt to modern Japan with all of its westernized values and commerce. A year after his return,

he moved to a Japanese community in Brazil, following his brother Tadao. And then he finally passed away in 2014 at the age of 91. Or did he? Maybe he just tricked us. Maybe he wants us to think he's dead. Part of his training. Maybe he's back in the jungle somewhere awaiting his next real orders. Ready for Japan to strike when we least expect it and finally win World War II sometime in the next few

years. Nothing is over! Uh-huh. Nothing! You just don't turn it off! Let's head to today's takeaways. Time Shack Top 5 Takeaways Number one, Hiro Onoda spent nearly 30 years on the small island of Lubong in the Philippines beginning in 1944. Onoda, like many Japanese soldiers, fully embraced the principles promoted by his country's military command. But instead of simply committing suicide when all was lost, which was the conventional military wisdom of the day, he was told to never do that and also never surrender. Number two, holy cognitive dissonance, Batman. Anota was given so much information from the outside that contradicted his worldview and he consistently refused to believe all of it. At first it was easy to believe that the leaflets and even family photos, doctored family photos, were part of an enemy trick.

But then he got a transistor radio, started hearing strange shit about Japan hosting the Olympics, about new trade agreements with the US and Japan. None of this squared up with what he thought, so he invented an elaborate fantasy world which the economic spheres and military spheres were separate and more in order to continue to believe he needed to stay focused on his mission, to not believe he'd been wasting his life in the jungle for years. Number three, Hiro was discovered by a young explorer named Norio Suzuki, who seemed to want to find the soldier, well, simply because he was a strange dude who wanted to see some strange shit.

And he accomplished what multiple search parties were unable to do previously, search parties that had been full of members of the soldiers' families, had notable Japanese media figures in them, like a reporter and stuff. Suzuki would ultimately arrange for Hiro to be discharged and Hiro was finally on his way home. Number four, Hiro's story, though accepted as a thrilling tale by the Japanese public who longed for a legitimate war Hiro, not without its stains. He did murder potentially 30 islanders outside of wartime. Does that make him a mass murder? Was he responsible for those crimes? Well, the authorities in both the Philippines and Japan thought he was not. Just a huge and obviously very tragic misunderstanding.

And number five, new info, Hiro Onoda was not the last guy to keep fighting for the glory of Imperial Japan. That would be unless rumors of other even longer holdouts are true. Taro Nakamura. Born in Taiwan, October 8, 1919. He enlisted in the Japanese Army in November of 1943. And then was stationed on the island of Moratai in what is now Indonesia. And the Allies conquered most of the 900 plus square mile island in September of 1944. Small groups of fighters hiding there would finally all surrender a year later in September

of 1945. Well, almost all of them. Taro Nakamura and a small group of other Japanese soldiers hid in the jungle awaiting further instructions from their commanders until 1956. That year, Taro split away from the others and went solo. He built a little hut, fenced in a 66 by 98 foot little yard of sorts, and stayed there for 18 more years. A pilot flying over the island accidentally discovered his hut in mid-1974 and that December Indonesian soldiers captured him and then he was

sent back to Taiwan where sadly he was not welcomed since he had fought for the Japanese and they did not not have goodwill towards the Japanese. He died five years later after living as a hermit of lung cancer. Bummer of a story. He had been in the jungle for 29 years and 107 days after Japan surrendered. Another guy, Shoichi Yokoi, hid in the jungles of Guam after the war ended for 26 years and 151 days. Insanely, Shoichi figured out the war had ended in 1952 but kept hiding until 1972. So another 20 years because he was

embarrassed. He said we Japanese soldiers were told to prefer death to the disgrace of getting captured alive but he didn't want to kill himself so he just kept hiding. And rumors of other holdouts would continue for decades. In May of 2005, some 60 years after the war ended, two elderly men emerged from a jungle in the Philippines claiming to be Japanese World War II soldiers. And then the ensuing media attention scared them back into the jungle before Japanese officials could interview them and they disappeared forever. Were they who they said they were?

Did some guys spend the rest of their lives, perhaps very long lives, out in the jungles of the South Pacific, awaiting further instructions from their military superiors? Time Suck Top 5 Takeaways Never surrender the World War Two soldier who fought until 1974 has been sucked Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all their help in making time suck. Thanks to Queen of Bad Magic Lindsay Cummins Thanks as well to Logan Keith helping to publish this episode and designing merch for the store at BadMagicProductions.com Excuse me. Thanks to Sophie Evans for her research on this one. Also thanks to the all-seen eyes moderating the cult of the curious private Facebook page,

the mod squad, making sure Discord keeps running smooth, and everyone over on the Time Suck Subreddit and Bad Magic Subreddit. And now let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker Updates. I got some very interesting ones this week. Updates? Get your Time Sucker Updates! interesting ones this week. Before two more serious messages, start off with something silly. ShittySackTye, you'll understand why he didn't include his last name,

wrote in with the subject line of, You made me shit my pants. I'm blaming this one on you, you son of a bitch. He writes, Howdy Dan, my name is Ty, long time listener, first time victim. I listen to your podcast. I'm away to, from and while at work. I'm a manager of a rock quarry. That's cool.

I commute about half an hour daily. As I was driving in yesterday, listening to episode 436 on the history of shit, I was about 10 minutes away when it hit me. I had to shit. I unlocked the gate. I was in the process of haulinging up the hill of my pickup. Had to pause the episode because I couldn't bear to hear you say one more word about big massive turds plaguing London. I parked my truck, did the clenched ass straight legged power walk slash scurry. Oh, I know it so well.

To my one and only hope, the Porta John. As I approached the door, I decided to unbutton my pants, save some time. Bad move. As I did did this I simultaneously open the door And I felt a huge relief followed by a wave of dread and fear. I just shit my pants After shedding them off I used dude wipes to clean up and do the pantless walk of shame back to my truck Where I luckily had a pair of sweatpants and rather than losing money by returning home to change I went the entire day of dealing with customers and operating heavy equipment while going commando in gray sweats. And I finished the episode out of spite while living in shame.

Thank you for the last big guy. I'm sure one day I'll forgive you. Love the show. Three to five stars. Don't change a thing. Yours truly, the quarry manager that couldn't go poopoo in the potty like a big boy. Ah, Ty. Ah, Ty. Dammit. I laughed out loud so hard when I first read that. Shitting yourself while listening to an episode about shit. How about that? I've been there with this shit yourself. I shit myself on the streets of Portland, Oregon, about five, six years ago. After thinking that I could skip an open Starbucks bathroom and just wait till my hotel room. Nope, didn't make it. Not quite. Power walk to the lobby as shit began to literally seep through my gym shorts only to get into an elevator for a very uncomfortable ride because I was not alone.

I can smell it, so I know they could too. Not my finest moment. Now for something a lot more serious. Super sucker Jackie sent in a message with a subject line of a very scared scientist and it hit me hard and she wrote, the subject line of a very scared scientist and it hit me hard and she wrote, Hey suck master, I'm writing in because I don't know. I guess I need some advice for someone to tell me it's going to be okay. I've written before about goofy stuff. I've always loved you, Time Suck, the whole Bad Magic universe and as much as I wish so badly to escape here like I used to, I'm really struggling. I'm currently a PhD student in Texas studying immunology and vector-borne

disease transmission, specifically Lyme disease, in search for immunology and vector-borne disease transmission, specifically Lyme disease, in search for a vaccine. And I am scared. I walked into my office on Monday to find out that funds for my research have been frozen. Luckily my boss is an amazing scientist and we have other funds to keep us afloat for now. Then I was told that my fellowship might be taken away. Not because I've done anything wrong or broken my contract, but because it is associated

with DEI. When I was admitted into the PhD program, I was encouraged by my boss to apply for a diversity fellowship through my university. At first, I felt like I didn't meet the requirements despite being a woman in a male field, but my boss looked at me and said, anyone who has survived what you have to get here is diverse. You fought to live. You fought harder to be here. That is diversity. Long story short-ish, my parents struggled often with addictions to a variety of things like heroin and alcohol. to get here is diverse. You fought to live, you fought harder to be here, that is diversity. Long story shortish, my parents struggled often with addictions to a variety of things

like heroin and alcohol. They split when I was really little, but that only left me in a position to be responsible for my siblings. And eventually, as my mom's addiction grew worse, I was responsible for her as well. Soon all of my siblings left for various reasons, and it was suddenly just me and my mom. Then I felt like if I left, I would be condemning her to death, because I wouldn't be here to save her. When I was 14 she was arrested for drugs with me in the car at gunpoint. She had been arrested before and I wouldn't just spend that time hopping couches until she came back. So I thought then that she should get out that she

would get out like before and when my dad demanded I come live with him I refused. I didn't know any better. My 14 year old brain said, I have friends, school, a boyfriend, et cetera. I don't wanna go. My father's solution was to tell me I was dead to him now. That I would quote, just be another addict.

And then he left, just like that. After a while of couch hopping, my grandparents took me in. They had just adopted my niece and nephew, the littles, four months and five years respectively, and had no room. But they let me stay on the couch and use half my niece's closet. All I had at the time was a lot of anger, no privacy, no bed, my school books, solid combo, honestly. I made a decision then that the way to save myself was to get out. If I wanted to save the littles, I had to pave a way for them. So I buckled down, decided I

was gonna get myself into college. No one in my family, especially the women, had ever finished high school before, let alone gotten to college. So the odds were slim, but I wanted it so desperately. It wasn't easy. After a month in prison, we found out my mom was pregnant with my youngest brother, the third little, to complete the pack. And I soon found myself responsible for him as well. Then in 2016, my grandma, who had been my rock throughout all of this, suddenly died of a heart attack while I was at school. I came home to ambulances in the driveway, screamed in the hospital for her as she passed on. But I had the littles, and I had always been told while helping raise them, quote, if they see you afraid, they'll be afraid. So I sucked it up, tried to keep everything together for them. I had to keep moving to risk them a risk taking them down

with me. Eventually, it worked out. I finished high school, got into a top university with a scholarship in a program for biomedical sciences focused on human medicine. I finished college after lots of other psychotic shit happening, more deaths, suicide in the family, health problems, car accidents that affected my mobility, etc. And I applied to the PhD program, which brings me to now. I have always loved science, especially life sciences. And I've always believed that research was the foundation that built the modern world. Yeah, because that's fucking true. Without curiosity and innovation and research, none of the world we know would exist. I've always believed that science overwhelmingly does more good than harm. Because

it does, yep. And I was so excited to be part of this field. Now after four and a half years, I'm standing on the brink of losing everything I've worked for because of misinformation and conspiracy theories. I have my own Instagram channel that I use for science education and activism. I've been told that I am the enemy, that I am perpetuating harm. I'm helping design weapons meant to hurt people in the form of medicine. I've had people wish me harm or wish me dead. And honestly, none of that bothered me too much.

I have a very thick skin. But I truly never thought that my love for science would turn me into an enemy. I never thought I'd have to worry about if this field would continue to thrive because infectious diseases are boundless, always present and often dangerous. And I thought that even with the people

who believed the conspiracies, there were more out there who didn't. But now I don't think that's true anymore. I'm losing hope, something I've never lacked before. The demonization of experts is damaging our world. Fucking sure is. And putting everyone at risk. Yep.

I fought so, so hard for this. Only 3% of first generation students make it into graduate programs. And even less than that will finish. I clawed my way here. I gave up and sacrificed so much to be here. I don't know what to do. I do this job because I love science. And also because I believe that we can help. I believe that research is what advances humanity.

But I'm so tired of being told that I'm a brainwashed demon sent here to hurt people because some idiots with no scientific background have decided that none of this matters. Yep, exactly. And no scientific background is the key there. Fucking armchair quarterbacks are the worst kind. I don't know what I'll do without this. If they remove my fellowship, I could lose my ability to go to school. My boss would happily fund me, but it wouldn't be possible if we can't even access the funds we worked so hard to secure in the first place. I'm not the person to go down without a fight. I'm not easily swayed, but this is so far outside of my control. I feel like I'm trying to catch sand with a strainer and watching all of it slip away.

I've tried to encourage my friends, co-workers, and students to keep working, to keep moving. Even if these fuckheads get rid of our field, the diseases won't stop, so we can't either. But what's the point? So we can work our asses off? Put in 80 to 100 hours a week for extremely low pay? Only be told that we're lying? Or trying to deceive people? That we're dangerous and untrustworthy?

I don't have a reason for writing this. I suppose I just want someone to say it's going gonna be okay. And that things will get better because right now I see no light at the end and I'm very much drowning in the dark. I'm so sorry for the long email. Totally get it if you disregard it. I think I just needed to bitch and have a little pity party for a second so I can carry on being a bad bitch. Hopefully someday I'll still have the chance to sign off as doctor in these emails. Sincerely, your're always loyal time sucker and creep Jackie B. Fucking Jackie, it hurt my heart man to read this.

Couple things first, you are as you know a bad bitch, you're a fucking boss bitch. And after all of the shit that you've been through, this current cultural bullshit, it is not going to stop you. This will not define you. We live in a nation right now full of a lot of very scared people. Scared in many different ways. And you know what? And rightfully scared, not even trying to pick on them. As I have preached so many times here before, the wealth gap continues to grow. Inflation is making decent food a luxury for too many. Working two jobs is not enough for too many to be able to ever buy a house or

send their kids to school. And it keeps getting worse. And that is scary. And then we have wildly manipulative politicians weaponizing this fear and adding to it with unfounded conspiracy theories, sewing discord, confusion, by turning the population against the educated, against scientists. And why would they do that? Well, because their soul is greedy, narcissistic sociopaths, some of them, and because they're soulless, greedy, narcissistic sociopaths, some of them. And because they're not dumb. They know that fear breeds ignorance.

And an ignorant population is an easily controllable population. Keep people distracted with vapid, simple rally slogans. Keep preaching hate and division. Keep telling the poor and the working class that you're fighting for them. Well, in reality, you're going to feed them to the fucking rich. And you, Jackie, are caught in the crossfire. But while the most ignorant voices tend to be the loudest, they're not the only voices. There are still so many who value myself and many others included who believe in science and logic and education as the foundation of a worthwhile

society. If you lose your fellowship you will find another way because you're a fucking fighter. And if more and more people in this country decide that they know more than the specialists who have literally dedicated their lives to accurately understanding an area of expertise because these people have just read some bullshit on Facebook and gotten some attaboy, hell yeah, from some other fucking fools who read some shit on Facebook, then you know what? Look in the movement overseas. Get funding somewhere else, right? This isn't the only country that needs science the world needs it find other countries that do value science and maybe I don't know

Maybe we can bring that medicine back here. What you do is so important Modern medicine has improved our lives immensely and it improves the lives of everybody Regardless of what political alliance belief they have Right, it will continue to make lives better for everyone on this planet. To quote the Handmaid's Tale, don't let the bastards grind you down. We do need people like you and the people demonizing you. They need you. They need you the most, ironically.

To quote Jesus of Nazareth, Luke 23, 34, to be specific. I know I'm not religious, but I also know that there's a lot of wisdom in religious texts. They know not what not religious, but I also know that there's a lot of wisdom in religious texts. They know not what they do. They really fucking don't. They're just scared. And fear unchecked tends to lead to anger, to lashing out.

I love you, Jackie. You will persevere. And now for a message from the All Seen Eyes who moderate the Cult of the Curious three out of five stars private Facebook page. They collectively wrote the following statement to explain some, I guess for me to share with you why they make the decisions they do, and to address some anger in the group. It's a weird fucking time right now. My fellow Danz, happy 2025. With the new year brings new change. With Zuckerfuck changing,

yeah, changing things up, we've decided to change things as well. In the past, we've had two groups shut down, so we had to be more strict. We don't know how things are going to go going forward, so we are going to make some changes. If Zuckerfuck changes his rules, we will adjust accordingly. Number one, starting now, we will turn on post approval. This is for a few reasons. It'll help cut down on duplicate and non-Time Suck related posts. There are only so many times you can see the same bicycle and banana post before you snap.

Oh, sorry about that. Or trying to figure out how the post is related to Time Suck. We are unpaid volunteers. Yeah, that's important. Unpaid volunteers. With our own busy personal lives just trying to make this group fun and supportive. It may be funny and you may want to share it with the cult, but there are other subgroups and pages for that. If your post doesn't get approved, don't get butt-hurt. We are not singling you out. Nobody cares enough to block your posts, except you, Brad Baker. Do better. We will let you know why your post was rejected. Please don't take it personally. Number two, we are changing rule number nine from be respectful

to people's political beliefs to just no politics and religion talk. We know Dan talks about these topics often, but it appears as though we can no longer have productive and polite conversation without it devolving into name calling and personal attacks. There was a time once when we didn't discuss politics and religion in polite society. Maybe it's time we go back to it. Perhaps some brave soul can make a subgroup for those topics. Three, we are restricting GoFundMe posts from this group. We understand that you or a relative may have developed pneumonoultramicroscopiccyclovulcaniosis

and it sucks, but we have the cult of the generous group for that. You never know who's doing the asking for help and then it's safer to restrict the stuff to a smaller subgroup than to the big main group because the bigger the group the more likely it is to attract scammers. Even though 99.99% of you are amazing meat sacks, this is the internet. There most certainly is a Reverend Dr. Nigerian Prince lurking amongst our flock just looking to take advantage of our kindness. Same goes for your contests that you're in. Well, it will help, but we got to keep this page clear of clutter. We thank you all for helping to make this community the amazing cult it has grown to be.

P.S. We also wanted to use this opportunity to make Dan attempt to pronounce uh, Pneumono-Ultra-Microscopic-Silicul-Volcanosicus again. It's been a while. I don't even remember that word before. I fucking blocked it out. Uh, thank you all seeing eyes. So that's what they wrote. So good. Yes, let's keep the Cult of the Curious group fun. And anyone who thinks, and I understand why you would, that it's so hypocritical for me to talk about religion and politics here, but then have, you know, posts like that blocked in the group,

I can explain the difference. When I share my thoughts here, they're not directed at any one of you specifically. I'm never like, hey, Hank Greenberg, listen up motherfucker, what you think is dumb. It's one thing to pontificate on a podcast about things generally. It is another to make it personal.

While I have shared polarizing opinions here about, say religion, what I don't do is approach one of my many religious friends or relatives out of nowhere and be like, hey, Megan, let me give you a piece of my mind right now. Fuck what you believe. No, I don't share my opinions at a family get-together or when I have to dinner with friends unless I'm specifically asked about that subject. I don't randomly personally attack so-and-so's beliefs. And that's what's been going on in the Culturally Curious. And it's not productive. And the rest of the world is doing so fucking much of that right now. Oh my god this group should be a refuge from that.

If you really want to kick off a conversation with somebody then DM them. You don't have to post it for everyone to see in a group. I would say think of the group like a party. Right? There are certain things you can say at a party and not be a dick in front of everybody. And then there are other things more intense things that once you are having a smoke with somebody outside the party and you're talking one-on-one and feeling it out, and then you see how the conversation goes away from the ears of the rest of the party. And if you think, I don't do that,

no, I say the same shit wherever I am in front of whoever and I don't give a fuck, well then maybe stay out of the group altogether because you're an asshole and nobody likes you. Shit's crazy right now. I'm trying to bite my tongue more often, which is hard for me, because I just don't want to add to the divisiveness in the Discord. And I know sometimes I will still be interpreted that way, because fucking everything is fucking politicized now.

If you try to defend science, people are like, hey, I'm sick of being attacked. Well, if you can't handle me standing up for science, just fuck right off. Uh, so, but please try and be nice in the, in this group, that your fellow cult members, if you want to tell them to fuck off, all right, maybe DM them again, make it a private conversation, but please don't, there's so many other places, you know, where that's being done.

Go, go to, go to YouTube. I don't know. Go to almost any other Facebook group and just, you know, throw your angst there. So that's being done. Go to YouTube. I don't know. Go to almost any other Facebook group. And just, you know, throw your angst there. So that's it. We're trying to fucking keep this shit from sinking. Hail Nemrod and be nice to each other. Thanks, time suckers. I needed that. We all did. Well, thank you for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. Uh, Scared to Death, Time Suck each week. Short Sex, short, short sex? Short Sex. I like that. I enjoy short sex. Uh, Short Sucks and Nightmare Fuel on the Time Suck and Scared to Death podcast feeds twice a month.

Uh, Careful in the Jungle this week. You just don't know who's still out there. Still fighting for the glory of Imperial Japan. And keep on sucking. And now, how about one more bit of silliness from my favorite for my favorite scene from Dumb and Dumber Which already had you listen to a little tiny piece of I just hope you know if you're going through it right now I hope that at the very least your pets Still have their heads on them Where's the booze I

Got robbed by a sweet old lady on a motorized cart. I didn't even see it. Come. Harry. Harry. Come on, Harry. My parakeet Petey. He's dead oh oh man sorry Harry what happened his head fell off so stupid it was pretty old Then we gotta hear this part again. That's it.

I've had it with this dump! We got no food, we got no jobs, our pets HENCHER FALLING OFF! We got no food, we got no jobs, our pets HENCHER FALLING OFF! That's the movie lines. Maybe of all time. Take care everybody.