Japanese holdout

Japanese holdouts () were soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the Pacific Theatre of World War II who continued fighting after the surrender of Japan at the end of the war. Japanese holdouts either doubted the veracity of the formal surrender, were not aware that the war had ended because communications had been cut off by Allied advances, feared they would be killed if they surrendered to the Allies, or felt bound by honor and loyalty to never surrender.

After Japan officially surrendered on 2 September 1945, Japanese holdouts in Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands that had been part of the Japanese Empire continued to fight local police, government forces, and Allied troops stationed to assist the newly formed governments. For nearly 30 years after the end of the war, dozens of holdouts were discovered in the jungles of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with the last verified holdout, Private Teruo Nakamura, surrendering on the island of Morotai in 1974. Although newspapers throughout East Asia and the Pacific reported more holdouts and searches continued until 2005, no additional holdouts were found.

History

Individuals

Groups

* Captain Sakae Ōba, who led his company of 46 men in guerrilla actions against United States troops following the Battle of Saipan, surrendered on December 1, 1945, three months after the war ended.
* On January 1, 1946, 20 Japanese Army personnel who had been hiding in a tunnel at Corregidor Island surrendered to a U.S. serviceman after learning the war had ended from a newspaper found while collecting water.
* Lieutenant Ei Yamaguchi and his 33 soldiers emerged on Peleliu in late March 1947, attacking the U.S. Marine Corps detachment stationed on the island believing the war was still being fought. Reinforcements were sent in, along with a Japanese admiral who was able to convince them that the war was over. They finally surrendered in April 1947.
* On May 12, 1948, the Associated Press reported that two unnamed Japanese soldiers had surrendered to civilian policemen in Guam the day before.
* On June 27, 1951, the Associated Press reported that a Japanese petty officer who surrendered on Anatahan Island in the Marianas two weeks before said that there were 18 other holdouts there. A U.S. Navy plane that flew over the island spotted 18 Japanese soldiers on a beach waving white flags. However, the Navy remained cautious, as the Japanese petty officer had warned that the soldiers were "well-armed and that some of them threatened to kill anyone who tried to give himself up. The leaders profess to believe that the war is still on." The Navy dispatched a seagoing tug, the ''Cocopa'', to the island in hopes of picking up some or all of the soldiers without incident. After a formal surrender ceremony, all the men were retrieved. The Japanese occupation of the island inspired the 1953 Japanese film ''Anatahan'' and the 1998 novel ''Cage on the Sea''.
* In 1955, four Japanese airmen surrendered at Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea: Shimada Kakuo, Shimokubo Kumao, Ojima Mamoru and Jaegashi Sanzo. They were the survivors of a bigger group.
* In 1956, nine soldiers were discovered and sent home from Indonesia's Morotai island.
* In November 1956, four men surrendered on the Philippines' island of Mindoro: Lieutenant Shigeichi Yamamoto and Corporals Unitaro Ishii, Masaji Izumida and Juhie Nakano.
* Several Japanese soldiers joined local Communist and insurgent groups to avoid surrender. For example in 1956 and 1958, two Japanese soldiers returned to Japan after serving in China's People's Liberation Army. In 1989, two Japanese soldiers (Shigeyuki Hashimoto and Kiyoaki Tanaka) who had defected with a larger group to the Malayan Communist Party around 1945 laid down their arms along with the party, and returned to Japan in 1990.

Alleged sightings (1981–2005)

In 1981, a Diet of Japan committee mentioned newspaper reports that holdouts were still living in the forest on Vella Lavella in the Solomon Islands. However, it is believed that these were hoaxes made up to lure Japanese tourists to the islands. Searches for holdouts were conducted by the Japanese government on many Pacific islands throughout the 1980s, but the information was too scant to take any further action, and the searches ended by 1989. In 1992, it was reported that a few holdouts still lived on the island of Kolombangara, though subsequent searches were unable to find any evidence. An investigation into similar reports of holdouts on Guadalcanal in 2001 failed to turn up evidence.

The last report taken seriously by Japanese officials took place in May 2005, when two elderly men emerged from the jungle in the Philippines claiming to be ex-soldiers. It was initially assumed that the media attention scared the two men off as they disappeared and were not heard from again. Suspicions of a hoax or a kidnapping attempt later mounted as the area where the alleged soldiers emerged from is "notorious" for ransom kidnappings and attacks by Islamist separatists. It was reported by Tokyo Shimbun on May 31, 2005 that unconfirmed information about remaining Japanese soldiers is said to be rampant in the Philippines. These reports are connected to scams tied to wealth, such as the alleged location of Yamashita's gold and (The M Fund). It is unknown how many or if any legitimate Japanese holdouts remain today, but after over three quarters of a century since the end of the war, harsh jungle terrain, and equatorial climates, it is highly unlikely that any are still alive. The National WWII Museum reported in 2022 that surviving veterans are "dying quickly", as those who served are now "in their 90s or older".

See also

* Volunteer Fighting Corps, planned Japanese resistance post-occupation
* Shindo Renmei, Brazilian Japanese emigres refusing to believe Japan's surrender
* Werwolf, planned German resistance post-occupation
* Siege of Baler, Spanish soldiers in the Philippines who refused to believe the end of the Philippine Revolution and SpanishAmerican war
* , a Serbian Chetnik who fought until 1957

Post World War II resistance

* Cursed soldiers, Polish post-World War II resistance fighters
* Forest Brothers, Baltic post-World War II resistance fighters

Fiction

* ''Block-Heads'', 1938 Laurel and Hardy film in which Stan Laurel is found holding out in a World War I trench 20 years after the Armistice.

References

External links

Holdouts

Two more Japanese holdouts in the Philippines

Final Straggler: the Japanese soldier who outlasted Hiroo Onoda

{{World War II

Aftermath of World War II in Japan
History of Guam
Japan in World War II
Pacific War
Resistance against the Allied powers