# Japanese Veteran Hiroo Onoda dies at 91



## parsifal (Jan 17, 2014)

Hiroo Inada was the last veteran of the Imperial Japanese Army to surrender, fully 29 years after the official surrender of japan. 

In an amazing display of devotion to duty, Onada resisted all attempts to pusuade him to give up until directly ordered to do so by his former commanding officer.

He was an amazing man, and desrving of respect from the entire world.

i wish and his family well

Dead at 91, the Japanese WW2 soldier who refused to surrender for 30 years while hiding in Philippines jungle | Mail Online

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## Shinpachi (Jan 17, 2014)

Ah, he was a very iconic man of IJA.
As an intelligence officer, he refused to die for the nation but to survive for it.
R.I.P. Mr. Onoda


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## Thorlifter (Jan 18, 2014)

I saw this article this morning, but forgot to post it. Thanks for getting it on the site Parsifal


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## evangilder (Jan 18, 2014)

He was truly a remarkable warrior. To survive on his own for that long and never give up is an incredible story.


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## The Basket (Jan 18, 2014)

evangilder said:


> He was truly a remarkable warrior. To survive on his own for that long and never give up is an incredible story.



Hmmm. Follow orders blindly. 
Without thought.
He was a Japanese hero but didn't recognise the Japan he flew back to.


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## Shinpachi (Jan 18, 2014)

Frankly, I am surprised to know he is regarded as a Ninja by some western media.
Graduated junior high school, he was working for a trading company in China as a civilian till around 20 year old when he was enlisted in the army to study at Nakano Spy School because he was good at Chinese and English. He was a rationalistic westernised modern boy. I think he carried out the modern guerrilla warfare faithfully not to be a Ninja.


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## parsifal (Jan 18, 2014)

That does make for a good soldier actually. Doesnt mean that he wasnt resouceful or clever, his ability to stay alive, unassisted for 30 years is testament to that. It just means that if youy gave him an order, you could rely on him to try and do it as best he could.

The failure, if there was one, was the rigidity of the sytem he served. Japan has changed since then


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## Shinpachi (Jan 18, 2014)

The Basket said:


> He was a Japanese hero but didn't recognise the Japan he flew back to.



I may not recognise the Japan either


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## vikingBerserker (Jan 18, 2014)

Well I have a tremendous amount of respect for the man. RIP


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## The Basket (Jan 18, 2014)

parsifal said:


> That does make for a good soldier actually. Doesnt mean that he wasnt resouceful or clever, his ability to stay alive, unassisted for 30 years is testament to that. It just means that if youy gave him an order, you could rely on him to try and do it as best he could.
> 
> The failure, if there was one, was the rigidity of the sytem he served. Japan has changed since then



Makes him a good robot.
In the report he killed Filipino civilians.


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## vikingBerserker (Jan 18, 2014)

Makes him a soldier following orders. Yes civilians were killed, but he reasonably thought the war was still on (keeping in mind the way the IJA were trained) and he was not killing them just to kill them.


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## The Basket (Jan 18, 2014)

vikingBerserker said:


> Makes him a soldier following orders. Yes civilians were killed, but he reasonably thought the war was still on (keeping in mind the way the IJA were trained) and he was not killing them just to kill them.



Killing civilians is reasonable. Okey dokey then.
Anyhoo he was not good soldier. Soldier thinks and uses initiative. He may be a good Japanese soldier.


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## GrauGeist (Jan 18, 2014)

The Basket said:


> Makes him a good robot.
> *In the report he killed Filipino civilians*.


In the report, it stated that he killed "30 people evading capture"

It did NOT say he roamed about the countryside murdering schoolkids or whatever media-sensational label would fit there.

He was a soldier still fighting a war he did not know had ceased. It states he was evading capture, so it's indicating he was most likely being hunted by authorities. And as unhappy as the Phillipinos were with the Japanese during and immediately following the occupation, I am sure any Japanese soldiers left in the countryside after Japan's surrender did not fare well, either.

It is also possible that the majority of the 30 deaths most likely occurred shortly, or within a few years, after the surrender of Japan, when the Phillipinos were flushing the Japanese out of the jungles and highlands.

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## Shinpachi (Jan 18, 2014)

The Basket said:


> Makes him a good robot.
> In the report he killed Filipino civilians.



I feel deep regrets and sorry for the Filipino victims.
No one should kill people even in the war.

I have understood you hate Japanese but, if possible, wish you to understand or see us a little more positively.
Onoda did his job as a soldier and also had chances to be killed anytime if he was careless.
He was only lucky to survive.

I don't worship him as Japan abandoned its militarism 69 years ago but pay respects as a man.

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## parsifal (Jan 18, 2014)

Hi Shinpachi

Is it Onada or Onoda. Or is there no complete western conversion?


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## Shinpachi (Jan 19, 2014)

Thanks for your care, parsifal 
It is Onoda.

I think Hiroo Onoda's talent as a military man came from his mother Tamae, a former school teacher.
When her son re-landed at the Haneda Airport in 1974, she met her son with these words "Hiroo, you are great!"
Watching TV, I thought ordinary mother would not say such "great" in public if she could imagine, more or less, there were victims for her son's homing. Onoda would have been a good boy for his mother.

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## vikingBerserker (Jan 19, 2014)

To think your child had been dead for the past 29 years only to find out he was alive. I could not imagine the joy she felt when she heard.


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## Shinpachi (Jan 19, 2014)

My direct impression at the time was - it was not necessarily the army that created Hiroo Onoda but his mother.
Onoda once said "When enlisted, my mother handed me a set of short sword saying 'Kill yourself with this if captured'".
I understood they had been in such era.

Onoda continued "When I came back home, I returned the sword to her".


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## ccheese (Jan 20, 2014)

Hiroo Onoda, an Imperial Japanese Army officer who remained at his jungle post on an island in the Philippines for 29 years, refusing to believe that World War II was over, and returned to a hero's welcome in the all but unrecognized Japan of 1974, died Thursday in Tokyo. He was 91.

RIP 

Charles

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## Gnomey (Jan 20, 2014)




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## Ian Warren (Jan 20, 2014)

A great story of survival, many perished in the Jungles when only a few days away from a base after being shot down, to survive almost thirty years, Yip the story reached prime TV channels in New Zealand - I would have loved to have known what went thru his mind when he saw how the world had changed, even the flight home would have boggled his views and to think what he thought of Japan ... an amazing life story.


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## parsifal (Jan 21, 2014)

ccheese said:


> Hiroo Onoda, an Imperial Japanese Army officer who remained at his jungle post on an island in the Philippines for 29 years, refusing to believe that World War II was over, and returned to a hero's welcome in the all but unrecognized Japan of 1974, died Thursday in Tokyo. He was 91.
> 
> RIP
> 
> Charles




i dont know why, but that says it all in such an elegant way charles


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## Shinpachi (Jan 21, 2014)

In a sense, he was a walking dictionary of lost IJA and it was very interesting for me to listen to him on TV because he could answer any question clearly as if he had just come from the 1940s on the previous day. It was time-machine effects.

When asked by a young man "How should we understand or cope with the Yasukuni Shrine? ", he answered with his clear words "You don't have to be sorry for the dead soldiers. They were glad to die for the nation. You only have to say 'Thanks' and that is enough for them. Everything has beginning and ending. You know the Imperial Edict of the End of War well but the other Imperial Edict of War that was our very reason to fight. I recommend you to read it and you will understand our Emperor's passion at the time."

This will be enough as the war was over 
Thanks.

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## vikingBerserker (Jan 21, 2014)

He actually wrote about his experience which I just ordered, though it is currently back ordered.







ISBN-10: 1557506639
ISBN-13: 978-1557506634

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## vikingBerserker (Feb 9, 2014)

This book came in this past Friday and I just finished reading it. This was really a fascinating book and gives you a better understanding about the man and the way he thought. He was specifically trained in Guerilla Warfare which at least to me explained a lot.

The only thing I wish it had included was him writing about his return to Japan.


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## Shinpachi (Feb 9, 2014)

Congrats David. You are now expert of Hiroo Onoda 
!!


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## vikingBerserker (Apr 19, 2014)

I found this very interesting:


Philippines: Hiking Trail in Lubang Island Dedicated to Hiroo Onoda Who Hid in Its Jungles for 3 Decades - WAR HISTORY ONLINE


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## Aaron Brooks Wolters (Apr 19, 2014)

I am sorry I missed this thread. To Mr. Onoda -  Rest In Peace sir.


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## Mobius (Apr 21, 2014)

I wonder if a Confederate soldier still fighting the Civil War 30 years after the war ended would be thought of as a hero.


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## vikingBerserker (Apr 21, 2014)

He certainly would be in the South.


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## GrauGeist (Apr 21, 2014)

Mobius said:


> I wonder if a Confederate soldier still fighting the Civil War 30 years after the war ended would be thought of as a hero.


General Joe Shelby and his "Iron Brigade" never did surrender. They went to Mexico, returning to the U.S. several years later.


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## parsifal (Feb 22, 2015)

Confederate General Joseph O. Shelby was so reluctant to surrender to Union forces that his unit earned the nickname “the Undefeated.” Shelby had spent the Civil War commanding a bushwhacking band of cavalry on a series of raids through Missouri and Arkansas. By the end of the conflict, his “Iron Brigade”—so named for its legendary grit—had caused millions of dollars in damages to Union supplies and property.

Announcing that they chose “exile over surrender,” Shelby and roughly 600 soldiers rode south to Mexico after the collapse of the Confederacy. Following a three-month journey through the desert, they offered their services to Maximilian I, an Austro-Hungarian who had been installed as emperor of Mexico in 1864. While the emperor balked at including rebel soldiers in his army, he allowed Shelby’s émigrés to help found the Carlota Colony, a small settlement of Confederate expats. The upstart community enjoyed a brief period of prosperity but eventually dissolved after Emperor Maximilian was overthrown. Having never surrendered to federal forces, Shelby and most of his comrades returned to the United States in 1867 and resumed civilian life.


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