
The Japanese Soldier Who Fought WWII for 30 Years - _pius
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/02/a-japanese-soldier-who-continued-fighting-wwii-29-years-after-the-japanese-surrendered-because-he-didnt-know/
======
seldo
I love this story. I remember reading a very abridged version of it in one of
my Super Fact Books when I was 8 or 9 (it omitted the fact that he murdered
dozens of people, for instance). Still, he's an amazing (if very, very dumb)
character.

~~~
robryan
With soldiers this dedicated to the cause though you have to think had there
been no atomic bombs the world may have been a very different place.

~~~
lionhearted
Yes, but maybe in a different way than you'd think. There was a divide in
Imperial Japanese politics - the Emperor wanted to end the war and was looking
to surrender pre-Hiroshima. The heads of the military were split on a course
of action - some wanted to fight to the end, but a more common position was
trying to fight enough to get more favorable terms than just unconditional
surrender.

It's common enough to fight a losing effort to get better surrender terms, and
that's probably what would have happened. The United States never wanted to
land invade Japan - the second option to bombings was a blockade to starve the
army out. Do the Japanese still unconditionally surrender if they go that
route? Could the Imperial Japanese Army be enough of a menace that the U.S.
leadership takes less than unconditional surrender for terms? Maybe.

The most interesting question is what happens if Japan doesn't unconditionally
surrender, become occupied, and have the MacArthur transition government put
into place. It was hell at the time for Japan, but then Japan became an
American protectorate and was able to run their government with one of the
lowest military expenditures in the Western world. They were also well-
protected from the various brutal Communist regimes in the area. Could Japan
have been invaded by Red China or the Soviet Union if the Empire had kept more
sovereignty and wasn't an American protectorate?

Interesting questions. After the Battle of Midway, the Japanese had already
lost to the American forces and it was just a matter of time. The war was
going to end, nuclear bombings or not. The question is when and on what terms.
Japan got the worst possible terms - unconditional surrender, full
disarmament, dissolution and loss of all colonies, and foreign military
occupation - but then it works out that it becomes the most prosperous place
in Asia. Funny world.

~~~
patrickk
The Americans also showed the Japanese how to build cars and motorbikes, and
now Toyota is the biggest car manufacturer in the world, and Japanese
manufacturers are leading innovators in automobile manufacturing. The Japanese
focus was small, incremental improvements over time, whereas for decades the
Western attitude was 'big-bang' progress, i.e. trying to do a lot of
innovation all at once. James Dyson speaks a lot about this in his
autobiography.

Japanese manufacturing concepts of _kaizen_ (continuous improvement) and
_muda_ (waste), among others, were copied by the rest of the world. The
Japanese got the concepts in the first place from American manufacturing
processes during WWII, used to rush Sherman tanks and other mass produced
military hardware into production.

Sticking with the Axis powers post-WWII, Germany now produces it cars like it
produced it's WWII tanks - big, powerful and expensive. The Tiger tank, for
example, was a fearsome machine for it's time - one German tank ace in a Tiger
laid waste to over two dozen vehicles in a single afternoon. It's 88mm main
cannon could easily kill inferior American Shermans at over a mile away.

It's interesting to note how well Germany's economy fared after WWII also. To
this day, the German economy is managed by keeping inflation under 2-3% (if I
remember correctly). This is as a result of the rampant inflation in the
Weimar Republic - conditions that lead to Hitler's rise to power. Germany
today dominates the ECB (European Central Bank) so that mindset is at the
forefront Europe-wide also, which contrasts with the slightly more _laisse-
faire_ economic approach in the US.

Very funny how things work out, indeed. Also it's fascinating for the
historical reasons for the way policy, culture and attitudes are today.

~~~
lionhearted
Ah man, this was such a great and insightful and correct comment until this
part -

> ...which contrasts with the slightly more laisse-faire economic approach in
> the US.

Nah, the USA hasn't been laissez-faire in money for a long time. Interest
rates artificially low, lending based on political regulations, high ranking
employees of major banks moving back and forth between government posts and
high paying jobs at the major banks... nah, American currency/banks/Federal
Reserve are incredibly government-managed and corrupt. Fiat currency + legal
tender laws + direct election of Senate leading to short term thinking +
deficit spending is legal and tolerated... well, that winds up somewhere, but
it doesn't wind up laissez-faire.

Rest of the comment is good - what's interesting to me is that Japan got very
little reconstruction money. Europe had the Marshall Plan go into effect,
Japan had very little reconstruction money. It's a testament to the will and
work ethic of the Japanese people how fast they rebuilt the economy and
started prospering.

That said, I'm 100% with the rest of your comment aside from the idea that the
American money/currency is run hands-off, very good comment. For anyone more
curious, googling any of the terms in your comment would bring back some
interesting results. I always thought it was fascinating that Germans were
terrified of inflation and Americans were terrified of deflation, largely
because of historical experiences in the years between WWI and WWII.

~~~
patrickk
Well thanks for the compliment all the same! I'm not an economist, but I do
have a keen interest in history, particularly WWII.

Here's a link if you would like to read more about the Tiger:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_I#Combat_examples>

" _Nah, the USA hasn't been laissez-faire in money for a long time._ " - I
only meant more laisse faire in comparison to Europe, and in a historical
sense. I should've been more specific. Note I said _slightly more_ laissez-
faire ;-) It's moving further and further in the opposite direction now of
course, with the crash of 2008 and ensuring economic upheaval, Obama
administration's economic approach vs, Bushs' , Greenspan gone, TARP, bank
bailouts etc.

Another interesting European policy decision arising out of the ashes of WWII
is the European attitude to privacy of the individual, which is quite
different to the American model. The European Data Protection Directive is
interesting, in that specific protections are laid in place, versus the
American approach which " _relies on a combination of legislation, regulation,
and self-regulation, rather than overarching governmental regulations_ " -
Wikipedia

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive>

It goes onto explain that because individual's personal information was used
by Nazi Germany to put people on cattle cars and ship them to concentration
camps, Europe was always going to be more concerned about personal privacy
than America, which had never gone through such a horrific experience. How
could they possibly understand such an attitude, having never lived through
the Holocaust? Fascinating stuff, in my opinion.

~~~
avar
If that policy's really derived from WWII I daresy they've completely missed
the point. The Data Protection Directive wouldn't help if you Europe were to
fall under Nazi control again.

It's just a law that says the government can't process the data in certain
ways, they still _have_ the data though, and could start mining it by changing
the law, or ignoring it.

If they actually cared they wouldn't be gathering this data in the first
place. The U.S. (officially) keeps a lot less data on its citizens than the
average European country, but that's been changing in the recent decades since
the FBI, NSA and others were founded.

~~~
yummyfajitas
"...but that's been changing in the _recent decades_ since the FBI, NSA and
others were founded."

I wouldn't exactly characterize the last 6-8 decades as "recent".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation#History)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsa>

~~~
avar
Relatively speaking. The first census was taken in 1790, the records being
kept about US citizens today are a relatively recent thing compared to that.

------
JacobAldridge
Turns out Step 3 is 'Live on coconute for thirty years and then get back pay'.
Step 4 remains Profit.

------
seertaak
> Among his list of things to do on his journey was to find “Onoda, a panda,
> and the Abominable Snowman”.

Genius!

~~~
jimbokun
How'd he do on the other two?

------
TallGuyShort
Ignoring his actions for a moment, I really admire his quotes about children
needing to be raised to be more independent (which can be seen at the bottom
of the article). I'm a big believer that most of the world's problems today,
are caused because someone, somewhere, didn't take responsibility for
themselves, and I think he hit the root cause of that on the head. Interesting
to hear the opinion of someone who basically skipped 30 years of society's
gradual change.

~~~
Tichy
Being independent doesn't imply living a sustainable lifestyle.

------
JoeAltmaier
Don't we all live a life of self-delusion? Most of us haven't seen through the
fog yet; we're still fighting for nothing.

------
chrischen
Blind conviction to your country is nationalism. I don't see how he can be
seen as a hero for that. Sure what he did was amazing, but I wouldn't
encourage such patriotic behavior.

~~~
coryl
It wasn't just blind conviction though, he was a professional soldier. It was
war time, and his commanding officer sent him in to conduct guerrilla warfare
in the jungles. He was expected to be there for a long time and operationally
independent.

"You are absolutely forbidden to die by your own hand. It may take three
years, it may take five, but whatever happens, we’ll come back for you. Until
then, so long as you have one soldier, you are to continue to lead him. You
may have to live on coconuts. If that’s the case, live on coconuts! Under no
circumstances are you [to] give up your life voluntarily."

~~~
varjag
There's no mention he was professional though.

EDIT: "When he was 20 years old, he was called to join the Japanese army."

He was in fact a conscript.

~~~
Tichy
And he had never even seen Rambo I and II...

------
coryl
Wow, first time reading about this. Absolutely insane.

------
Eliezer
Now there was a man who needed to learn how to lose.

~~~
Kliment
Sly reference to your fanfic, I see. For those who missed it when it was on
HN, I'm referring to
[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_M...](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality)

------
scotty79
> Now in the end, we might look at Onoda as a fool and worse, a murder of
> innocent people. In the end, he was both of those things, there is no
> denying it.

Funny thing is that at war time being idiot murderer of innocent people is
just fine. I think there should be much more footage from war zones. Maybe
then people would stop looking at war as sane and sometimes appropriate
option.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Worse option: letting the other guy go to war, and you don't. Its called
surrender and can be worse.

~~~
MichaelSalib
This is not always true. Almost all wars are started for "defensive" reasons
and oftentimes those reasons are just lies told to drum up support for the
war.

The Nazi regime convinced ordinary people that they had to fight against an
internal Jewish threat. That was a lie. If ordinary Germans had let "the other
guy" go to war, nothing would have happened because there was no internal
threat. Likewise, if Americans had ignored the terrible threat that Iraq posed
to the US in 2003, then nothing would have happened: Iraq wasn't a threat to
the US. Claims that it was trying to do destroy the US or had the capability
to do so were lies. Ignoring the lies is not surrender.

The first rule of honorable war fighting is to figure out which justifications
are true and which are lies. A people that can't or won't do that can never be
honorable since sooner or later, they'll end up exterminating lots of innocent
people in a war based on lies.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Whether the other guy starts a war based on a lie or not is immaterial to
whether or not you are a: dead or b: living under his boot heel.

As reference: see most of human history.

~~~
MichaelSalib
You miss the point. There may be cases where "the other guy" actually starts a
war against us. But that doesn't seem very common. What is much more common is
"the other guy" doing nothing but our own people making up lies about what
"the other guy" is doing; you know, inventing a fictional war. In those cases,
you're not going to end up dead or living under anyone's boot heel.

~~~
InclinedPlane
I didn't miss your point, I rejected it.

~~~
MichaelSalib
The US started a war in Iraq that has exterminated about a million human
beings so far and has produced 3 or 4 million refugees. We started that war
because we believed lies. If taking actions that lead to a million corpses
because we were insufficiently skeptical doesn't trouble you, well, I'd guess
that our value systems are sufficiently incompatible so as to make discussion
impossible.

Also, I dislike sociopathy.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hm. Is that number pulled out of the air?

<http://www.iraqbodycount.org/>

~~~
MichaelSalib
No, it most certainly is not. The number is based on the Lancet 2 study which
found about 650,000 excess deaths. Tim Lambert at Deltoid extrapolated the
Lancet 2 excess mortality rates to about one million because Lancet 2 ended
just as violence in Iraq was increasing enough to make further field work
impossible. See <http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/11/deaths_in_iraq_1.php>
for more information.

In general, Iraq Body Count is an obscene underestimate of excess deaths. IBC
data comes from two sources (1) english language journalist accounts and (2)
Iraqi government data. We know that (1) is absurd because when violence
increases, deaths increase and reporters' presence on the ground decreases
dramatically. If you read journalists' accounts of their own work in Iraq (for
example, _Imperial Life in the Emerald City_ by Rajiv Chandrasekaran), you'll
note that in many cases reporters simply never left the green zone. How could
they possibly write stories about killings when they can't leave the green
zone? We know that the data from (2) is highly suspect because much of the
conflict in Iraq has been sectarian with government death squads engaged in
ethnic cleansing. For example, we have evidence showing that when Shiite
religious parties took control of the ministry of health after elections, they
fired Sunni medical staff and imposed policies restricting the treatment of
wounded Shia. If the Shia run ministry of health won't treat Sunni victims,
why on Earth should we trust them to faithfully record statistics about how
many Sunnis were executed by government death squads? I mean, are we normally
so credulous that we accept death counts made by the government accused of
making the killings?

From a scientific perspective, IBC's "analysis" is garbage and should be
ignored. At the very least, you have no business citing IBC unless you
understand enough about IBC's methodological flaws to explain precisely why it
can only be considered a gross underestimate.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sorry, I only meant to point to reports of concrete data. I didn't know the
standard of accuracy here is extrapolations on studies, speculation and
politically-charged argument, istead of data reported "on the ground".

------
yewweitan
The power of indoctrination is strong.

------
willhankinson
I highly recommend his autobiography (linked in the article)-- No Surrender:
My Thirty-Year War. I picked it up on a whim once, having never heard of the
story, and was blown away by it.

------
foxtrot
there was a film with this in, or at least inspired by it. Remember the image
in my head of a japanese soldier in dishevelled clothes looking out at the
ocean from a bunker.

------
dennisgorelik
That's the danger of brainwashing...

