Onoda Hirō

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The young Onoda Hirō (1944/45)

Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda ( Jap. 小野田寛郎 Hiroo Onoda * 19th March 1922 in Kainan , † 16 January 2014 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese intelligence officer, who after the end of World War II until 1974 on the Philippine island of Lubang as holdout persevered .

biography

origin

Onoda was born in Kainan , the fifth of seven children ; he had four brothers and two sisters.

Life in hiding

Onoda was stationed on Lubang when American troops captured the island in February 1945. Most of the Japanese armed forces were killed or captured. Onoda and the soldiers Yuichi Akatsu, Siochi Shimada and Kinshichi Kozuka, however, were able to escape into the jungle and hid there.

In October 1945 the group found the first leaflet that announced the end of the war . Shortly afterwards a second one with the request: “The war ended on August 15th. Come down from the mountains! ”But the soldiers mistrusted this, as they had heard gunshots a few days earlier. They therefore concluded that the leaflets must have been Allied propaganda . In late 1945, more leaflets were dropped with orders from Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita to surrender. Onoda's group consulted in order to finally come to the conclusion that this leaflet was also a ruse. Akatsu left the group in September 1949 and, after six months on his own, surrendered to the Filipinos in 1950. The remaining three soldiers saw Akatsu's disappearance as a security problem and became even more cautious. Akatsu, meanwhile, confirmed to the outside world that the other three were still alive, which in 1952 resulted in letters and family photos being discarded asking them to surrender. The three Japanese did not comply again. Shimada was hit in the leg in 1953 during a shootout with local fishermen. Onoda tended him until he recovered. Finally, on May 7, 1954, Shimada was shot dead by a search party that was supposed to locate the men.

As part of their guerrilla activities, the two remaining men Onoda and Kozuka burned rice on October 19, 1972, which was just being collected by local farmers. As a result, Kozuka was shot dead by local police. After this incident, the authorities considered that Onoda, who was pronounced dead in December 1959, might still be alive. Search parties were formed again, but this time too they were unable to locate Onoda. The news that Onoda might still be alive spread to Japan. There the student Suzuki Norio just dropped out of his studies and set himself the goal of “Lieutenant Onoda, to find a panda and the yeti , in that order”. So Suzuki traveled to the region where Onoda was suspected and looked for him there. Because Suzuki spoke Japanese , Onoda identified himself on February 20, 1974. Both became friends. However, Onoda continued to refuse to surrender without an order from a superior. Suzuki therefore returned to Japan with photos of himself and Onoda as evidence of their meeting. There the authorities located Onoda's former superior, Major Taniguchi, who had since become a bookseller. He flew to Lubang on March 9, 1974, informed Onoda of Japan's surrender in World War II and ordered him to surrender. Onoda accepted that. At that time, he still carried his uniform , katana sword, rifle , around 500 rounds of ammunition and several hand grenades . Although he had killed about 30 people and wounded about 100 others during his time on the island and was involved in several shootings with the police, he was pardoned by the Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos due to the circumstances .

Next life

After his return to Japan he was so popular that he was encouraged to run for parliament, which he did not. Instead, he wrote his biography Waga Ruban-tō no sanjūnen sensō ( Never give up: My 30 Years War ). In April 1975 he had had enough of the hype about himself and, following the example of his older brother Tadao, retired to Brazil to become a cattle breeder. There he married in 1976 and became a leader in the local Japanese community. In 1980 he read a report about a Japanese youth who had killed his parents. Since he attributed this to the decline in values ​​in Japanese society, he decided in 1984 to return to Japan and open "Onoda's School of Nature" to counteract this decline in values. This school now has several branches across Japan.

In 1996 Onoda visited Lubang Island again and donated US $ 10,000 to the local school . His wife Machie became an influential figure in a conservative Japanese women's association in 2006. He himself spent three months a year in Brazil. Onoda died on January 16, 2014 in a Tokyo hospital.

See also

Works

  • 小野 田 寛 郎 『戦 っ た 、 生 き た 、 ル バ ン 島 30 年』 講 談 社 , Onoda Hirō: Tatakatta, ikita, Ruban-tō sanjūnen , Kōdansha 1974
  • 小野 田 寛 郎 、 酒 巻 和 男 『遥 か に 祖国 を 語 る』 時事 通信 社 , Onoda Hirō, Sakamaki Kazuo: Haruka ni sokoku wo kataru , Jiji Tsūshinsha 1977
  • 『わ が ブ ラ ジ ル 人生』 講 談 社 , Wa ga burajiru jinsei , Kōdansha 1982
  • 『子 ど も は 野性 だ』 学習 研究 社 , Kodomo ha yasei da , Gakushū Kenkyūsha 1984
  • 『子 ど も は 風 の 子 、 自然 の 子 -『 ジ ャ ン グ ル お じ さ ん 』の 自然 流 子 育 て』 講 談 社 , Kodomo ha kaze no ko, shizen no ko - "janguru ojisan" no shate 1987
  • 『た っ た 一 人 の 30 年 戦 争』 東京 新聞 出版 局 , Tatta hitori no sanjūnen sensō , Tōkyō Shinbun Shuppankyoku 1995
  • 『わ が 回想 の ル バ ン グ 島』 朝日 新聞 社 , Wa ga kaisō no Ruban-tō , Asahi Shimbunsha 1995
  • 『極限 で 私 を 支 え た も の』 山 田村 教育 委員会 , Kyokugen de watakushi wo sasaeta mono , Yamada-mura Kyōiku Iinkai 1997
  • 『小野 田 寛 郎 - わ が ル バ ン 島 の 30 年 戦 争』 日本 図 書 セ ン タ ー , 1999, Onoda Hirō: Waga Ruban-tō no sanjūnen sensō. , My Thirty-Year War on Lubang Island, English translation: No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War. (Translation: Charles S. Terry) Kodansha International, Tokyo 1974, ISBN 1-55750-663-9 .
  • 『講演 ・ シ ン ポ ジ ウ ム 記録 集 - 平 成 11 年』, 靖國神社 崇敬 奉 賛 会 , Kōen Shinpojiumu Kirokushū Heisei Jūichi-nen , Yasukuni-jinja Sūkei Hōsankai 1999
  • 小野 田 寛 郎 『生 き る』 富山 県 民 生涯 学習 カ レ ッ ジ , Onoda Hirō: Ikiru , Toyama-ken Minsei Gaigakushū Karejji 2001
  • 『智慧 の 実 を 食 べ よ う。』 , Chie no mi wo tabeyō 2004
  • 『君 た ち 、 ど う す る?』, 新潮社 , Kimitachi, dō suru? , Shinchōsha 2004
  • 戸 井 十月 『小野 田 寛 郎 の 終 わ ら な い 戦 い』 新潮社 , Toi Jūgatsu: Onoda Hirō no owaranai sensō , Shinchōsha 2005
  • 小野 田 寛 郎 、 中 條 高 徳 『だ か ら 日本人 よ 、 靖 国 へ 行 こ う』 ワ ッ ク , Onoda Hirō, Nakajō Takanori: Dakara Nihonjin yo, Yasukuni he ikō , Wakku 2006
  • 『魚 は 水 人 は 人 の 中 - 今 だ か ら こ そ 伝 え た い 師 小野 田 寛 郎 の こ と ば』 清流 出版 , Uo ha Mizuhito ha hito no naka - Ima dakara koso tsutaū shi shi Onoba Hirō , 2007
  • 『ル バ ン グ 島 戦 後 30 年 の 戦 い と 靖国神社 へ の 思 い (ま ほ ろ ば シ リ ー ズ 2)』 明 成 社 , Ruban-tō sensō-go sanjū-nen no tatakai to Yasukuni-jinja 2007 - 978- Meise

literature

Individual evidence

  1. No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War
  2. Onoda, Japanese World War II soldier who waited until 1974 to surrender, dead at 91 , accessed on January 17, 2014.