Hiroo Onoda, who refused to surrender for 30 years after second world war, dies
Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda waged a lone guerilla campaign on Luzon island until former commander convinced him to surrender in 1974
A Japanese soldier who hid in the Philippine jungle for three decades, refusing to believe the second world war was over until his former commander returned and persuaded him to surrender, has died in Tokyo aged 91.
Hiroo Onoda waged a guerilla campaign in Lubang Island near Luzon until he was finally persuaded in 1974 that peace had broken out.
Leaflet drops and other efforts to convince him the Imperial Army had been defeated failed, and it was only a visit from his former commanding officer, who ordered him to lay down his arms, that brought an end to his one-man war.
Onoda was the last of several dozen so-called holdouts scattered around Asia, men who symbolised the astonishing perseverance of those called upon to fight for their emperor.
Trained as an information officer and guerilla tactics coach, Onoda was dispatched to Lubang in 1944 and ordered never to surrender, never to resort to suicidal attacks and to hold firm until reinforcements arrived. He and three other soldiers continued to obey that order long after Japan's 1945 defeat. Their existence became widely known in 1950, when one of their number emerged and returned to Japan.
I lived through an era called a war. What people say varies from era to era
The remaining men continued to survey military facilities, attacking local residents and occasionally fighting with Philippine forces, although one of them died soon afterwards. Tokyo and Manila searched for them but ruled in 1959 that they were dead.