makaha99
Active Member
As we're coming up on the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, here's something that most people here probably didn't know about.
There were these Japanese soldier holdouts who refused to surrender after WW2 ended and continued fighting, some for a very long time.
Check out this article about these crazy holdouts who refused to surrender:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout
Some of them didnt believe that the war was over, so they continued fighting for 10, 20 years and even longer, in remote parts of Pacific islands. They ended up fighting local police long after the U.S. military left.
And then there was this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda
You think thats normal behavior for a soldier??
I mean there was a lot of indoctrination in the Japanese army, but how in the world could a soldier think that the war is still going on after over 30 years? Has any war in modern history lasted that long? What was he thinking?
In fact, that guy Lt. Onoda didnt even surrender in the end, technically. It took his former commander in the army, who was still alive, to fly all the way to the Phillipines and personally relieve him of duty.
When he returned to Japan almost 30 years after WW2 ended, he said he was dismayed by how Japan had changed. He was stuck in a time capsule all of those years, isolated from society--he missed the 1950s, the turbulent 1960s, the Vietnam War, and when he got back to Japan, women had ditched their kimonos for short mini skirts.
I mean it seems like some of the Japanese soldiers were just nuts--just plain insane.
How about their allies (Germany)--were there any Nazi soldiers that held out for 30 years like these japanese nut cases?
I'm 1/4 Japanese and sometimes when I read about these things, I feel like hanging my head down in shame.
There were these Japanese soldier holdouts who refused to surrender after WW2 ended and continued fighting, some for a very long time.
Check out this article about these crazy holdouts who refused to surrender:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout
Some of them didnt believe that the war was over, so they continued fighting for 10, 20 years and even longer, in remote parts of Pacific islands. They ended up fighting local police long after the U.S. military left.
And then there was this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda
You think thats normal behavior for a soldier??
I mean there was a lot of indoctrination in the Japanese army, but how in the world could a soldier think that the war is still going on after over 30 years? Has any war in modern history lasted that long? What was he thinking?
In fact, that guy Lt. Onoda didnt even surrender in the end, technically. It took his former commander in the army, who was still alive, to fly all the way to the Phillipines and personally relieve him of duty.
When he returned to Japan almost 30 years after WW2 ended, he said he was dismayed by how Japan had changed. He was stuck in a time capsule all of those years, isolated from society--he missed the 1950s, the turbulent 1960s, the Vietnam War, and when he got back to Japan, women had ditched their kimonos for short mini skirts.
I mean it seems like some of the Japanese soldiers were just nuts--just plain insane.
How about their allies (Germany)--were there any Nazi soldiers that held out for 30 years like these japanese nut cases?
I'm 1/4 Japanese and sometimes when I read about these things, I feel like hanging my head down in shame.
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