Last to Surrender

Last to Surrender

This guy was either very loyal or very messed up, quite possibly both:

...One such soldier was Officer Candidate Hiroo Onoda. At the end of 1944 he was sent to the Phillipine Island of Lubang, having been trained in the art of guerrilla warfare. The Americans arrived in February 1945 and soon wiped out all Japanese forces save four men. One of them was newly-promoted Lieutenant Onoda.

Lieutenant Onoda began his guerrilla war only a few months before the end of World War II, which the four soldiers were unaware of. In 1949 one of the soldiers "deserted" to the Phillipine Army and was brought back to the area to try to tell the others that the war was over. Lt. Onoda recognized it for what it was: a trick! The remaining three soldiers "retreated" to a new area.

In 1954 another soldier in Onoda's tiny army was killed in a shootout with filipino fishermen. Leaflets were dropped over the area addressing the two remaining soldiers by name in a vain attempt to convince them that the war was over, but Lt. Onoda was too smart for that. Even when Onoda's brother was brought in to address them over a speaker system they were convinced that the Americans had found someone who looked and sounded like his brother in order to get rid of him.

Lt. Onoda lost his third and last soldier in 1972, while conducting a "raid" on rice crops. In 1974 he met a Japanese university dropout named Suzuki who had come out to Lubang with the express mission of finding Onoda. Cautious at first, Onoda listened as the young man told him that the war was over. Onoda explained that he could not surrender without orders. On March 9th, 1974, a meeting was arranged between Lt. Onoda and Maj. Taniguchi, Onoda's former commander. Taniguchi ordered Onoda to give up his sword and this small slice of World War II finally came to an end.