Newsgroup: it.cultura.storia
Titolo: 9/3/74 - 9/3/2004 in ricordo del tenente Hiro Onoda

    Il 9 marzo 1974 poteva considerarsi definitivamente conclusa la seconda
guerra mondiale, gli USA potevano considerarsi finalmente al sicuro (!):
l'ultimo soldato dell'esercito imperiale nipponico, il tenente Hiro Onoda,
si arrendeva, dopo essere stato scoperto in una sperduta isola delle
Filippine, Lubang. Rimasto completamente isolato nella giungla, tagliato
fuori dal resto del mondo e ignaro della fine della guerra, il tenente Onoda
dal 1944 era rimasto fedele al proprio giuramento, eseguendo con onore e
fedeltà gli ordini ricevuti fino all'ultimo giorno... Tralascio ogni altra
considerazione personale, mi sembrava comunque giusto ricordare questo
episodio in un newsgroup si toria militare, poi ognuno trarrà le proprie
conclusioni (stupido fanatismo? nobile eoismo? caso clinico o scelta
consapevole di compiere il proprio dovere fino all'ultimo?...)
Hiro Onoda si è poi rifatto una vita e risiede tuttora in Brasile. Ha
scritto una autobiografia, "No Surrender My Thirty Year War " (qualcuno sa
se è stata tradotta in italiano?). Qui si riporta un riassunto in inglese
della sua vicenda, e di quella di altri che come lui, non si arresero e
furono ritrovati, o uccisi, anni dopo la fine ufficiale del secondo
conflitto mondiale.
In the Philippines
On December 17, 1944, Lt. Hiroo Onoda left for the Philippines to join the
Sugi Brigade (the Eighth Division from Hirosaki). Here, Onoda was given
orders by Major Yoshimi Taniguchi and Major Takahashi. Onoda was ordered to
lead the Lubang Garrison in guerrilla warfare. As Onoda and his comrades
were getting ready to leave on their separate missions, they stopped by to
report to the division commander. The division commander ordered:
  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.1
Onoda took these words more literally and seriously than the division
commander could ever have meant them.
On Lubang
Once on the island of Lubang, Onoda was supposed to blow up the pier at the
harbor and destroy the Lubang airfield. Unfortunately, the garrison
commanders, who were worried about other matters, decided not to help Onoda
on his mission and soon the island was overrun by the Allies. The remaining
Japanese soldiers, Onoda included, retreated into the inner regions of the
island and split up into groups. As these groups dwindled in size after
several attacks, the remaining soldiers split into cells of 3 and 4 people.
There were four people in Onoda's cell: Corporal Shoichi Shimada (age 30),
Private Kinshichi Kozuka (age 24), Private Yuichi Akatsu (age 22), and Lt.
Hiroo Onoda (now age 23).
They lived very close together, with very limited supplies: the clothes they
were wearing, a small amount of rice, and each had a gun with limited
ammunition. Rationing the rice was difficult and caused fights, but they
supplemented it with coconuts and bananas. Every once in a while, they were
able to kill a civilian's cow for food.
The cells would save up their energy and use guerrilla tactics to fight in
skirmishes. Other cells were captured or were killed while Onoda's continued
to fight from the interior.
The War is Over...Come Out!
Onoda first saw a leaflet that claimed the war was over in October 1945.
When another cell had killed a cow, they found a leaflet left behind by the
islanders which read: "The war ended on August 15. Come down from the
mountains!"2 But as they sat in the jungle, the leaflet just didn't seem to
make sense, for another cell had just been fired upon a few days ago. If the
war were over, why would they still be under attack? No, they decided, the
leaflet must be a clever ruse by the Allied propagandists.
Again, the outside world tried to contact the survivors living on the island
by dropping leaflets out of a Boeing B-17 near the end of 1945. Printed on
these leaflets was the surrender order from General Yamashita of the
Fourteenth Area Army. Having already hidden on the island for a year and
with the only proof of the end of the war being this leaflet, Onoda and the
others scrutinized every letter and every word on this piece of paper. One
sentence in particular seemed suspicious, it said that those who surrendered
would receive "hygienic succor" and be "hauled" to Japan. Again, they
believed this must be an Allied hoax.
Leaflet after leaflet was dropped. Newspapers were left. Photographs and
letters from relatives were dropped. Friends and relatives spoke out over
loudspeakers. There was always something suspicious, so they never believed
that the war had really ended.
Over the Years
Year after year, the four men huddled together in the rain, searched for
food, and sometimes attacked villagers. They fired on the villagers because,
"We considered people dressed as islanders to be enemy troops in disguise or
enemy spies. The proof that they were was that whenever we fired on one of
them, a search party arrived shortly afterward."3 It had become a cycle of
disbelief. Isolated from the rest of the world, everyone appeared to be the
enemy.
In 1949, Akatsu wanted to surrender. He didn't tell any of the others; he
just walked away. In September 1949 he successfully got away from the others
and after six months on his own in the jungle, Akatsu surrendered. To
Onoda's cell, this seemed like a security leak and they became even more
careful of their position.
In June 1953, Shimada was wounded during a skirmish. Though his leg wound
slowly got better (without any medicines or bandages), he became gloomy. On
May 7, 1954, Shimada was killed in a skirmish on the beach at Gontin.
For nearly 20 years after Shimad's death, Kozuka and Onoda continued to live
in the jungle together, awaiting the time when they would again be needed by
the Japanese army. Per the division commanders instructions, they believed
it was their job to remain behind enemy lines, reconnoiter and gather
intelligence to be able to train Japanese troops in guerrilla warfare in
order to regain the Philippine islands.
Surrender
In October 1972, at the age of 51 and after 27 years of hiding, Kozuka was
killed during a clash with a Filipino patrol. Though Onoda had been
officially declared dead in December 1959 Kozuka's body proved the
likelihood that Onoda was still living. Search parties were sent out to find
Onoda, but none succeeded.
Onoda was now on his own. Remembering the division commander's order, he
could not kill himself yet he no longer had a single soldier to command.
Onoda continued to hide.
In 1974, a college dropout named Norio Suzuki decided to travel to the
Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, Nepal, and perhaps a few other
countries on his way. He told his friends that he was going to search for
Lt. Onoda, a panda, and the Abominable Snowman.4 Where so many others had
failed, Suzuki succeeded. He found Lt. Onoda and tried to convince him that
the war was over. Onoda explained that he would only surrender if his
commander ordered him to do so.
Suzuki traveled back to Japan and found Onoda's former commander, Major
Taniguchi, who had become a bookseller. On March 9, 1974, Suzuki and
Taniguchi met Onoda at a preappointed place and Major Taniguchi read the
orders that stated all combat activity was to be ceased. Onoda was shocked
and, at first, disbelieving. It took some time for the news to sink in.
  We really lost the war! How could they have been so sloppy?
  Suddenly everything went black. A storm raged inside me. I felt like a
fool for having been so tense and cautious on the way here. Worse than that,
what had I been doing for all these years?
  Gradually the storm subsided, and for the first time I really understood:
my thirty years as a guerrilla fighter for the Japanese army were abruptly
finished. This was the end.
  I pulled back the bolt on my rifle and unloaded the bullets. . . .
  I eased off the pack that I always carried with me and laid the gun on top
of it. Would I really have no more use for this rifle that I had polished
and cared for like a baby all these years? Or Kozuka's rifle, which I had
hidden in a crevice in the rocks? Had the war really ended thirty years ago?
If it had, what had Shimada and Kozuka died for? If what was happening was
true, wouldn't it have been better if I had died with them?5
During the 30 years that Onoda had remain hidden on Lubang island, he and
his men had killed at least 30 Filipinos and had wounded approximately 100
others. After formally surrendering to Philippine President Ferdinand
Marcos, Marcos pardoned Onoda for his crimes while in hiding.
When Onoda reached Japan, he was hailed a hero. Life in Japan was much
different than when he had left it in 1944. Onoda bought a ranch and moved
to Brazil. In May 1996, he returned to the Philippines to see once again the
island on which he had hidden for 30 years.
1. Hiroo Onoda, No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War (New York: Kodansha
International Ltd., 1974) 44.
2. Onoda, No Surrender 75.
3. Onoda, No Surrender 94.
4. Onoda, No Surrender 7.
5. Onoda, No Surrender 14-15.

 se è stata tradotta in italiano?).
Fu pubblicato nel 1975 da Mondadori con il titolo "Non mi arrendo".
Ricordo anch'io il ten. Onoda con rispetto ed ammirazione
Roberto

 se è stata tradotta in italiano?).
Il libro con il titolo "Non mi arrendo" fu pubblicato da Arnoldo
Mondadori Editore nel 1975.
Anch'io ricordo il ten. Onoda con rispetto ed ammirazione.
Roberto