The story of WW2 Japanese soldier Hiroo Onada is one of the most armor-piercingly incredible true stories I’ve ever come across amongst a lifetime of reading.
NO SURRENDER is a self-penned, first person account of Onada’s 29 years spent hiding in the jungle after WW2 ended in 1945. Putting it mildly, it can be considered an all-powerful, uplifting and swashbuckling celebration of the human spirit. NEXT NEXT LEVEL.
I remember becoming engrossed in another tale of survival back when I read the 2006 book MIRACLE IN THE ANDES. Also a first-person memoir, it was written by one of the survivors of the 1972 light plane crash in the Andes mountains.
That account spanned 72 days, from the day of the crash to the day of rescue. Hiroo Onada’s tale of beyond superhuman endurance and ‘survivorship’ spans three decades.
During WW2 in 1942, Japan captured the Phillipines. It was to this country that a 23-year-old Japanese Intelligence Officer by the name of Hiroo Onada would be sent. When Japan finally surrended to the Western Allied forces in September of 1945, word of the end of the war did eventually reach the Phillipines.
However Onada and three other Japanese commandos he was with refused to believe it. They lived on in the mountains for decades, with Onada the last to emerge from his jungle hideaway.
To grasp the degree of fanaticism and devotion to duty that kept Onada sustained for all those years, one must take into account the thinking and codes of conduct that governed some of the more extreme units of the Japanese military at the time.
Onada writes in his book that the brutal guerrilla warfare training he received in Kyushu before being dispatched to the Philippines emphasised the importance of staying alive and continuing to fight as long as possible. He adds this ideology perfectly suited his personality at the time.
Shame was used as a powerful enforcer of such impossibly high standards. If a soldier who had been taken prisoner later managed to return to Japan he was subject to a court martial and a possible death penalty. Onada mentions that even if the penalty was not carried out, the soldier upon returning would be so thoroughly ostracised by others that he may as well have been dead.
Against the backdrop of this cultural brainwashing, Onada pledged to carry out his orders on the Island of Lubang in the Phillipines with the devout fanaticism and ‘never say die’ mindset that was expected of him.
He recalled the exact words of his commanding officer who handed him his orders before leaving Japan – “You are absolutely forbidden to die by your own hand. So long as you have one soldier left you are to continue to lead him. You may have to live on coconuts. You may have to eat grass and weeds. Under no circumstances are you to give up your life voluntarily.”
Next time, we check out the literally death-defying tricks and ‘hacks’ Hiroo Onada used to stay alive for three decades in the Phillipines jungle.
It was happy days when Hiroo decided to ‘come out’ (of the jungle). Your HAPPY DAYS is just a click away HERE
