Hiroo Onoda: The Soldier Whose War Lasted Until 1974

Strange History · September 29, 2026

World War II ended in 1945. For Japanese officer Hiroo Onoda, it did not end until 1974.

In December 1944, Onoda was sent to Lubang, an island in the Philippines about 75 miles southwest of Manila. He was an army intelligence officer, and his orders from Major Yoshimi Taniguchi were to carry on guerrilla warfare and not to surrender.

Why he did not come out

When the war ended, leaflets were dropped saying so. Onoda took them for a trick. He later said the leaflets had mistakes in them, so he judged they were an American plot. Over the years, search parties came looking, and he treated those as traps as well.

He stayed in the jungle for twenty-nine years. He had three companions at first. One surrendered in 1950, one was killed in 1954, and the last was killed in 1972 in a clash with Philippine forces.

The cost

This is not a lighthearted story, and it should not be told as one. By most accounts, Onoda and his men killed about thirty people over the years, including local villagers they believed were enemies. Sources give slightly different numbers. Many people on Lubang never forgave him.

Found by a young traveler

In early 1974, a Japanese adventurer named Norio Suzuki went to Lubang looking for Onoda, and found him within four days. Onoda told him he would only stop on orders from his commanding officer.

So the government tracked down Major Taniguchi, who by then was working as a bookseller. He flew to Lubang in March 1974 and gave Onoda the order to stand down in person.

The surrender

On March 11, 1974, Onoda handed over his sword at Malacañang Palace in Manila. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos pardoned him, and gave the sword back.

Onoda returned to Japan to a hero's welcome. He later wrote a memoir, No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War, and lived in Brazil for a time before he died in 2014 at age 91.

Notes on the sources

Accounts vary on the exact number of people killed and on how long he was in the jungle ("29 years" in the BBC and New York Times, "almost 30 years" in the Guardian). We use the more cautious wording where they differ.

Sources