This is the story of Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of Japan who stuck to his military code for 30 years, waiting for orders from his Major. The story begins with the Second World War. It had been three years since twenty-three year old Hiroo had joined the army. This five feet four inches tall soldier, who had learnt the art of sword fighting in his childhood, had received training in intelligence activities. In the beginning of December 1944, he received orders that he was posted on an island named Lubang near the capital of the Philippines, Manila, where his job was to make every effort to prevent the landing of American ships. Within a few days, he was in Lubang.
When American forces launched an air raid on the island on February 28, 1945, all the Japanese soldiers were either killed or trying to escape. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, hiding in the jungle, received a written order from his officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi: "Stand where you are and keep fighting. This war may take three years, or it may take five. Whatever happens, we will definitely come to take you back."
This promise from the Major proved to be life-giving medicine for Hiroo Onoda, and he continued to perform his duty in the jungle with his three comrades.
Meanwhile, after the Hiroshima-Nagasaki incident, Japan surrendered to the United States in September 1945. Subsequently, thousands of Japanese soldiers dispersed across China, Southeast Asia, and the Western Pacific. Many were arrested and repatriated. Hundreds committed suicide, and many died of disease and starvation. News of Japan's defeat was constantly broadcast on the radio, and leaflets to this effect were dropped from airplanes.
Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda and his three companions also received such leaflets, but they did not believe them. They thought they were part of enemy propaganda.
All four soldiers were trained guerrillas and knew how to survive in the harshest conditions. After nearly ten months in the jungle, they realized that the war was going to be a long one. They built bamboo huts next to their tents and began stealing rice and meat from nearby villages to feed themselves. The extreme heat in the jungle, and the mosquitoes and rats made living extremely difficult.
Gradually, their uniforms began to tear. They straightened pieces of wire into needles and spun plant fibers into thread. They tore pieces of tents and repaired their uniforms until they were torn to shreds.
Sometimes, an unfortunate villager would wander toward their post and fall victim to their bullets. Philippine Army units were also patrolling the area, making it extremely difficult to evade them.
Five years later, Hiroo Onoda, desperately defeated, saw a fellow soldier surrender to the Philippine Army. This was a deeply disappointing event, but the surviving soldiers remained undeterred and somehow survived. Four more years passed before one of them was killed by local police searching for the rebels.
From 1954 to 1972, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda and his companion, Kinshichi Kozuka, spent the next eighteen years together. In 1959, the Japanese army officially declared them dead. In 1972, Kozuka was also killed by the police.
Hiru Onoda, hiding in the jungles, had turned fifty by then. He had spent twenty-seven of these fifty years on duty. He still had two more years to go.
In the 1970s, a paranoid student named Norio Suzuki, who was conducting research at Tokyo University, was convinced that some Japanese soldiers might be hiding in the Philippines. Through a series of coincidences, he met Hiroo Onoda in the last months of 1973.
Only after several secret meetings did he gain his trust. He asked him to return to Japan. Hiroo replied that he would not return until he received orders from his superiors.
Some time later, Suzuki returned with Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda's brother and a government delegation. Despite this, Hiroo Onoda remained unconvinced and told Suzuki that he would not move from his post until his commander ordered him to.
Finally, the same old Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, who had ordered Hiroo to continue fighting in December 1944, was brought to Lubang Island. The Major had retired by then and was running a bookstore in his hometown.
Onoda recognized the Major as soon as he saw him. He saluted him. With tears in his eyes, the Major said, "Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, you can leave your duty! Japan has lost the war!"
In the accompanying photograph, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda can be seen listening to his Major's order. Every single stitch on his uniform tells its own story. There's no need to describe what was written in the sparkle in his eyes.
Much later, after returning to his country, Japan, a completely changed country, where thousands of people lined the streets in every city to welcome him, a journalist asked him, "What was on your mind during thirty years of living in the jungle like this?"
Hiroo Onoda's reply was, "Nothing special except that I had to do my duty."
Before his death on January 16, 2014, at the age of ninety-two, this brave samurai became known as the only Japanese hero of World War II.
Today, when channels like Discovery promote those who survive alone in the jungle for two or four nights as survival experts, there are hardly any adjectives in any dictionary to describe Hiroo Onoda's unimaginable struggle of nearly thirty years, or ten thousand days.
On that afternoon of March 9, 1974, after hearing the Major's order, Hiroo Onoda, dressed in rags, placed his gun on the ground and burst into tears.
He was crying for the first time in thirty years.
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