generalspeaking

Monday, January 20, 2014

Justice?
"I wanted my own territory. To expand we had to break in the locals. I materialized to destroy things, threatening them, lighting fires in empty houses."
"I was always defiant and stubborn in everything I did."
Hiroo Onoda, former Japanese Intelligence lieutenant, Imperial Army, Second World War

Hiroo Onoda (c.) walking from the jungle where he had hidden since World War II. JIJI press/AFP/Getty Images

"The murders always took place when they were farming. One was attacked from behind as he stooped down. The body was found in one place and the head in another."
Lubang guide, Philippines

When he was 20 years of age, he enlisted in the Imperial Japanese Army, attending the Nakano School in Tokyo, the training camp for Intelligence agents. There he received intensive training in propaganda, sabotage, martial arts and guerrilla warfare. He was subsequently sent on a mission to Luang in 1944. It was part of a Japanese strategy in the Philippines to embed covert operatives in an effort to halt the American advance across the Pacific.

He was to oversee the destruction of the island's pier and runway. The American assault that was to have triggered this event did not eventuate. What did happen is that Japan surrendered on August 15 of that year. Onoda Nakano and three other Japanese from his unit (Private Yuichi Akatsu, Corporal Sohoichi Shimada and Private First Class Kinshichi Kozuka) remained in hiding. They refused to surrender.

"We found leaflets and photos from our families" recalled Onoda. "I assumed they were living under the occupation and had to obey the authorities to survive". He and his group would not betray the oaths they had taken in the Imperial Japanese Army: no surrender. The searches and attempts to find the group all failed; the pamphlets dropped to entreat them to surrender had no effect.

They retained their guerrilla training and operated as a guerrilla unit, persecuting the farmers in the area, raiding their holdings, living in rice, coconuts and meat from cattle slaughtered during farm raids. Onoda scrupulously maintained his rife, ammunition and sword, and when discovered 29 years after the war had ended, stated that he was focused on "nothing but accomplishing my duty".

He was one of the last of the "Zanryu nipponhei" (Japanese holdouts).

He finally surrendered to a direct order from his commanding officer who was brought to the Philippines, and who was by then a bookseller. But it was to former Major Yoshimi Taniguchi that Mr. Onoda surrendered himself, ceased all combat activity and surrendering his arms. When he returned to Japan he was heralded as a hero.

Tokyo and Japan in general were unrecognizable to him. He chose to leave Japan for a Japanese colony in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to become a cattle farmer. And he died at age 91 on January 6, 2014. More puzzling than the fanaticism that ensured this man lived an outlaw existence for 29 years, refusing to face reality, was the very fact that he was never apprehended as a criminal bandit and murderer.

To face justice in a Philippine court for the murder of innocent Filipino farmers long after the war had ended, choosing to victimize and slaughter people who had nothing to do with the war, and who paid the supreme penalty for his existence on their island.

Labels: Japan, Philippines, WWII