Hiroo Onoda: Japanese soldier who took three decades to surrender, dies

The Guardian ^ | 17 January 2014 | Justin McCurry

[Colonel Kangaroo]

The last Japanese soldier to come out of hiding and surrender, almost 30 years after the end of the second world war, has died.

Hiroo Onoda, an army intelligence officer, caused a sensation when he was persuaded to come out of hiding in the Philippine jungle in 1974.

The native of Wakayama prefecture in western Japan died of heart failure at a hospital in Tokyo on Thursday, his family said. He was 91.

Onoda’s three decades spent in the jungle – initially with three comrades and finally alone – came to be seen as an example of the extraordinary lengths to which some Japanese soldiers would go to demonstrate their loyalty to the then emperor, in whose name they fought.

[tet68]

He has died spotless in honor.
He should be buried at the Yasukuni Shrine.