Last Japanese Holdout dies

josip

RIP Hiroo Onoda. I've always been amazed by the story.

Balaclava1991

Hiroo Onoda represents the brain washed fanatical moronic stupidity of the Japanese during WW2.
Onoda futilely killed several people years after the war had ended.
When the Americans were clearing island after island after island meeting Japanese garrisons who refused to surrender and fought almost to the last men they gave them no mercy when they saw their buddies dying for no purpose due to their mind numbing stupidity.
It was the stupidity of men like Onodo at every level of Japanese society that virtually guaranteed the A bombs were used.

tac foley

Onodo killed thirty people since the end of the war. Many people on the island, for whom he had been a 'bogeyman' for many years, wanted him tried for mass murder.

tac

Manach

He saw himself as a soldier. Thus as such he was duty bound both to survive and carry on the conflict to the best of his ability. Japanese forces in WWII have been rightly slated for atrocities, however there were elements that hearkened back to a tradition that place duty before all else, which is what Hiroo Onoda showed.

Cork boy 55

Manach wrote: »

He saw himself as a soldier. Thus as such he was duty bound both to survive and carry on the conflict to the best of his ability. Japanese forces in WWII have been rightly slated for atrocities, however there were elements that hearkened back to a tradition that place duty before all else, which is what Hiroo Onoda showed.

also something that's not mentioned in news reports rarely

He was NOT a normal soldier , He was ordered to do what he did as a specialist stay behind operations officer, Stay alive, disrupt and recon the enemy on Lubin

He was a Intelligence officer and a trained commando and a graduate
of the elite and infamous Nakano School , in his stay behind role he was doing what he was ordered , expected and trained to do,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakano_School

Obviously 29 years is extreme in the extreme but their are of examples of Allied soldiers in a similar role in the Philippines and else in the Pacific who spend up to 4 years in the bush, If japan had won we might of heard about Oz or USA troops emerging from the jungle decades later
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_guerrillas_in_the_Philippines


basically he was not just some grunt that got cut off

Balaclava1991

Manach wrote: »

He saw himself as a soldier. Thus as such he was duty bound both to survive and carry on the conflict to the best of his ability. Japanese forces in WWII have been rightly slated for atrocities, however there were elements that hearkened back to a tradition that place duty before all else, which is what Hiroo Onoda showed.

He was an idiot like millions of his countrymen at the time.

The same kind of utter fanaticism is described by Stephen Ambrose in his book Citizen Soldiers. A Nazi SS troop was carried into an American aid station with a survivable wound but refused a blood transfusion when the doctor could not guarantee the blood was not Jewish and he died.

The Japanese were stupid brainwashed animals who killed millions.

Onoda is not to be admired or pitied. He was a contemptible human being.

Manic Moran

Balaclava1991 wrote: »

He was an idiot like millions of his countrymen at the time.

The same kind of utter fanaticism is described by Stephen Ambrose in his book Citizen Soldiers. A Nazi SS troop was carried into an American aid station with a survivable wound but refused a blood transfusion when the doctor could not guarantee the blood was not Jewish and he died.

The Japanese were stupid brainwashed animals who killed millions.

Onoda is not to be admired or pitied. He was a contemptible human being.

Unless you can find some evidence to the contrary, Onoda was a soldier who performed his duties in line with expectation. After he surrendered he was given a pardon by the Philippine president, and the Filippinos didn't have any particular reason to have love for their occupiers.

long range shooter

It takes alot of skill surviving alone in the jungle for 30 years

http://www.primitiveways.com/jungle_30_years.html

Balaclava1991

Manic Moran wrote: »

Unless you can find some evidence to the contrary, Onoda was a soldier who performed his duties in line with expectation. After he surrendered he was given a pardon by the Philippine president, and the Filippinos didn't have any particular reason to have love for their occupiers.

Honoring Onodo is simply idiotic.
If Japanese had won the Filippinos would have been their slaves forever.
The Japanese murdered, exterminated, raped and enslaved millions during World War 2.
After their navy had been destroyed by the Americans it should have been obvious the war was lost but they continued resisting.
Onoda was scum no different than the die hard Nazis who continued fighting to the end.

josip

Balaclava, do you consider any soldier who continues fighting after the turning point in a war to be scum?

If not, where would you differentiate?

You mentioned diehard Nazis. What about a member of the Wehrmacht who wasn't a member of the party but fought in the Ardennes in 1944 for example?

Reekwind

Manic Moran wrote: »

Unless you can find some evidence to the contrary, Onoda was a soldier who performed his duties in line with expectation

Unless we've somehow all jumped into a time machine and travelled back to pre-1945, there is an expectation that soldiers employ common sense and reason, rather than blindly following orders. Onoda continued his personal war, despite every sign that the fighting elsewhere was actually over, until his honour was satisfied by a direct order from his superior officer. That would be silly if it weren't for the people killed and the property destroyed in the post-war decades

josip wrote:

What about a member of the Wehrmacht who wasn't a member of the party but fought in the Ardennes in 1944 for example?

A more appropriate example would be those pockets of German soldiers that continued fighting after 8 May 1945

josip

Reekwind wrote: »

A more appropriate example would be those pockets of German soldiers that continued fighting after 8 May 1945

I wasn't trying to compare Onoda to these German soldiers.
I was trying to get a better understanding of Balaclava's point that they shouldn't have continued fighting TO the end of the war, let alone AFTER the war had finished.

Balaclava1991 wrote: »

After their navy had been destroyed by the Americans it should have been obvious the war was lost but they continued resisting.
Onoda was scum no different than the die hard Nazis who continued fighting to the end.

tac foley

As far as I know, there were no members of the Wehrmacht still terrorising the population of the Ardennes region of Belgium in 1974, let alone killing thirty of them.

tac

josip

tac foley wrote: »

As far as I know, there were no members of the Wehrmacht still terrorising the population of the Ardennes region of Belgium in 1974, let alone killing thirty of them.
tac

I don't understand your point.

josip wrote: »

I wasn't trying to compare Onoda to these German soldiers.
I was trying to get a better understanding of Balaclava's point that they shouldn't have continued fighting TO the end of the war, let alone AFTER the war had finished.

Das Reich

In my country, (Brazil) he did a small fortune growing melons and strawberries after the war. I meet one japanese that meet him in person in Brazil.

I don't remember really the story, but I think straberries could not be procuded in Brazil before because of the sunlight (in Europe in summer have more than 12 hours) and they were imported, he started to produce it in greenhouses.

Das Reich

Balaclava1991 wrote: »

If Japanese had won the Filippinos would have been their slaves forever.
The Japanese murdered, exterminated, raped and enslaved millions during World War 2.

The same did the english, americans and russians. For the rape, I think it was more a post-war propaganda as japanese and east asians in general produce very low quantity of testosterone, so rapes there is much more unusual than for example in South Africa. Japan is the country with the lowest average number of sexual intercourses by year. Also is the country where men have their first sexual experiences when they are already adults. They have very low interest for sex.

Chinese love to says how much the japanese were bad people, but they don't says about what they did on Tibet on the 1950's or to their own people during the chinese famine.

Reekwind

Das Reich wrote: »

The same did the english, americans and russians

No, they didn't. While none of the above have clean hands, Japan was responsible for the deaths of millions, perhaps tens of millions, of civilians. The death toll of Japanese occupation, not to mention millions of additional slaves, comfortably outstrips that of every other warring nation, excepting Germany. Up to 20M civilians died in China alone during the war years

For the rape, I think it was more a post-war propaganda...

You think wrong. The existence of 'comfort women', and other Japanese atrocities, is well documented by historians. Denial of this is generally limited to Japanese revisionists

...as japanese and east asians in general produce very low quantity of testosterone, so rapes there is much more unusual than for example in South Africa. Japan is the country with the lowest average number of sexual intercourses by year. Also is the country where men have their first sexual experiences when they are already adults. They have very low interest for sex

Whereas this is just weird. But hey, well done on substituting stereotypes and racist pseudo-science for history

Das Reich

Reekwind wrote: »

No, they didn't. While none of the above have clean hands, Japan was responsible for the deaths of millions, perhaps tens of millions, of civilians. The death toll of Japanese occupation, not to mention millions of additional slaves, comfortably outstrips that of every other warring nation, excepting Germany. Up to 20M civilians died in China alone during the war years

You think wrong. The existence of 'comfort women', and other Japanese atrocities, is well documented by historians. Denial of this is generally limited to Japanese revisionists

Whereas this is just weird. But hey, well done on substituting stereotypes and racist pseudo-science for history

Another hollywood brain-washed pro-american trying to teach history. The only weird thing is writing that 20 m civilians died on China during occupation. After all, americans needed and excuse for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so nothing better than invent things against the japanese. But i agree with you, a lot of rapes happened in China, when in was occupied by soviets after the japanese surrender.

Reekwind

Ah, yes. I see now. I've been brainwashed by the Americans to believe their lies, as has almost everyone else. The academic establishments, with their fancy 'history books' and 'research', is all a sham to convince poor idiots like me of these same untruths.

Meanwhile only you, a small number of racist websites and a revisionist 'historian' (who can be believed because he can't get published in any papers) that you once read know the truth. Which is that Japanese occupation was delightful and all the evidence to the contrary is an American conspiracy.

Keep up the good fight, brother, but please do it in the Conspiracy Theory forum

tac foley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGLFqgDwTl4

In the late former Lt Onoda's own words.

Of course, Mr Das Reich, he was telling lies, wasn't he?

tac

Das Reich

tac foley wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGLFqgDwTl4

In the late former Lt Onoda's own words.

Of course, Mr Das Reich, he was telling lies, wasn't he?

tac

A video with only 745 shows and poor quality. Couldn't find Onoda words, all the video is voiced by a woman and in japanese, can't even read the small words in english. 5 minutes of my life lost on the most useless video of all youtube, please don't d that again.