GANBARE! WWII soldiers still in Philippines

[Taro Toporific]

Japan to investigate reports of WW11 soldiers still in Philippines
20/11/2003 09:41:40 | ABC Radio Australia News
Japan has confirmed it will send officials to the Philippines to investigate reports that a few Japanese soldiers are still hiding out in the jungle, refusing to surrender after World War II. The mission, involving three researchers from the Health and Welfare Ministry, will search jungles on Luzon Island ...If the reports prove true, it will be the first confirmation of Japanese holding out since 1974, when a former Imperial Army second lieutenant returned to Japan after surviving for three decades in a jungle, having refused to surrender.

[kami gaijin]

And if found, do we really want these people returned to society?

[kamome]

Better yet, would those soldiers even want to return to "modern" Japanese society after being in a time warp for the last 60 years? What would they think about Japan in its current form, with all of its concrete, salarymen, and obeisance to the US? They'd probably hate it.

[kurohinge1]

Better yet, would those soldiers even want to return to "modern" Japanese society after ... 60 years? ...

I'm guessing 60 years of military back-pay / pension would amount to a whole lot of forgiveness

If not, they could probably just buy the Phillipines jungle and stay there.

BTW nice to see the suggestions on this board are being noticed ...

7 August 2003

More uses for old people .... in the Phillipines:

5. They could help find their buddies still hiding in jungle from WWII]

20 November 2003

The mission also includes two former Japanese soldiers who surrendered in Philippine jungles and were sent back to Japan after the end of World War II.

Spooky!

[kurohinge1]

And they've just developed the search and rescue machines for this job ...



Estimating a lifting capacity of about 5 grams and that the abandoned old-timer in the jungle weighs about 65 kg, they'll only need 13,000 of these Microchopbots to fly each soldier out (subject to prevailing weather conditions).

[Big Booger]

I can't believe there are still soldiers surviving in the Jungles of the Philippines. Seems outlandish... but considering the spirit of Japanese of that era... I could see how some of the more disciplined and crazy could hold out for 50+ years..

[Watcher]

This story sounds slightly familiar... I can see it now... It's Apocalypse Rehash where a band of misfit bureaucrats are forced from the welcoming arms of their hostesses and thrust out into the jungles of the Phillipines to locate and retrieve/destroy a renegade group(?) of crotchety imperialists who have taken over a band of top knotch karaoke singers
BTW that other guy came off of Bali and he was only found when they were stringing up electrical lines. He had remained hidden there all those years not wanting to go is my guess (I mean, come on, there were thousands of airplanes he would have seen flying overhead and not many of them bearing the JAL logo).

[Nagged]

Better yet, would those soldiers even want to return to "modern" Japanese society after being in a time warp for the last 60 years? What would they think about Japan in its current form, with all of its concrete, salarymen, and obeisance to the US? They'd probably hate it.

Actually the last chap, Onoda who was found in 1974 did dislike modern Japan so much that he did move to find another life in Brazil. Read this.

Kamome, your psychic powers impress me.

[kamome]

Read this.

Kamome, your psychic powers impress me.

Wow, very interesting link. It would be kinda' cool to meet an anachronism like that. Don't know if I would understand their pre-WWII form of Japanese though.

[kimpatsukun]

It seems amazing that even after all of what is said to a person, they still blindly follow orders. They had to get the Commanding Officer to order a surrender. Quite amazing!

I guess there could be loads of them out there, seperated from their groups then integrated with local tribes, never find them all!

I wonder how long the modern Japanese salary man would last out there, without his manga, beer, ramen and daily diet of porn?

[Andocrates]

[kurohinge1]

* bump *

2 Imperial Japanese Army soldiers believed found in Philippines

MANILA -- The Japanese embassy here is trying to confirm the identities of two elderly men who are believed to be former soldiers of Japan's now defunct military who have been living on a Mindanao mountain, embassy officials said.

Officials from the Japanese Embassy in the Philippines are set to meet the two elderly men at a hotel on Mindanao Island later on Friday.

Another Japanese national living on Mindanao Island has told the embassy that two former Japanese soldiers living in a mountainous area on the island wanted to meet embassy officials, according to the embassy.

The two men who appear to be in their 80s are in possession of articles that suggest they were soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army.

However, no further details, such as their names, the unit they belonged to, whether they had known that World War II ended and their lifestyles, are immediately known, according to embassy officials.

In 1974, former Imperial Army Major General Hiroo Onoda, now 83, was found hiding in a jungle on the Philippine island of Lubang and was returned to Japan. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, May 27, 2005)

See also: Brazil Honors Fool

[oyajikun]

That is amazing! Can you imagine coming back to Japan after all of those years? I rekon that if I survived the heart attack/stroke I would want to run back to the jungle after stocking up on booze.

[blackcat]

they should be given an update on modern warfare.

starting with...

NAPALM.

anyway when these low lifes are found they will be pleased to know there are countless comfort women IN JAPAN TODAY for them to abuse.

http://www.asiansexgazette.com/asg/japan/japan04news50.htm

nothing has changed really

[Mulboyne]

[Blah Pete]

I think that these guys were actually deserters and not hardcore Imperial Army holdouts. In Malaysia, Burma, and Thailand there were Japanese soldiers who for various reasons did not want to return to Japan.
In Malaysia some took up with the Malaysia Communist Army.

If these guys were still brainwashed soldiers dedicated to the emperor I think the rebels or someone else would have killed them years ago. There is still a lot of hate towards the J-occupation among what is now the older generation.

[FG Lurker]

Japan studies new info as doubts rise over old soldiers
Reuters, May 29, 2005

Japanese officials were studying new information on Sunday to confirm whether two elderly men in the southern Philippines were soldiers left over from the Second World War, but suspicion was rising of a hoax or a trap set by kidnappers.

The story of former Japanese soldiers ready to emerge from the mountains 60 years after the war has attracted a horde of media, mostly from Japan, to the city of General Santos on the troubled island of Mindanao.

On the third day of waiting for a Japanese contact to produce the two men, Shuhei Ogawa, the embassy spokesman, said officials had sent information from several sources, including the Philippine government, to Tokyo for analysis.

[...]

Scepticism began to grow three days after the stragglers' story broke in Japan's media, because there has been no credible proof the two elderly men exist.

[...]

Philippine police officials also doubted the presence of war-time stragglers in mountains near the port city of General Santos, known as the country's tuna capital.

"All the information about these stragglers is hearsay," said Robert Kunisala, head of the regional police's intelligence office.

"We would like to caution everybody this might be a big scam. There are kidnap gangs operating near the mountains and the stragglers' story could be the bait."

(Full Story)

[Blah Pete]

"We would like to caution everybody this might be a big scam. There are kidnap gangs operating near the mountains and the stragglers' story could be the bait."

Ahh, so it is looking like a $$$ (or pesos) scam. Let me guess, the gang that did this also has relatives that own the hotels the J-media is staying in (and paying x5) and all those kids that come up to the car th sell you one cigarrette are their cousins so the whole town is cashing in.

[Captain Japan]

Tales of WWII holdouts linger decades after Onoda
Japan Times

GENERAL SANTOS, Philippines (AP) Like a good ghost story, tales of Japanese army stragglers still roaming the jungle-covered mountains have persisted long since the last one emerged in a tattered uniform 31 years ago, far away from here.
Tokyo's revelation last week that it was looking into claims of two former soldiers living near General Santos for the past 60 years has stirred memories of alleged encounters and reported sightings by residents of this southern Philippines port city, known for its tuna and banana exports.

Amid growing suggestions that the whole thing might be a hoax, Japanese diplomats withdrew Monday from the city, vowing to pursue the case long-distance.

Typical of local lore here, truck driver Alberto Lorenzo recalled meeting, about a decade ago, an elderly man who looked Japanese on Mount Matutum who everyone in the B'laan tribal community there believes to be a former Japanese soldier.

Lorenzo said the man appeared to have a small Japanese flag tattooed on the back of his right shoulder. Later, in 1996, he took some elderly Japanese treasure hunters up the mountain to meet the man.

"They embraced each other," he told The Associated Press. "If (the man) was not Japanese, they would not have understood each other. But the five of them understood each other."...more...

[FG Lurker]

WWII stragglers story 'a hoax'
CNN International, June 1, 2005

The mediator who tried to arrange a meeting with two alleged Japanese soldiers supposedly hiding in the Philippines since World War II has confirmed the story is a hoax, a media report said Wednesday.

The unidentified 58-year-old Japanese man, a trader who first reported the men's existence, told the national Yomiuri newspaper that he had met the two alleged soldiers in the mountains on Mindanao island and found they were not Japanese.

(Full Story)

[Buraku]

Seems the ConfusedNoiseNetwork and FauxSnooze might have called this one too early



http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13358181,00.html



on the news. two elderly japanese 'soldiers' have just been found hiding in the jungles of the philippines.
Skky is often another heap of rubbish
but the other stations called it way too soon

[Buraku]

Actually the last chap, Onoda who was found in 1974 did dislike modern Japan so much that he did move to find another life in Brazil. Read this.

Kamome, your psychic powers impress me.

Another Japanese MIA

http://en.thinkexist.com/quotes/ishinosuke_uwano/