Take Me To Your Leader

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Gilligan, Skipper, the Howells, Ginger, the Professor, Mary Ann... And Lt. Onada

Remember that episode of 'Gilligan's Island' when the castaways discover a Japanese soldier living on the island and hilarious hijinks ensue? Well, when the show was first broadcast in 1965, there was at least two Japanese soldiers still fighting World War Two who didn't surrender for some years.

Documented: There were (are?) Japanese soldiers hiding out on isles in Pacific who believed WWII was still on.

In 1945, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was trained in a special guerilla unit that intended to continue fighting in the jungles of Lubang Island in the Phillipines.

Lt. Onada took his charge seriously and continued to evade capture. Onada finally surrendered in 1974, wearing his tattered dress uniform and bearing his rifle and sword.

Onada was received in Japan as a hero. He was deluged with media attention, even offers of marriage.

Onada's record was almost matched by Corporal Shoichi Yokoi who surrendered on Guam in 1972. Yokoi discounted leaflets and newspapers that reported Japan's surrender as American propaganda.

References:

• The Straight Dope: Did some Japanese soldiers hold out for years after WWII?
• Japanese Holdouts After WWII
• No Surrender
• The Seattle Times: Japanese soldier who had hidden 27 years in jungle dies
• Onoda, Hiroo. No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1974
• Masashi, Ito. The Emperor's Last Soldiers. New York: Coward, 1967