Quite a tale... At least the second half of his life was at peace.

I just read that. Wow! If I understand it right, there was also another one who came out of hiding like two years before Mr. Onoda finally surrendered. Gotta admire that kind of tenacity

Yeah, I have to admire that level of dedication. That youth camp he taught at must have been a blast- Bear Gylles had nothing on him.

Pretty friggin' horrible for the Filipinos he killed after the war ended though.  

Hope he got his back pay

I think I remember seeing this on an episode of Gilligan's Island.  That's a wild story right there.

Gordy

His devotion to duty was second to none. Another example of the level of dedication that the Japanese had to the Emperor. And to those who wonder if the Bomb was necessary had the military not been ordered to lay down their arms by him.

stikpusher

His devotion to duty was second to none. Another example of the level of dedication that the Japanese had to the Emperor. And to those who wonder if the Bomb was necessary had the military not been ordered to lay down their arms by him.

As a matter of coincidence, my son was telling me a couple of days ago that we shouldn't had dropped the bomb on Japan. I then schooled him on the anticipated losses if operation Olympic followed by Operation Coronet would have taken place in November of 1945. The losses on our side were estimated for the first  90-day campaign in Kyushu could cost as many as 450,000 and reaching staggering numbers as the fighting expanded into the mainland. It took almost one month after two A bombs were used for Japan to finally surrender.  

Exactly. No matter how desperate the situation, as a rule, they would not surrender while they had any means to resist. Even with the Russian invasion of Manchuria, and the near total naval blockade of Japan proper, the means to resist still existed. Occupation forces found ample evidence of that. Only the Emperor could command it, and even he was not willing to do so until after the second Atomic Bombing.

There are so many younger folks out there talking about how bad it was that the bombs were dropped.

Most all of them would not be here to complain had those bombs not been dropped.

I read that as well, Wow!

Viejo

There are so many younger folks out there talking about how bad it was that the bombs were dropped.

Most all of them would not be here to complain had those bombs not been dropped.

Couldn't agree more...

BTW: I've been doing some reading, Japan was hit with a crop famine around the same time and due to the Allied submarine blockade was not able to import food from occupied Korea and China. Guess it's a cop-out to say so but Japanese casualties have been projected to have been way higher from starvation if they'd tried to hold out. By surrendering millions of tons of Allied food shipments arrived and saved a lot more people than two cities. 

I recall seeing a TV report where a Japanese woman who was a little girl at the time of the war was recalling her experiences and remembers that they were taught to resist the American devils and to defend the homeland soil to the death with whatever was available as a weapon, a rock, a stick or any object that could be used as a weapon. Just look at the civilians jumping off the cliffs in Okinawa rather than surrendering to the Americans thanks to the Emperor's propaganda.

That was on Saipan, where the civilians flung themselves off the cliffs, not Okinawa. But the where it happened is not the point, rather than the what happened. Okinawa actually saw one of the first times outside the Philipines where large numbers of civilians were caught in the crossfire of a major battle between the US and Japan in the Pacific. A very interesting battle to read about.

My bad stik, Marpi Point in Saipan.

It seems from a cultural perspective that the war in Europe gets a lot of the romance, and deservedly so, but the war in the Pacific was intensely brutal. Though a former Army grunt, I will always have a deep love and admiration for the United States Marine Corps for not as much the battles they fought there, but how they fought them. It's impossible for me to comprehend them continuing to move forward in the face of massive slaughter like they did, island after island. Truman's decision to drop the bombs were humanitarian. The losses that would have come from an invasion of and battle for the Japanese mainland would have been horrific, to put it mildly even. The hypothetical "Battle of Japan" would have been one of the greatest man-made disasters of history

Just take the Battles of Manila, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa and multiply them several fold for forces involved and casualties inflicted. Japanese plans for the defense of Japan proper included the use of chemical weapons. If used in areas with civilian population present, those do not discriminate between friend and foe. Jet, do not forget that several Army divisions fought alongside the Marines across the Central Pacific enduring those same conditions. The 81st ID had to complete the Pelilieu campaign, as the 1st Marine Division had been gutted by that fight.

Yeah, definitely can't count the Army out of the Pacific, as they conducted more amphibious assaults and suffered more losses. In fact, in my opinion, the US Army doesn't get the credit she deserves for victory in the Pacific

No they do not. They did not have the PR there comparable to that of the Marines, or Army in Europe.