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The Sun
16 hours ago
- General
- The Sun
How fanatical Japanese soldier kept fighting for 30 YEARS after VJ Day – by following haunting last order to the letter
FOR Hiroo Onoda, the Second World War did not end in 1945. The fanatical Japanese soldier did not believe his country had surrendered to to Allies - and carried on the fight for three decades. 8 8 8 Today marks the 80th anniversary of Victory in Japan (VJ) Day, when Emperor Hirohito announced his county's unconditional surrender. But Onoda stubbornly refused to accept this, and holed up on an island in the Philippines with three other comrades to wage a guerrilla campaign of their own. He followed one chilling last order from his commanding officer to the letter - "do not die". Onoda was first deployed to Lubang Island in the Philippines on Boxing Day 1944, when he was just 22 years old. It was here the young intelligence officer would make his decades long stand. He explained in 2010: "Every Japanese soldier was prepared for death, but as an intelligence officer I was ordered to conduct guerrilla warfare and not to die. "I became an officer and I received an order. If I could not carry it out, I would feel shame.' American and Filipino forces captured Lubang in 1945, which saw more Japanese occupiers either die or surrender. But Onoda led his squad mates into the island's mountainous jungle to carry on the struggle. He remained completely unaware that two atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final days of the war. His Emperor's declaration of surrender would not persuade him to lay down his arms, and he kept on the fight for decades after. Onada and his three fellow guerrillas were convinced that surrender documents dropped from the skies over the island were a fake. The band of soldiers survived by eating wild fruit and stolen food from the island's farms. During their decades of guerrilla campaigning, around 30 Filipino islanders were killed. Onada and the other troops would often shoot an "enemy soldier" they believe was disguised as a "farmer or policeman". But by the time their campaign came to an end, Onada was the last man standing. 8 8 8 One of the group decided to surrender in the 1950s, while the other two died during their struggle. Onada repeatedly rejected search parties and leaflets dropped that were begging him to lay down arms and surrender. It wasn't until his former commanding officer, who was by then working as a bookseller, flew out in 1974 to formally rescind his orders that Onada stood down. By then, thirty years had passed since he was first deployed to the island. The 52-year-old handed in his weapons including his sword and Arisaka rifle upon his surrender. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos pardoned him for the islanders he had killed, and he returned to a hero's welcome in Japan. Finding it difficult to settle back in at home, he moved to Brazil for a few years for a stint as a cattle rancher. After this, he went back to Japan to run a children's nature camp outside Tokyo. Onada would end up leading a long life, passing away in Tokyo in 2014 at the age of 91. When asked at a press conference upon his return to Japan in the 1970s what he had been doing, he simply said: "Carrying out my orders". His commanding officer told him in 1944: "It may take three years, it may take five, but whatever happens we'll come back for you." 8
The Guardian
20 hours ago
- General
- The Guardian
Eighty years after Victory in the Pacific Day, Ron – now 101 – remembers a slightly lonely celebration
Ben Chifley called it a 'glorious moment'. On 15 August 1945 half a million people poured on to the streets of Sydney to celebrate the end of six years of war. News spread quickly after Emperor Hirohito announced that Japan had accepted the allies' demand for unconditional surrender. It was a devastating defeat for the Japanese, whose cities lay in ruins, but in Australia there was relief. 'An entire city felt the burdens of six weary, war-laden years roll from its shoulders, and plunged headlong and full-throatedly into celebration,' the Sydney Morning Herald reported. For the 80th anniversary of Victory in Japan Day, Albert 'Ron' Gee Kee recalls his wartime service. Now 101, Gee Kee was 18 when he enlisted. The war in the Pacific had begun in 1941 and, by 1943, Japan was on Australia's doorstep. You could either run for your life or join up, he says. 'After the bombing of Darwin, it seemed imminent that the invasion could come to Australia,' he says. Sign up: AU Breaking News email 'Living in far north Queensland right up near the war zone, there were rumours at that particular time after I turned 18 that there was going to be conscription, because most of our Australian troops were caught in Singapore.' More than 130,000 allied troops were captured in the fall of Singapore in 1942 and hundreds of thousands of Australians were serving in the Middle East, north Africa and the Mediterranean, leaving their home vulnerable. 'I didn't want to go to New Guinea to fight – so I joined the navy because I thought it would be a better life,' Gee Kee says. But the navy posted him to Milne Bay in New Guinea, which he calls the 'worst place in the world' due to heat, rain and malaria. He worked as a coder. 'No messages could be transmitted or telegraphed over the air unless all messages were put into code and that was my duty.' The station covered the Coral Sea and south Pacific – 'We were kept busy.' After about a year there he spent nine months at Gen Douglas MacArthur's headquarters in Brisbane before he was deployed to the Northern Territory. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'I was in Darwin when the war ended and so our end-of-the-war celebration was just by ourselves at the wireless station,' he says. He adds: 'VP Day brings back memories of how I lived and survived during that period, but also that I have to remember all my friends who have now passed away.' After the war Gee Kee became a farmer in Tully before moving to Sydney, where he married Betty Fatt. They had two daughters. He's the uncle of the purple Wiggle, Jeff Fatt, and grandfather of the actor Nina Liu, and he still lives in Sydney. A senior historian at the Australian War Memorial, Dr Lachlan Grant, said in six years of war – beginning in September 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland – 1 million Australians served in the armed forces, from a population of just 7 million. Grant said 40,000 Australians had died in the war and more than 30,000 had become prisoners of war. 'The Second World War and the defeat of Nazi Germany, Fascism and Japanese militarism was one of the most defining events of the twentieth century,' he said. RSL NSW is holding a Victory in the Pacific commemoration service at the Cenotaph at Martin Place in Sydney on Friday. Other ceremonies will be held at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and the State War Memorial in Perth.
The Australian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Australian
Alaskans: Peace is a big deal for us – Russia's only 4km away
When Pope John Paul II met President Reagan in Alaska in 1984, he hailed the 49th US state as 'a crossroads of the world'. This was not only literally true, serving as a refuelling stop for both leaders as they crisscrossed the globe - the Pope was on his way to South Korea and the Pacific Islands, Reagan returning from China - but it also reflected a turning point in history as they plotted to liberate Poland and the other Warsaw Pact countries from Soviet control. A few years earlier President Nixon had his own historic meeting in Alaska, meeting in Anchorage with Emperor Hirohito, himself on a stopover to a state visit to Britain. Now Alaska finds itself again at a crossroads both geographically and politically, this time for two leaders in President Trump and President Putin who are poised to make momentous decisions on war and peace. It is a fitting venue for a US-Russia summit given the rich shared history of the two nations reflected here but it also underlines that, while the agenda is the future of Ukraine and western European security, this is a discussion between neighbours. 'Peace between Russia and Ukraine is a big deal for Alaska because we're so close to Russia here - the longer this war goes, the more chance there is of more global war and we're on the front lines,' said Father Matthew Howell, pastor of an Antiochian Orthodox Church in Wasilla, an hour's drive north of Anchorage. For the locals, Alaska does not feel remote at times like these. This is especially true for some of its more recent arrivals. 'I have Ukrainian parishioners in my church,' Father Howell, 41, said. 'They absolutely want peace. They are refugees who want this war to end. As an Alaskan - I've been here for over 20 years, my wife was born and raised here - we absolutely feel like we are on the front lines of any war that starts and so this summit is critical.' Mainland Russia is 88km away across the Bering Strait, a waterway named after the Danish explorer sent by Peter the Great to chart new territory east of Russia in the 18th century. Russian trappers quickly followed in pursuit of its sea otter pelts and established coastal communities that observed the Orthodox faith, spread by missionaries to native Alaskans. It still has thousands of adherents here, albeit no longer under Russian Orthodox jurisdiction. Despite the distance to the mainland, Sarah Palin, the former governor, was right when she said during the 2008 presidential campaign that Russia could be seen from Alaska. She was ridiculed for something she didn't actually say - 'I can see Russia from my house!', which was voiced by Tina Fey in a parody of her in a Saturday Night Live sketch. In fact, Ms Palin told ABC News that 'they're our next-door neighbours, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska'. Big Diomede, a Russian island in the Bering Strait, is only 4km from Little Diomede, owned by the US. They are visible from each other on a clear day. Some Russians believe the government of Tsar Alexander II, which was bankrupt after the Crimean War and looking to counter British expansion in the frozen north, blundered in selling the 1,723,337 sqkm territory to the US for $US7.2m in 1867. At the time, though, many Americans nicknamed the purchase 'Seward's Folly' after the secretary of state who completed it. The Klondike gold rush in western Canada several decades later changed minds about the territory, fuelling a population and building boom that laid the foundations for eventual US statehood in 1959 after its strategic importance was recognised in World War II. The reminders of Russian influence are all around Anchorage, not least on the huge military base where Mr Trump and Mr Putin will meet. Named in part after Captain Hugh Elmendorf, a brilliant pilot killed while flying a prototype fighter plane in 1933, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is home to the graves of nine Soviet pilots, two military personnel and two civilians who died between 1942 and 1945 while ferrying aircraft from the US to the Soviet Union. Nearly 8000 aircraft were donated to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Act, a US policy to provide its allies with military aid, including weapons, supplies and food. Some 300 Russian pilots flew the planes over the Bering Strait and on to the eastern front. 'Thus, the meeting will unfold near a site of profound historical importance - one that underscores the wartime brotherhood-in-arms between our nations,' said Yuri Ushakov, former Russian ambassador to the US, who will be part of the five-man Russian delegation. 'This symbolism is particularly resonant in this year, the year of the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany and militarist Japan.' There is an irony in Mr Putin and his team being hosted at a US base that has grown to a civilian and military population of 32,000 because of its importance on the front line against the threat primarily from Russia. But the Russian leader is unlikely to want to venture into downtown Anchorage to try the elk or yak burgers at the 49th State Brewing Company, where he would be more likely to encounter protesters - and perhaps one of the moose that occasional wander the city streets - than on a secure military installation. 'The choice of Alaska is quite significant - first, it's equidistant, almost, in the flight time for each of the presidents to that venue, which symbolically says we're treating Russia as an equal here,' said George Beebe, the former director of Russia analysis at the CIA and director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute. 'Second, it is not in Europe, which of course was the traditional meeting place during the Cold War. It puts a focus on the bilateral US-Russian relationship, which is I think where President Trump wants it to be. It also says to Putin: 'We are going to engage with Russia.'' The Times Read related topics: Vladimir Putin The Times Historical analogies for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin's meeting in Alaska are overblown: it's unlikely there'll be any grand bargains. The Times In a speech to mark 80 years since the end of the Second World War, Charles will echo his grandfather George VI's emphasis on the global devastation of conflict.
The Guardian
a day ago
- General
- The Guardian
Eighty years after Victory in the Pacific Day, Ron – now 101 – remembers a slightly lonely celebration
Ben Chifley called it a 'glorious moment'. On 15 August 1945 half a million people poured on to the streets of Sydney to celebrate the end of six years of war. News spread quickly after Emperor Hirohito announced that Japan had accepted the allies' demand for unconditional surrender. It was a devastating defeat for the Japanese, whose cities lay in ruins, but in Australia there was relief. 'An entire city felt the burdens of six weary, war-laden years roll from its shoulders, and plunged headlong and full-throatedly into celebration,' the Sydney Morning Herald reported. For the 80th anniversary of Victoria in Japan Day, Albert 'Ron' Gee Kee recalls his wartime service. Now 101, Gee Kee was 18 when he enlisted. The war in the Pacific had begun in 1941 and, by 1943, Japan was on Australia's doorstep. You could either run for your life or join up, he says. 'After the bombing of Darwin, it seemed imminent that the invasion could come to Australia,' he says. Sign up: AU Breaking News email 'Living in far north Queensland right up near the war zone, there were rumours at that particular time after I turned 18 that there was going to be conscription, because most of our Australian troops were caught in Singapore.' More than 130,000 allied troops were captured in the fall of Singapore in 1942 and hundreds of thousands of Australians were serving in the Middle East, north Africa and the Mediterranean, leaving their home vulnerable. 'I didn't want to go to New Guinea to fight – so I joined the navy because I thought it would be a better life,' Gee Kee says. But the navy posted him to Milne Bay in New Guinea, which he calls the 'worst place in the world' due to heat, rain and malaria. He worked as a coder. 'No messages could be transmitted or telegraphed over the air unless all messages were put into code and that was my duty.' The station covered the Coral Sea and south Pacific – 'We were kept busy.' Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion After about a year there he spent nine months at Gen Douglas MacArthur's headquarters in Brisbane before he was deployed to the Northern Territory. 'I was in Darwin when the war ended and so our end-of-the-war celebration was just by ourselves at the wireless station,' he says. He adds: 'VP Day brings back memories of how lived and survived during that period but also that I have to remember all my friends who have now passed away.' A senior historian at the Australian War Memorial, Dr Lachlan Grant, said in six years of war – beginning in September 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland – 1 million Australians served in the armed forces, from a population of just 7 million. Grant said 40,000 Australians had died in the war and more than 30,000 had become prisoners of war. 'The Second World War and the defeat of Nazi Germany, Fascism and Japanese militarism was one of the most defining events of the twentieth century,' he said. RSL NSW is holding a Victory in the Pacific commemoration service at the Cenotaph at Martin Place in Sydney on Friday. Other ceremonies will be held at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and the State War Memorial in Perth.
Japan Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Japan Times
Why Ishiba shouldn't issue a WWII 80th anniversary statement
In Japan, Aug. 15 is widely known as "Shusen no Hi," meaning "The Day of the End of the War." But technically speaking, it might more appropriately be referred to as "The Day of Defeat for Japan." Under international law, the formal end of the Pacific War was on Sept. 2, 1945, when Japan's foreign minister and the army chief of staff signed the surrender document on the deck of the USS Missouri battleship in Tokyo Bay, alongside representatives of the Allied powers. Aug. 15 is referred to as the day the war ended because it is when Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender over the radio. However, a week prior, on Aug. 9, the Soviet Union unilaterally abrogated the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact and suddenly declared war on Japan. Even after Japan accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration on Aug. 10, Soviet forces continued combat operations, advancing southward through the Kuril Islands and, between Aug. 28 and Sept. 5, invading and occupying the Northern Territories.
