Japanese soldiers who refused to surrender after WWII

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

WWII officially ended when Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945. But this didn't necessarily mean the end of the World War II for some men and women. Some dismissed the news of defeat as enemy propaganda, while others didn't even get the news that the war was over. A few of these holdouts hid deep in the jungles and did not surrender their swords until decades later!

In this gallery, you'll get to know some of the most famous Japanese holdouts. Click on to learn all about their fascinating stories.

The war is over

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

Japan officially surrendered on September 2, 1945. Though the announcement made via radio broadcast to the country by Emperor Hirohito in August 1945 might not have reached everyone.

Communications difficulties

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

The Japanese Empire was rather vast back then, stretching from the continent to a large area of the Pacific.

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

Communication across the empire was challenging, especially after the Allies destroyed so many key infrastructures.

Defeat was a tough pill to swallow

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

Many Japanese simply did not want to believe their nation had surrendered. Many literally chose not to live with the defeat. Others simply didn’t buy it and thought the news was nothing but Allied propaganda.

Sakae Ōba

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

One of those men was captain Sakae Ōba. The Imperial Japanese Army official, together with 46 soldiers and 160 civilians, hid and engaged in guerilla warfare on the island of Saipan.

Ei Yamaguchi

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

Lieutenant Ei Yamaguchi was among the survivors after American forces took the island of Peleliu in 1944. Yamaguchi and others hid and moved around using a network of underground tunnels. They never got the memo about the end of the war.

Ishinosuke Uwano

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

The southern half of Sakhalin island (Russia) was under Japanese control at the time. The Soviets invaded that part of the island and Ishinosuke Uwano was captured and sent to a camp in Siberia. Uwano’s family and friends lost track of him.

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

Ishinosuke Uwano eventually left the camp and became a Soviet citizen. He built a family and life in the then-Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. When he returned to Japan, he had lost his citizenship, because he had been declared dead since 2000!

Noboru Kinoshita

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

In 1944, Noboru Kinoshita’s ship was attacked by the Americans and sunk off the Philippines. He was among the few survivors who made it to Samar island. Kinoshita then joined the Japanese forces and went deep into the jungles of Luzon island on a military mission.

Shoichi Yokoi

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

The Imperial Japanese Army sergeant was the third-longest holdout. After American forces took Guam, Yokoi and nine other soldiers fled to the jungle. Shoichi Yokoi outlived them all, with his last two companions dying in 1964.

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

Despite spending the last 28 years isolated in the jungle, Yokoi adapted well to city life in Japan, where he became a popular celebrity. Yokoi died in 1997.

The Anatahan castaways

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

The castaways struggled to survive, until January 1945, when a B-29 bomber crashed into the island. The castaways used the plane’s metal scraps to make useful items—parachutes for clothing, nylon cords for fishing lines, etc.

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

Things got even worse when the group discovered how to ferment coconut wine. The presence of alcohol on the island may or may not have been related to the whooping 12 murderers that had occurred by 1951!

The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

Kazuko Higa, who was later nicknamed “The Queen Bee of Anatahan,” became famous in Japan. But she would move on to a life of prostitution before dying at age 51, by that time working as a garbage collector.

Hiroo Onoda

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

Leaflets, as well as letters and pictures from their families, were airdropped on the island, but Onoda and his men dismissed them all as fake news. Onoda eventually started to lose his companions (one voluntarily left, one was killed by a search party, and another was shot dead by a police officer), until he was left alone.

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

Throughout his holdout, Onoda destroyed lots of property and killed a number of civilians in the Philippines. He was, however, never held to account for his crimes.

Teruo Nakamura

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

Teruo Nakamura was “the last of the last” Japanese holdouts. Nakamura was on Morotai island (present-day Indonesia) in 1944, when the Americans took the island. He fled to the jungle with a group of soldiers.

The war is over, Communications difficulties, Defeat was a tough pill to swallow, Sakae Ōba, Ei Yamaguchi, Ishinosuke Uwano, Noboru Kinoshita, Shoichi Yokoi, The Anatahan castaways, The Anatahan castaways: Kazuko Higa, Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura

Though unlike Hiroo Onoda, Teruo Nakamura didn’t receive as much attention in Japan. Perhaps due to the fact that Nakamura was a colonial soldier from what became the independent nation of Taiwan. Being a colonial soldier means that he wasn’t a member of the Imperial Japanese Army.