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I WAS ONE OF THOSE KIDS who played hide-and-go-seek seriously. We played with boundaries, yet I always went past the lines into unchartered territory, and sometimes stepped into shit. Instead of hiding behind some trash cans, I went over the wall into someone's yard. I hid in the beds of people's trucks, and sometimes climbed onto roofs so I could spy on the search parties. Sometimes, even though the sun went down and the smell of people's dinners hit me in the face, I kept my ground. Occasionally, I'd make a quick appearance or create a noise to prod the neighbor kids in their search since they would often give up, but then I'd run to another pre-destined spot and disappear once again. Eventually, after all the kids went home, I'd keep a paranoid eye out while I made my way back to mom, and that's when I knew I was the victor, the holder of the belt, and the unconquered. I never thought this was something that people do in real life, but you can compare hide-and-go-seek to jungle warfare. Rambo demonstrated his ingenious hiding ability in his first two films by ditching himself in mud, in water, up trees, and in buildings, armed only with his trusty knife. But in the end, he always came out to get himself into more trouble. He didn't have the patience to be a great hide-and-go-seek player. I would have found his ass easily. But there are two players that I couldn't dream of competing against. With these two, there was no hot or cold; you were never in the ball park. They were so good, that they were the "hide" component incarnate. They never had to "seek" anyone. These two could make themselves invisible like ninjas, and they held their ground longer than anyone that we know about. Hiding became their life's work. Hiding was their job. Both men were soldiers for the Japanese Imperial Army.
After the two bombs torched the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into human charcoal, the war ended ceremoniously in 1945. The party was over. Everyone took off their rifles, folded their lawn chairs, and headed to the showers. Some Japanese soldiers committed suicide rather than accept defeat. Yet, not all of them came out so quickly and more than a few soldiers played possum. The first of the twin uncapturables, Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, enveloped himself in the jungles of the Philippines for thirty years, and his counterpart, Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi, spent twenty-eight years hiding out in Guam. You would think they would have given themselves up after the many air-dropped leaflets, newspapers, and the repeated bull horn announcements, but for different reasons, they chose to remain in hiding.
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R A M B O O N O D A
As a child, Hiroo Onoda excelled in the martial art of kendo, and was a competitive-fighter type of kid. Soon after grade school, he was drafted and proved to be a true combat soldier, a practical Rambo who was trained in the special forces. His specialty: guerrilla warfare. At his training school, he was programmed to think differently from the other soldiers. Unlike the others who were taught to jump into front-line trenches, fire bullets and possibly get blown to bits by enemy shrapnel, Onoda was taught to stay alive by any means necessary. He was like a spy. In his book, No Surrender, he mentions that in special forces, he had to live through everything, including being captured, because then he could give false information to throw the enemy off target. No matter what happened to him, there was always some good that he could do for his country and for the Japanese Army.
Onoda is well-known to Japanese people as a war hero and as a symbol of the Japanese drive to never give up. He endured and fought in the jungle of the Philippines for three decades, while almost everyone else went home. He was only 23 when the war ended. One of his last orders from Major Takahashi, his superior, was to control the Lubang Airfield area in a guerrilla mission, and not to die by his own hand, no matter what. Onoda also asserts that the Major said, "It may take three years, it may take five, but whatever happens, we'll come back for you."(p.44). Like a good soldier, Onoda kept his end of the deal and lived by these directives, but Takahashi flaked and didn't come back. Being drilled in the Japanese Army to live for honor and to follow orders to the end, Onoda never gave up. He wasn't alone for the entire duration, but had a couple of men who accompanied him for many years. The first, died nine years after the war ended, and the second died two years before Onoda came out of hiding.
Why didn't he leave?
Onoda was so well-trained that he refused to belive that the many legitimate rescue attempts, flyers, and newspapers which were air-dropped, actually signified the end of the war. Every time rescue teams came close, he scrutinized them as if they were the enemy and concluded that they were Americans in disguise. "...I wondered why they did not leave me some binoculars and a telephone. ...The only explanation I could accept for their not leaving me a telephone somewhere was that they wanted at all costs to keep me from coming out of the jungle" (p 187). Whenever proof that he was a free man came to him, he would always find a way to convince himself and his longtime partners that everything was faked! He explains this thinking by writing, "If there was anything that did not fit in with them (fixed ideas) we interpreted it to mean what we wanted it to mean" (p. 128).
For food, Onoda would occasionally kill cows that were grazing in the area. Also, he gathered coconuts, nanka (fruit), bananas, mangoes, and just about anything he could get his hands on during the changing seasons. Food never seemed to be a big problem. When they didn't want to hunt, they would "requisition" items from working peasants and islanders. This is how they got their utensils, jackets, pots, pans, and sometimes rice! Occasionally, Onoda would break into farmer's shacks at gunpoint to get his hands on radios, batteries, flashlights, and sometimes food. With the radio, he would listen to the news, but wouldn't believe anything that was said on the air. He would construe the D.J.'s words into war messages! "What pretended to be a broadcast from Japan or Australia was, to our way of thinking, a tape prepared by the enemy and rebroadcasted with suitable changes" (p.160).
His living style was nomadic. He would go from place to place and build a quick hut in just a few hours. He knew when something or someone was getting close to him. He had a soldier's sixth sense and was quick about preserving his own life. He doesn't mention much about heated confrontations with islanders, but according to some news articles, many Philippinos claim in a manifesto that Onoda killed a few people while living on the island. These nationals are currently seeking reparations from the Japanese government.
Once while "requisitioning" food in 1972, there was a small battle that left Onoda's friend dead. After twenty-eight years of surviving together, he was now all alone. He survived until a hippie traveller dude named Norio Suzuki found him. Suzuki, a lone crusader with a mission of trying to find this displaced army man, set out to look for him with the goal of bringing him home. But only after a long talk, did Suzuki realize that he was going to have to get a military superior to come and read Onoda his final orders. This happened March 9, 1974.
What's he up to now?
After becoming a huge sensation in Japan, Onoda moved to Brazil where he bought a huge cattle ranch. After managing about 2,000 cows, he married a Japanese woman and has since opened a nature type of camp for kids in Northern Japan. Although he said that he never wanted to return, he went to Lubang in 1996 and met one of the people that he shot (they embraced) amid a small group of protesters who railed against Onoda's visit (they were quickly dispersed by police). Onoda also donated $10,000 cash for the education of Philippino children.
Y O K O I -
HIDE-AND-SEEK PLAYER #1
Unlike Onoda, Shoichi Yokoi was a completely different style of player/person. Onoda grew up in a broken home, which was considered to be taboo at the time. Since his mother divorced his father, Yokoi's life was branded with the badge of "bad family heritage." In a time of national pride and pre-war hysteria, he was a loner who finished grade school, and then got a job at a clothing manufacturing companyÐhe was learning to be a tailor. He was supposedly great at it and should have gone on to be the next ArmaniÐattending fashion shows and hanging out with models and possibly living an "alternative lifestyle," but instead he got drafted.
Why didn't he leave?
Yokoi was a regular army man just like a toy soldier. His mission was to protect the then-Japanese-owned territory of Guam with the rest of his platoon. But when the Americans landed, the fight was over in a day. The remaining soldiers in the still-standing Japanese Army retreated into the mountains. This remaining group dwindled as some gave themselves up or got captured, but Yokoi went literally underground. He knew that the war was over, but he didn't want to surrender and die in the process. That would mean possible death, and much shame as aforementioned. So instead, he dug a hole in the ground like a Hobbit and called it his own. The tunnel was basically an eight-foot deep by ten-foot long tunnel that was perhaps only three-feet high. This is where he lived like Bilbo for twenty-eight years, except he lived for most of this time in the nude! He only dressed in his hand-made best when he ventured outside to do chores at night. He hid from society, and actually had two comrades who had hiding places about fifteen minutes awayÐand they lasted twenty years themselves before dying of starvation. Yokoi had some provisionsÑa rifle, which was rotted out and not functional; pots and pans which he made out of cans; and his canteen. He also had some knives, but beyond that he used coconut shells and made nets to catch shrimp in a nearby stream. He ate some seafood, but his main staple was coconuts and Sago palm nuts. Food was scarce for him, although he said that he once caught a boar and ate it, but didn't do it again since he got indigestion.
What surprised journalists the most when Yokoi was discovered was the fact that he made a perfect set of clothes! He fashioned a needle out of brass and used bark fibers from a Pago tree for thread. The photos of his clothes show a well-woven canvas-looking jacket and trousers with button holes and claspsÑall homemade! Making a shrimp trap and nets was easy in comparison, and he had tons of gadgets to make his life somewhat easier. It's tough to explain what a man could have been doing for twenty-eight years even though he knew the war was over. and could have returned to his home. Although many Japanese people will be quick to say that Yokoi was nuts and a bit of a coward for hiding for so long, they have to acknowledge that he did survive for twenty-eight years. He had more stamina than people give him credit for. It's also funny to note that when he was found, the first thing that happened was that he got his ass kicked by two natives.
What's he up to now?
I couldn't find any current information on Yokoi. I asked many Japanese nationals, however, if they had heard about any of his current exploits, and one man said that Yokoi is married to a nice woman, is probably retired, and is doing nothing. Since Yokoi was branded as a coward, I asked the man how Yokoi would be able to find a wife, and he told me the government set it up for him as a way of saying thank you for serving the country!
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