No Surrender

by Hiroo Onoda

  After our graduation ceremony on August 13, some of us went to say good-bye to Captain Shigetomi, who told us all, for the last time, to be good officers. He was almost tearful as he patted each of us on the back and wished us well.

  When I arrived at Futamata on August 16, I was told that training would not begin until September 1. I was directed to take a two-week leave in the meantime.

  I went to Tokyo, partly because I wanted to get a company officer’s sword belt from my oldest brother, who had been promoted to the rank of major and was now entitled to wear a field officer’s sword belt. My brother had been transferred to the Army Medical Administration in Tokyo and was living in Nakano, which was then on the outskirts of the city. He asked me about the outfit I was being assigned to; I told him the name of the squadron, adding that I had no idea what it did.

  My brother looked startled. “It’s this,” he said. He first stuck out the index and middle fingers of his right hand and then made a motion like that of pouring water into a teapot. I assumed he was being secretive because his wife was present. I merely nodded my understanding.

  Not that I understood completely. The pointed fingers meant a karate thrust into an opponent’s eyes, and the gesture of pouring tea suggested giving someone a dose—of poison. I took this to mean that I was to be engaged in some sort of spying, but I was not sure what sort. The idea that I might be assigned to intelligence work was not particularly surprising to me, because back in Nan-ch’ang Lieutenant Ōno had once said to me, “We are short of good people for the pacification squads. With your Chinese, when you finish officers’ training school, you ought to be given a job in that field.”

  “Pacification squad” was the current term for units that infiltrated behind enemy lines and tried to break down defenses from within. They corresponded in many ways to what the Americans called “commando squadrons.”

  The next day my brother gave me the sword belt, and after I had gone to pay my respects before the imperial palace, Yasukuni Shrine and Meiji Shrine, I went to Wakayama to see the rest of my family.

  The training center I went to was properly called the Futamata Branch of the Nakano Military School, but the sign over the gate said only Futamata Army Training Squadron. It was no more than a small collection of decrepit army barracks, located a little more than a mile from Futamata railway station. The school was not far from a place on the Tenryū River that had once been used by the Third Engineer Corps from Nagoya as a practice area for army bridge builders.

  My group was the branch school’s first class, and on September 1 there was an opening ceremony. The commandant, Lieutenant Colonel Mamoru Kumagawa, addressed our class of 230 officers with words to the following effect: “The purpose of this branch school is to train you in secret warfare. For that reason, the real name of the school is to be kept absolutely secret. Furthermore, you yourselves are to discard any ideas you may have had of achieving military honors.”

  This came as no shock to me, because my brother had warned me in Tokyo, but the others looked at each other in amazement and anxiety. The anxiety only increased when one of the instructors, Lieutenant Sawayama, stood up and started shooting questions at us.

  “When you gentlemen arrived in Futamata, what impression did it make on you?” he asked. Then, without waiting for answers:

  “If there were troops stationed here, how many battalions do you think there would be?

  “What is the principal industry here?

  “Just what kind of a town is this?

  “How much food do you think the town could provide for army troops?

  “What is the average frontage of the houses here?”

  Of course none of us had the foggiest idea of the answers. We were stupefied!

  Then he continued, “I am trying to show you what we mean by the word intelligence. To make the maps necessary for military movements, we must have information—intelligence, that is—from many different quarters. My job is to teach you how to acquire intelligence as it relates to military needs. You will have to learn to notice everything around you and evaluate it from the viewpoint of military intelligence.”

  I had foreseen something like this, but I could not suppress the feeling that I had wandered into a rat’s nest. I was not the only one by far.

  Somebody said, “I don’t have enough brains for this.”

  Another moaned, “Does this mean that on top of officers’ training I have to become a spy?”

  That evening several of them went to see Lieutenant Sawayama, and their spokesman told him, “We have all thought since we came into the army that one day we would lead a platoon into battle. That’s why we worked so hard at officers’ training school. And what we learned there was how to be effective leaders in battle. We don’t know anything about secret warfare, and we are not at all sure of our ability to learn. We would like to be returned to our former units.”

  The next morning Lieutenant Sawayama called us together and addressed us: “You’re quite right in thinking that the training here will be difficult, but the very fact that you understand this merely on the basis of what I said yesterday shows that you have good minds. I intend to cram into your heads eveything you need to know, so don’t worry. And don’t come to me a second time with your bellyaching!”

  I, for one, was at least happy to be told that I had a good brain. I cannot say that all my fears had been dispelled, but I made up my mind to try to learn everything there was to learn at Futamata.

  It was certainly different from the officers’ training school. Military forms and procedures were observed, but without excessive emphasis on regulations. On the contrary, the instructors kept stressing to us that in our new role as commando trainees, we should learn that so long as we kept the military spirit and remained determined to serve our country, the regulations were of little importance. At the same time, they tried to impress upon us that the more underhanded techniques that we were learning, such as wiretapping, were to be used against the enemy, not for our own personal benefit. They urged us to express our opinions concerning the quality of the instruction and to make complaints if we felt like it.

  We had four hours of training in the morning and four in the afternoon. Classes lasted two hours each, with fifteen-minute breaks in midmorning and midafternoon. When the time for a break came, everybody piled out of the classroom windows into the yard to have a smoke. There were 230 of us, packed like sardines into one small barracks, and the break was not long enough for all of us to leave and return in orderly fashion via the door. At officers’ training school if anyone had dared leave by the window, the punishment would have been swift and severe. At Futamata it was routine.

  The classroom was terribly cramped. We were not only literally shoulder to shoulder but almost completely pinned in front and back by desks. The instructor lectured from a tiny platform, occasionally squeezing his way into one of the few narrow aisles. Despite the uncomfortable conditions, the lecturers displayed much enthusiasm, even fervor, in propounding the essentials of guerrilla warfare.

  At the main school in Nakano, the course had at first consisted of one year of language training and one year of guerrilla and ideological training. As the war situation grew more serious, the language training was eliminated, and the remainder of the course was reduced to six months. By the time we came along, the six-month course was being jammed into three months. The pace was fierce for both instructors and trainees.

  I began to understand the basic differences between open warfare and secret warfare. The attack drills at the officers’ training school had been lessons in open warfare, which is fundamentally unicellular. We were now being taught a multicellular type of warfare in which every available particle of information is used to throw the enemy into confusion. In one sense, what we were learning at Futamata was the exact opposite of what we had been taught before. We had to accustom ourselves to a whole new concept of war.

  And the homework was mountainous! Almost every night we had to request
permission to leave the lights on after hours, and most of us were up until midnight regularly. Even so, there was not enough time. On our days off we would hole up in the inns in Futamata to work on our assignments. I always stayed at one of two inns, the Kadoya or the Iwataya, and recently I was interested to find that the Kadoya is still operating today. It must have been a terrible nuisance for the innkeepers to have this horde of fledgling officers descend on them every Sunday, particularly when there was a shortage of food.

  I cannot think of Futamata without being reminded of the famous folk song “Sado Okesa.” Lieutenant Sawayama used this song to illustrate the whole idea of secret warfare.

  “There is,” he said, “no correct version of ‘Sado Okesa.’ Within certain broad limits, you can sing it or dance it any way you like. And people do just that. The type of guerrilla warfare that we teach at this school is the same. There are no fixed rules. You do what seems best suited to the time and the circumstances.”

  In one sense, the training we received can be compared with what is usually called “liberal education.” We were to a large degree given our heads, so to speak. We were encouraged to think for ourselves, to make decisions where no rules existed. Here again the training was very different from what we had experienced at the officers’ training school. There we were taught not to think but to lead our troops into battle, resolved to die if necessary. The sole aim was to attack enemy troops and slaughter as many as possible before being slaughtered. At Futamata, however, we learned that the aim was to stay alive and continue to fight as guerrillas as long as possible, even if this entailed conduct normally considered disgraceful. The question of how to stay alive was to be decided at one’s own discretion.

  I liked this. This kind of training and this kind of warfare seemed to suit my personality.

  At that time, if a soldier who had been taken prisoner later managed to return to Japan, he was subject to a court martial and a possible death penalty. Even if the penalty was not carried out, he was so thoroughly ostracized by others that he might as well have been dead. Soldiers were supposed to give their lives for the cause, not grovel in enemy prison camps. General Hideki Tōjō’s Instructions for the Military said explicitly: “He who would not disgrace himself must be strong. He must remember always the honor of his family and his community, and he must strive fervently to live up to their trust in him. Do not live in shame as a prisoner. Die, and leave no ignominious crime behind you!”

  But at Futamata, we were taught that it was permissible to be taken prisoner. By becoming prisoners, we were told, we would place ourselves in a position to give the enemy false information. Indeed, there might be times when we ought deliberately to let ourselves be captured. This could, for instance, be the best course when there was a need to communicate directly with others who had already been taken prisoner. In short, the lesson was that the end justifies the means.

  In such circumstances, we learned, we would not be held liable by the army for having been captured. Instead we would gain merit for having carried out our duty properly. Only insiders, however, would ever know that we had been engaged in secret warfare, and we would have to face the taunts of outsiders as best we could. Practically no one would be aware of our service to our country, but that is the fate of those engaged in secret warfare. It is not rewarding work, in the ordinary sense of the term.

  In what, then, can those engaged in this kind of warfare place their hope? The Nakano Military School answered this question with a simple sentence: “In secret warfare, there is integrity.”

  And this is right, for integrity is the greatest necessity when a man must deceive not only his enemies but his friends. With integrity—and I include in this sincerity, loyalty, devotion to duty and a sense of morality—one can withstand all hardships and ultimately turn hardship itself into victory. This was the lesson that the instructors at Futamata were constantly trying to instill in us.

  One of them put it this way: “If you are genuinely pure in spirit, people will respond to you and cooperate with you.” This meant to me that so long as I remained pure inside, whatever measures I saw fit to take would eventually redound to the good of my country and my countrymen.

  At this time we already knew that research on the atomic bomb was being carried on in the United States. It was being carried on in Japan, too, but the reports we received indicated that America, which had far greater wealth and far more scientists, was considerably ahead of Japan. Although our reports were little better than rumors, we foresaw that eventually an atomic weapon would be used against Japan.

  In October, 1944, the American forces landed on Leyte, and the overall situation was so grim that people were beginning to talk seriously of an invasion of the homeland. We felt that every minute was bringing us closer to the time when we would be called into action. And yet we were not seriously disturbed. We were sure that even if the enemy did land in Japan, in the end Japan would win. Like nearly all of our countrymen, we considered Japan to be the invincible land of the gods.

  In early November, we carried out a graduation maneuver to show how well we had learned our lessons. The problem was posed to us as follows: “An enemy force has landed in Japan. Enemy troops have occupied the airfield at Hamamatsu. As fighting progresses, the enemy commander is preparing to fly from Hamamatsu to Atsugi Air Base. You are to move into action immediately. Your mission is to kidnap the enemy commander and blow up the Hamamatsu airfield.”

  Each of us had to draw up a plan for carrying out the mission. The best plan was then selected, and the manueuver was put into simulated operation.

  Since I was assigned to the kidnap group, I wore my uniform, minus insignia. The demolition team dressed up as farmers and day laborers. An advance lookout was dispatched, but as he crept toward the airfield, he sighted an “enemy” force approaching. He hastily dived into a side road, but by this time his movements had aroused the suspicion of farmers working in the nearby fields, who then closed in on him. Instead of making a futile attempt to escape, he gave himself up to the “enemy.” Later he told me, “I saw there was no use resisting, so I decided to get caught and then grudgingly give the enemy a lot of false dope.” It struck me that he had learned the “Sado Okesa” lesson well.

  Other than the capture of the lookout, the maneuver, which lasted four days and three nights, went off without a hitch. Observers from Army General Headquarters gave us high marks. Not long after that, I heard that while the maneuver was going on, a rumor spread among the people in the neighborhood that an army officer in Futamata named Kumagawa had organized a rebellion and was about to send a task force of officer trainees to blow up the airfield. Some of the local people thought the military police should be notified immediately, but others urged caution, and the decision was put off until the following morning. By that time the maneuver had ended, and nothing more came of the affair.

  On November 30, our class received orders to “withdraw” from the school. I still do not know why, when we had completed our course, we were ordered to “withdraw,” rather than given some recognition of our graduation, but in any event I was confident that those three months had done wonders for my spirit, as well as for my capability as a soldier. I felt that I would be able to conduct myself as cleverly and as coolly as the captured lookout who had been my fellow trainee. I told myself that whatever happened, I would be able to carry out my duties creditably.

  Just before we finished school, word was received that forty-three of the trainees, including myself, would be sent to the Philippines, and twenty-two of us were directed to reassemble at Futamata on December 7.

  On the evening before I left to go on leave, I walked down to the banks of the Tenryū River and stared for a time at the rushing waters. Suddenly I remembered a popular song called “Kantarō of Ina,” which was going around at the time. The words went:

  I may look like a crook and a ruffian.

  But witness, O Moon, the splendor of my heart.

  The inspiration for
this was a historical tale about a gangster named Kantarō, who had aided the emperor’s troops during the Meiji Restoration. Standing here by the river I saw the secret warfare troops, of whom I was one, as gangsters like Kantarō, stealthily providing aid for the valiant imperial troops in the field.

  I came to the conclusion then that I would probably go off to the Philippines and carry on my guerrilla warfare in the mountains until I died there all alone, lamented by no one. Although I knew that my struggle would bring me neither fame nor honor, I did not care.

  I asked myself, “Is this the way it ought to be?”

  And I answered, “This is the way it ought to be. If it is of the slightest use to my country, I shall be happy.”

  As I went on with the song, my voice rose above the sound of the turbulent river:

  O Moon of my homeland, I am newly reborn.

  Mirror the brightness of my soul tonight.

  I went home to Wakayama for the first time in three months. This would be my last visit for a long time, perhaps forever, and I said to my mother, “Let me have that dagger you keep in the drawer of your cabinet.”

  The dagger was a last-resort weapon that had been handed down from my great-grandmother to my grandmother and then to my mother. I remembered hearing my mother tell how her mother had given it to her when she married my father. It was in a white scabbard, and as she handed it to me, she said gravely, “If you are taken captive, use this to kill yourself.”

  I nodded, but inside I knew that I was not going to commit suicide even if I were taken captive. To do so would be a violation of my duty as a secret warfare agent. I coaxed the dagger from her simply because I wanted it for self-protection.

  I also wanted something to remember my father by, but I could not bring myself to ask him. While I was trying to decide what to do, I thought of a bamboo incense tube of which he was very fond. It was about a foot long, with a black sandalwood stopper and a beautiful inscription carved on the side. My father always kept it beside a metal incense burner on a small three-drawer cabinet in the living room. I made up my mind just to swipe it. When I told my mother what I was going to do, she did not object.