No Surrender

by Hiroo Onoda

  That suited me all right. I chased him, still training my rifle on him. Again he looked back only to find that I had gained on him and was still prepared to shoot. He ran on for a while at full speed and then darted into one of the residences attached to the radar base.

  I figured that when the man informed the search party he had seen me, they would come in large numbers to the road, and I would sneak off in the mountains toward Looc.

  Just as I planned it, in about twenty minutes the search party showed up. Over their loudspeaker they said, “We had a report that you had shown up here, and we think you are somewhere where you can hear this speaker. . . . Onoda-san, if you don’t believe we are Japanese, load up your infantry rifle before you come out.”

  I had to laugh. Load up my rifle indeed! The rifle that had been kept loaded for nearly thirty years. I was here, all right, and I could hear their loudspeaker. But I was not about to fall for something like that!

  I crossed a branch of the Vigo River and made off in the direction of Looc. Then, from somewhere around Kumano Point, there came a woman’s voice. I could not make out exactly what it was saying, but I caught the words, “Hiroo, you gave me two, didn’t you?”

  I recognized the voice as belonging to my older sister Chie, and I thought she must be talking about a pair of pearls that I had given her as a wedding present. While I was wondering about this, a man’s voice came from another direction: “. . . a warrior, fight like a warrior! Soldier, fight like a soldier!”

  It was my brother Tadao’s voice, and I had heard these words at the Kurume Officers’ Training School. So Tadao had come all the way from Brazil!

  Still, that did not surprise me very much. I had learned from a leaflet that he had moved to Brazil. I remembered looking at a picture of him and his children in the leaflet and thinking that it was like him to go somewhere like that. I had always rather expected him to go to New Guinea or some other new country and get into development work. Brazil fitted in.

  “It was good of him to travel such a long distance for my sake,” I thought. “I think I’ll just sit here and listen to him for a while.”

  I sat down where I was and tried to hear what he was saying. Because of the terrain and the wind. I could not make out everything the loudspeaker said, but I caught enough to know that Tadao was talking with his customary eloquence. He had once won the All-Japan Middle School Debating Contest, and he seemed to be making good use of his experience in that field.

  I decided to postpone going to Looc and stay a while longer on the east slope overlooking the Vigo River. I had plenty of food, and there now seemed to be no great hurry to go to Looc. I might as well stay here and observe the search party a little longer.

  At the time of the 1959 search party, I thought someone had been imitating my brother Toshio’s voice, but this time the voices, both Chie’s and Tadao’s, were definitely theirs. This seemed to mean that the new search party had actually come from Japan and not from the American intelligence corps. I wanted to make sure of this point.

  One evening about two weeks later, on the forty-fifth day after Kozuka’s death, I went over to the place where he had been shot, with the intention of saying a prayer to comfort his spirit. Presumably the search party had wearied of looking here. Their activities in the area had all but ceased; I could hear no pleas from the loudspeaker.

  As I came out of the bushes and approached the small hill from the rear, I found a book with the rising sun on the cover. On the flyleaf, in my brother’s hand, there was a message saying, “You probably have things to say to me before we talk together. Tear out the flyleaf and write them down on it. If you leave it here, I’ll receive it.”

  The writing was without doubt Tadao’s, and I was now completely convinced that he was on Lubang.

  Here, near Kozuka’s grave, I was afraid that there might be enemy guards around. I kept hearing a noise that I was not accustomed to. Releasing the safety lock on my rifle, I walked cautiously on, my pack still on my back.

  Last year, walking along a road that the islanders had built to make it easier to transport their rice, I had sung to myself a song about wartime comrades:

  My friend lies under a stone in the field,

  Lightened by the soft rays of the evening sun. . . .

  After making sure no one was around, I looked up and in the darkness made out a Japanese flag flapping in the breeze. This was the odd noise I had heard. I sighed with relief.

  As I drew near the doha tree, I saw that a large tombstone had been erected at the spot where Kozuka had fallen. Peering so closely that my face almost touched the stone, I made out large engraved characters saying: “Death Place of Army Private First Class Kinshichi Kozuka.” Before the tombstone someone had placed a wreath of flowers and some incense. I knew from the way the marker had been set up that it had been placed there by Japanese.

  I clasped my hands in prayer as I silently spoke to Kozuka: “I made things difficult for you, didn’t I? You must have suffered a lot. I’m sorry I had fights and arguments with you. Go back to Japan ahead of me, and don’t worry about me. I will avenge your death whatever happens. Being alone has not made me weak. Be at peace.”

  In my ears rang his last words, “It’s no use!” I was all tight in the chest.

  The moon came up, and in its pale light I could make out the outlines of Ambil Island in the distance. As I came back from the hill, I thought again of the song about comrades:

  Faithful to the Five Teachings,

  Lying a corpse on the battlefield.

  From old the warrior’s conviction:

  Though not one single hair remains,

  No one can regret dying for honor.

  I sang under the moonlight until my mind was at rest again. As I sang, I thought repeatedly of the pledge I had made before Kozuka’s tombstone.

  To avoid danger, I decided again that I must leave the vicinity of Kozuka’s grave as soon as possible. I fixed on Agcawayan plain as my destination.

  Next day around noon, I reached the plain and saw a Japanese flag flying in the middle of it. Apparently this was the search party’s current headquarters.

  I decided that on the following morning I would leave my hiding place before eating and go up in the valley for fresh water, taking a look around as I did so. In the course of carrying out this operation, I found a large number of discarded dry-cell batteries, as well as books, newspapers and leaflets. I picked these up and started back for my hideout but discovered to my surprise that I could not find it. There were a lot of little ridges around there; they all looked pretty much alike. I began to worry. I had my gun with me, but I had left behind all my spare ammunition. If it was found, the enemy would know where I was.

  I do not remember ever being so frantic. It took me until the next day at noon to locate the hiding place. Sweating as much from anxiety as from heat, I must have searched every hill in the area except the right one, and at times I was no more than fifty yards away from it.

  This would not have happened if Kozuka had been around. If there had been two of us, one of us would have stayed in the hiding place and would have seen the other searching for it.

  The newspapers devoted a lot of space to Kozuka’s death, and I went over all the articles very thoroughly. They said, among other things, that I myself seemed to have received a leg injury in the skirmish. That was untrue, and there were a number of other discrepancies in the stories.

  What struck me as most peculiar was that none of the newspapers said a single word about Kozuka’s “thousand-stitch waistband,” which he had worn every day during his years on Lubang. A “thousand-stitch waistband” was a piece of cotton cloth in which each of a departing soldier’s family and friends sewed one stitch, often attaching a coin or writing a short inscription. Many Japanese soldiers wore bands like this around their waists for good luck, and Kozuka was never without his. The newspapers not only failed to mention the waistband, but made the mistake of reporting that Kozuka had had a five-sen pie
ce and a ten-sen piece in his pocket, when in fact they had been attached to the waistband. It looked to me as though the error must have been made on purpose. In any event, I came to the conclusion that these newspapers, like the others, had been doctored.

  Kozuka’s waistband had been a length of pink cloth on which there was a picture of a tiger. The coins, which his family had given him as good-luck pieces, were sewn on with red thread. Kozuka once told me, “I had to leave suddenly, and I had to use this cheap store-bought cloth. There wasn’t time to make a proper ‘thousand-stitch waistband.’ It’s terrible material. I’m surprised it is still holding together. There ought to be a law against merchants selling this flimsy pink rayon to soldiers going to the front.”

  Every year near the end of the rainy season, we repaired our clothes, and I remembered that this year I had seen Kozuka make a strong black waistband and wrap the pink one in it.

  Why the newspapers would suppress the information about the waistband was a mystery to me. After pondering over this for some time, I arrived at a tentative conclusion.

  Unlike the search party of 1959, the new expedition was actually sent by the Japanese goverment. The search, however, was only a pretext, the real purpose being to send a team of Japanese reconnaissance experts to conduct a detailed survey of Lubang. According to the news on the radio, Japan had become a large economic power, and it might well be that one aim of the search party was to spread a lot of money around Lubang and win the islanders over to the Japanese side. The appeals to me to come out, then, were intended to throw American intelligence off the track. Under cover of the ostensible search for me, Japanese agents would photograph every strategic point on the island and prepare detailed reports on the terrain and conditions among the people.

  Looked at from this viewpoint, the pleas urging me to come out really meant that I should not come out, because if I came out, the game would have to end.

  I knew from the radio that the Americans had failed badly in Vietnam, and it occurred to me that Japan might have seen that debacle as an opportunity to woo the Philippines over to the Japanese side. The Philippine government, for its part, might well be in the mood to switch its support from America to Japan. It stood to reason that the Japanese strategic command might have selected Lubang, where I was still holding out, as the place to establish a foothold in the Philippines. Hence the phony search party.

  If I were to accept the search at face value and give myself up, the “search party” would have to go back to Japan without having accomplished its real objective. I had felt tempted by my brother’s appeal, but it would not do for me to spoil the larger plan by giving in.

  Mentally, I addressed words of encouragement to the “search party”: “I will keep hidden where you won’t find me, so survey the island as closely as you can. Working in a large group, you can find out much more about the mountains and the towns and the airfield than I could ever learn alone. If you win the support of the islanders and render the island harmless, my objectives will have been accomplished all the more quickly.”

  One thing that troubled me was that the members of the search party always seemed to be accompanied by armed Philippine soldiers. Why would intelligence agents sent from Japan always have Philippine guards with them? Was this not as much as telling me that they were enemies?

  I was ninety-nine percent convinced that the “search party” had been sent from Japan. The remaining one percent remained hesitant because of those armed Philippine troops.

  The helicopters kept flying noisily over the island and dropping countless leaflets in the jungle. The search party pitched tents in various locations and communicated with each other by telephone. As I moved about from hiding place to hiding place, I wondered why they did not leave me some binoculars and a telephone. If I had a telephone, I could talk to the intelligence agents in secret and relay to them all the information I had gathered over the years. 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.

  Looking at it from another angle, if they really wanted me to come out, they should have left not only a telephone but a machine gun and ammunition. If they had done so, I could have loaded the machine gun and walked right out in front of them. If they were really Japanese agents working for the same cause as I, they had no reason to fear that I would shoot. I was convinced that the war was still going on, and if the searchers wanted to prove they were friends, they had only to furnish me a weapon and ammunition. There could be no better proof.

  I kept as far away from the search party as I could. Having stopped for a time near the shore south of Looc Bay, I proceeded to a hill from which I could look down on White Lady’s Field, and there I celebrated the beginning of 1973. It was the first time I had seen in the New Year alone since my arrival on the island. Even with no one else around, I prepared my version of the Japanese “red rice.”

  On January 3 I left the hill, planning to move up toward Tilik by way of the Agcawayan plain and Wakayama Point. A day or two later, while I was still en route, I suddenly heard the sound of recorded music coming from the ridge in front of me. I moved to a point about five hundred yards away and spent one night. The following day near Wakayama Point I heard the record again. This time I decided to investigate.

  That evening I approached the rice field where the loudspeaker was located. Someone had pitched a tent there, and I could tell by shadows from the light inside that people were moving around. I hid in a grove only about 150 yards from the tent and tried to hear what was being said.

  It was my brother’s voice again. Calling me by my childhood nickname, he said, “Hironko, this is Tadao. Many of the search party have left, and the soldiers who are here are only to protect us. They are not trying to kill you. If a Philippine soldier pointed his gun at you, I would jump in front of it and prevent him from shooting.

  “I know you have had the experience of seeing Kozuka killed before your eyes, and I don’t suppose you would believe anything I say. But if you don’t get in touch with us, there is nothing we can do. Be brave! Act like an officer!”

  I listened to my brother broadcasting two nights in a row, but I interpreted this also to mean the opposite of what he was saying about coming out of the mountains. My brother was an army officer, and he certainly knew what my orders were.

  Three months passed after Kozuka’s death. The survey appeared to have been nearly completed, because I rarely caught sight of the “search party” anymore.

  I kept expecting a secret agent to come and establish contact with me. Maybe the attack on the Philippines had already begun. Whether it had or not, there should be some significant change in the near future.

  But nothing happened. As I thought about this, it occurred to me that perhaps Lubang alone had declared itself independent and appealed for protection to the East Asia Co-Prosperity League. After all, even the little island of Nauru was now independent. If America could no longer be depended on, it stood to reason that the Philippines might ally themselves with the league, but even if that had not happened, it was possible that Lubang had become independent and come under the league’s protection. But if that were the case, there would be no reason why a Japanese base could not be built here.

  All in all, I decided I had better stay in hiding and wait a while longer.

  In the latter part of February, the loudspeaker appeals started again. This was the third search party, and I knew from leaflets that it included fellow students from primary and middle school, as well as soldiers who had been at Futamata with me.

  For a while I stayed in a place northwest of Kumano Point where I could hear the broadcasts, but afterward I moved to Wakayama Point and then to Kainan Point on the south shore. From there I saw on the beach a yellow tent flying a Japanese flag and a slightly smaller Red Cross flag. Some people offshore in a native craft were calling out over the loudspeaker that they were from Kainan Primary School.

 
; I began to wonder whether my brothers or these friends knew that they were being used by the Japanese strategic command. If they were consciously putting on this show, they must feel rather shabby about it. On the other hand, if they were sincerely making this appeal without knowing the real purpose, I felt sorry for them.

  Two months later the island quieted down again. Six months had passed since Kozuka’s death, and I thought that by now the survey must certainly be finished. Toward the end of April, by way of checking on whether the search party had really left or not I went up to my mountain hut. There I found a seventeen-syllable poem written by my father and left in the hut for me. It said:

  Not even an echo

  Responds to my call in the

  Summery mountains.

  It gave me a strange feeling to know that even my aged father had been brought down to Lubang.

  A lot of newspapers and magazines had been left in the hut, along with a new search-party uniform in a sack, and an old uniform with the name Ichirō Gozen sewn on it. Ichirō Gozen had been in Kainan Middle School when I was there. I examined the old uniform and found that it was torn in several places, and the cuffs had been turned up to make the trousers shorter. The shoulders were particularly worn, and when I reflected that Gozen, who had specialized in judo, had had wider shoulders than any of the other students in our school, I decided that the uniform had really been worn by him.

  With a ball-point pen that I had requisitioned from an islander, I penned the following message on the back of a large Red Cross leaflet: “Thank you for the two uniforms and the hat which you kindly left for me. In case you are not sure, let me inform you that I am in good health. Hiroo Onoda, Army Second Lieutenant.” Naturally I did not put the date on the message, but to make sure that it would not blow away in the wind before someone found it, I put a small rock on top of it.