Was it true that on Guam the Japanese garrison there fought on for 20 years after the war in the pacific ended? I had read in a book "World war 2: an Illustrated History" that they fought on for 20 years because they retreated into the jungle and did Guerilla raids. Could somebody verify this?
No, the Japanese garrison on Guam was mostly wiped out in the initial fighting. There were a large number of Japanese stragglers and some of the surviving Japanese officers hoped to reorganize them into effective guerrilla units, but aggressive Marine and native Chamorro Constabulary patrols hunted them down and either killed or captured them. The raids by Japanese survivors of the original garrison were mostly against American ration dumps with the objective of feeding themselves. "At the end of August 1945, a little over a year after General Geiger had declared organized resistance over on Guam, a recapitulation of Japanese casualties showed that 18,377 enemy dead had been counted and 1,250 prisoners taken.[SIZE=-1]20[/SIZE] More than 8,500 Japanese had been killed or captured since 10 August 1944. The efficiency of the organized campaign to eliminate the survivors was recognized by Colonel Takeda, who said: Since August 11, [1944] the troops which had lost the center of command, and their commanders and men, entered, one by one, into the jungle to wait for the chance of counterattack. During this period LtCol H. Takeda in the north and Maj S. Sato in the south planned guerilla warfare, assembling the survivors living in the jungle, but owing to the loss of men and weapons and the shortage of food under successive subjugations, accompanied by skillful psychological warfare, their men dropped gradually into the hands of the Americans. Their objective failed. Thus it came the end of the war.[SIZE=-1]21[/SIZE] Before the war's end the psychological warfare unit under Island Command had been successful in convincing Major Sato of the futility of further resistance. He surrendered on 11 June 1945 bringing in with him 34 men.[SIZE=-1] [/SIZE] After the Emperor issued his rescript at the end of the war, ordering Japanese troops to cease fighting, Lieutenant Colonel Hideyuki Takeda sent emissaries to General Larsen to arrange for his surrender. On 4 September 1945 he left his "division command post," which had been located in the jungle about a mile and a half southwest of Tarague since the end of the organized fighting, and led a group of 67 officers and men in to surrender. When he ordered in an additional 46 men from the same area on 11 September, the last unified element of the Japanese defenders of Guam was in American hands.[SIZE=-1]"[/SIZE] See:HyperWar: USMC Monograph--The Recapture of Guam
The last holdouts in the Pacific has been mentioned and discussed in a few other threads here. Along with some in the Europe forum about hold outs there.
the guam, new guinea and most philippine stragglers were mostly disillusioned soldiers. some knew the war was over but somehow couldn't get themselves to surrender and return to japan. the only case i know to the contrary was lt. hiroo onoda who waged a continuous guerilla war in lubang island, philippines. he was convinced the war was still on (albeit a non-shooting war, perhaps.) the other stragglers kept hiding, foraging and stealing food till they were captured or surrendered. onoda was killing filipino troops and policemen well into the 70s. the japanese government paid 1.0 million dollars in 1976 to compensate the families of onoda's victims.
Yes, it was a fact. Actually there were Japanese stragglers at the hinterlands of Badian-Moalboal-Argao-Alcantara (Cebu, Philippine Islands) especially in Sohoton Ridge during the 60s, there were numerous limestone caves on that area which served as their camps .., as per narration by my late father, Eugenio Dio Sr who was a member of Filipino Volunteer Guards (locally known as Bolo Battalion). Some were killed by local villagers because those stragglers asked for a haircut and instead end up being slashed by razor knives by local barbers in the area. Upon investigations, during the 80s, some rifles (arisakas),bayonets(katanas), gold bars (yes gold bars !) and other personal belongings were found on those caves and it end up to the hands of the local politicians in the area.
Here is a link to a site called "Japanese Holdouts", and I don't recall when it was last updated. But it covers both documented and fraudulent "holdouts"; Goto: Japanese Holdouts: Registry Lots of islands and areas included.
a new movie is coming out called OBA, The Last Samurai about the battle of Saipan and OBA holding out. You might facebook Harlan Glen who has a show called Battle Rats on Discovery.
