Three decades lost in the South Pacific

It’s 1944 and a 22-year-old Japanese soldier is left to defend a South Pacific island during World War 2. But he’s never told the war ended, so he stays on the job for 30 years.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well as some old general one said war as hell,
but in this case it may be more like purgatory.
A twenty two year old Japanese soldier was left to
defend a South Pacific island during World War II, but
he never knew the war ended, and he stayed on
the job until the nineteen seventies. I'm Patty Steele. He's
next on the backstory. The backstory is back. Okay, imagine this.

(00:28):
You're just a kid. You get left on an island
during an all out war, and you're told to defend
it with your life. And by the way, you're also
told to destroy the only pathways off the island for yourself,
the harbor and the airstrip, and then wait for further instructions.
So you wait and wait and wait for decades. World

(00:49):
War Two lit the whole world on fire, but there
were brave folks on all sides who were devoted to
defending their country like all in no matter what. Twenty
two year old Anoda is near the top of that list.
He was a Japanese soldier who in nineteen forty four
was left on a small South Pacific island and told

(01:09):
to hold it for Japan, no matter what so he
stayed on the job until the nineteen seventies. Anoda was
left on the island with just a few other soldiers
and was ordered to destroy the harbor and an airstrip
in order to disrupt an upcoming American invasion. They told
him to defend the island at all costs, not to surrender,

(01:32):
and not to take his own life even as a
last resort, which some Japanese soldiers did in order to
save face rather than raise the white flag. His commanding
officer said, it may take three years, it may take five,
but whatever happens, we will come back for you. That
was in December of nineteen forty four, but the US

(01:52):
and Allied forces took the island just two months later,
forcing Anoda and three other remaining soldiers into the mountains.
The war in the Pacific ended just eight months after
the Allies arrived, but the war didn't end for a
Noda and the others. Leaflets were dropped by air telling
them the war was over, but they thought it was
a trick propaganda from the enemy. Anoda said, the leaflets

(02:16):
they dropped were filled with mistakes, so I judged it
was a plot by the Americans. By nineteen fifty four,
one of those four soldiers had surrendered and another was
killed in a shootout with island police. An Noda and
his lone fellow soldier remained in the mountain top jungle
until nineteen seventy two, when the other soldier was also

(02:37):
shot and killed by police patrolling the island. He was
all alone at that point, and finally, in nineteen seventy four,
a Noda living alone was found by a Japanese college
student who said he was traveling around the world looking
for Lieutenant Anoda, a panda, and the abominable snow Man
in that order. He told Anoda the war had ended

(03:02):
years ago, but he still refused to leave his post,
saying he was waiting for orders from his superior officer. Well.
The Japanese government finally sent that former commanding officer, who
had originally promised to come back within three to five years,
to personally convince him the war had ended almost thirty

(03:22):
years earlier. That's when Anoda, still wearing his old Imperial
Army uniform, finally surrendered and turned over his weapons, including
his sword and the dagger his mother had given him
in nineteen forty four to kill himself with if he
was captured, Wow, thanks mom. Now imagine what life was

(03:43):
like for Anodah at this point. He left Imperial Japan
in the nineteen forties when he was just twenty two
years old, and returned at the age of fifty two
in nineteen seventy four, emerging into a shockingly different world.
Traditional Japanese culture and religion had been replaced by a
very modern, materialistic society. It was total culture shock, and

(04:08):
he really struggled to adapt. Ask at the time if
he regretted the lost years, he simply said, the only
thing I thought of during those years was accomplishing my duty.
I was fortunate that I could devote myself to my
duty in my young and vigorous years. A major newspaper
in Tokyo said, Ada has shown us that there is

(04:28):
much more in life than just selfish pursuits. There is
the spiritual aspect, something we may have forgotten. He was
celebrated as the ultimate hero for his devotion. People wanted
him to run for office, and he wrote a book
called No Surrender My Thirty Year War, detailing his life
as a guerrilla fighter in a war that was long over.

(04:51):
The Japanese government offered him a fortune and back pay,
but he gave it all to charity a note, hated
the publicity, and he was crazy on comfortable with the
loss of traditional values in Japan. Within a year, he
moved to a colony in Brazil where other Japanese people
with traditional sensibilities lived, and he married a woman who

(05:12):
was a Japanese tea ceremony teacher. The two returned to
Japan in nineteen eighty four and founded the Aoda Nature
School for children, but they returned to the wilds of
Brazil every year for three or four months at a time.
Heroanoda died in twenty fourteen at the age of ninety one.

(05:40):
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia
and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our
executive producer is Steve Goldstein of Amplified Media. We're out
with new episodes twice a week. Thanks for listening to
The Backstory. The pieces of history you didn't know you
needed to know. Four