Japanese Holdouts

After the surrender of Japan at the end of WWII, many members of the Japanese army continued to fight. Their reasons for this varied. Some refused to believe the surrender was real, some simply refused to accept it, and some joined with other enemies of the Allies to continue the fight.

The first group of holdhouts, under Captain Sakae Oba surrender at Guam on December 1st 1945, about 3 months after the end of the war. This group was composed of 46 guerrilla fighters, and their surrender ended the last group of organized Japanese military forces.



The next five years saw a large number of encounters with Japanese holdouts. In the Philippines, Filipino and American divisions were tasked with rooting out the remaining Japanese forces on the island. This process was not immediately successful, and a few battles were fought over the next 5 years, killing dozens of American and Filipino soldiers. In 1948, most of the Japanese remaining in the Philippines surrendered, when 200 relatively organized soldiers gave themselves up. However, small groups held out on the island chain until 1974 and 1980.

The largest group of holdouts gave themselves up in China in late 1980. The exact number that surrendered is largely unknown, but it is estimated to be 10 to 20 thousand troops. These soldiers were not exactly Japanese holdouts, as they had been trapped in the mountains of Manchuria in a no-mans land between warring Nationalist and Communist Chinese forces.

http://www.wanpela.com/holdouts/list.html