WEBVTT - What are Japanese stragglers? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.600 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:16.440 from House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.400 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Guess he's with me? That's right, 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.480 Chuckers Bryant. I wonder how you would spell that out? Actually, 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:26.920 if I changed my name to that, I don't know. 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.520 It's a lot of g s and or you could 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:33.879 just use some punctuation marks like um, exclamation points out 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:37.120 true in yano mommy right. I wouldn't want to be 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.240 confused with a comic strip purse word, though, which is 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.839 also random punctuations. Yes, it is it random? Well, I 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:47.160 don't know. I don't think each one signifies a letter, 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:50.040 does it. I've driven myself mad trying to find a pattern. 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.400 There's one in there somewhere, right, Yeah, I'm like the 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:57.240 guy from Pie. Yeah, so, Chuck, you know much about 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:01.240 World War Two, you know, Josh, I'm the hugest history 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.520 buff when it comes to the wars. But I know 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.320 a little bit about the Great One, the Great War, 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.840 the Big One. I think they're both called the Great Wars. No, 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:13.000 I think the First War was called the Great War 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:17.280 and the second one is the War to end all wars. 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.679 Who knows. Let's leave it to the listeners to correct this. Boy. 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:25.399 Um uh, did you know that during World War Two, 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:29.040 towards the end, although no one realized it was towards 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.480 the end yet, sure, everything was still hot and heavy, 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.479 Japan's air force was actually starting to sag quite a bit. 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.240 Which if you have an air force and you're a nation, 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:41.880 the last time you want your air fleet to start 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.080 showing its age is in the middle of a major war. 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:46.679 And if you have an air force and you're not 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.680 a nation, then uh, that's pretty damn cool. It is 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.360 pretty cool. You are a real threat and a rich 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:54.840 rich man, I would say, probably woman. I mean, I 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.600 think about it. Bill Gates could probably a massive private army. 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.600 He probably has one, probably he can, right, Josh. The 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:05.080 deal was, was Japan's air force was old? Really? Yeah, 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:07.840 their fleet was old. Um, not the pilots, but the 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.600 planes themselves were old. Someone outdated maybeen old pilots too, 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.760 and they couldn't keep up with the newer technology that 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.560 America had to offer. No, so they came up with 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.639 a very radical idea. Actually, more to the point, Vice 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:25.239 Admiral Onishi taka Jiro came up with an idea. I 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:26.919 don't want to call it a good idea because it 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:29.800 sent people to their deaths. It was a good idea though, 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:32.560 well it worked at least. So what they did, what 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:36.160 he decided to do, was to take these aging planes 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:40.000 and strap five and fifty pound bombs to them and 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:44.120 then aim them right into aircraft carriers and destroyers and 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.639 and you know, basically anything that you wanted blowing up 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:53.640 um and use them as flying bombs. Essentially, talk these 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.440 pilots and going down. That was their problem. They used pilots. 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:02.120 It's called kama kaze, which means mine wind. Let's say 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:07.280 that together again, that's right, which is probably the coolest 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:11.400 name for suicide I've heard of so far, except for 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.320 Harrie koree, which is gut cut in slang in Japanese. 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.040 Is it really? I didn't know that? Yeah. So anyway, 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:21.240 I mean, if you we have suicide bombers today, right, Chuck, 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:23.560 which I have to tell you, I can't wrap my 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:27.240 mind around that. I've yet to encounter an ideology or 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:30.480 dogma that I can point to and be like, yes, 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:35.120 I would kill myself for that not even the Simpsons, No, 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:39.000 not anymore. Maybe during season seven. Okay, yeah, but that's 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:42.640 a long time ago. Yeah, so um, we but you 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.480 can explain and I've actually read a study before UM 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:50.240 that kind of explains how suicide bombing works or why 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.040 suicide bombers do what they do has nothing to do 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:58.360 with um religious city. Oh really no. Uh. They did 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:00.840 as some I can't remember who did a study, but 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.920 they did a survey of people who UM and they 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:09.760 they defined religiousness or adherence to the Muslim religion UM 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.720 as how often you prayed every day a daily basis, 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:16.520 And they found that when you when you factor that 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:20.000 in that being equal. The the real thread that showed 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.160 support for suicide bombing or an aversion to suicide bombing 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.400 was how often you attended mosque. So it seems to 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.400 be more of a social than a religious thing. Interesting 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:34.320 suicide bombing, right, but still you can explain it by 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.400 um it has that kind of structured framework of religion, 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.760 right with the with the kama Kaze pilots that had 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.760 to do more with a perverted version of the code 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.000 of honor. Because this begs the question, how do you 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.480 talk a man in getting into a plane and flying 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:53.080 himself to his death. Well, I think the you talked 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.080 him into it by saying that your reward is lies 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:58.760 in the afterlife, in the case of religion or in 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.440 this case with I guess what your family name the 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:03.760 honor of your family name, and what it was was 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:08.640 a There there's a an eighteenth century um code of 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.800 the samurai called bushy dough And what is that way 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.680 of the warrior? Yes, way of the warrior? Right? Okay, 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:19.240 so you've got Bushi dough um. And it's this huge 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:24.080 code of conduct that includes everything from and it was 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:27.600 created in feudal Japan and it creates it involves everything 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:31.600 from there's like a tenant that you don't hire an 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.120 incompetent person or put them in a position of power 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:37.000 just because they've been loyal to you for X number 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:41.440 of years like um in this somewhere right, this code 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:45.080 of conduct is basically it says that you self sacrifice 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:51.400 is very important, and honor comes from death, humiliation comes 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:55.400 from surrender, right, disgrace if you surrender. And that's where 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.440 the how did you pronounce it? I always said, Harry Carey. 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:03.400 If Harry Carey has got harrikuri, harri cury. Uh, my 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:05.800 girlfriends had Japanese Dude, it's like a walking I have 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.760 a walking crib sheet next to me, similar concept, and 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:14.000 that uh, death brings honor, right, But that's just part 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.719 of it exactly, So there's there's all this other. Um. 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.760 It's basically like how to live as a samurai, right, um, 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:25.920 and the samurai were noble warriors. They were definitely in Japan. 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:28.920 They're still revered and they have been for centuries. Right. 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:33.800 So when the Japanese government took this one facet of 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:38.200 bushi though that you know, death death, honor comes from death, 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.120 and humiliation comes from surrender. They took it and kind 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.640 of pounded it into their military's head. It was kind 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.880 of a twisted form of it, would say. Some historians 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:52.360 would call it an outright perversion of right. But it 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:55.400 worked and that's how they got common Kazi pilots to 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.040 have a real impact. I think at their debut at 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.440 the the Gulf of the Battle for the Gulf of 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:04.840 late they took out the U S. S. St. Low 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.080 Um with a hundred forty four men on board, and 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.559 that was the first time. By the time the Battle 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:15.360 of Okanawa came around, I think in um three hundred 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.280 planes outfitted with fifty pound bombs. We're just coming out 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:21.760 of the sky, and what do you do because I mean, 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.360 think about it, Chuck. You've told me this before, right 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.680 that if you are prepared to die, you are an 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:33.040 indestructible enemy. If you're prepared to give your own life. 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.440 That's part of war. Is like you're hoping to make 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.840 it out of the battle, but you don't assume you're 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:41.280 going to make it out of the battle. You're the 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:44.000 most dangerous person on the planet. And if you can 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.360 line up and imagine once they started doing this and 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:50.160 signing soldiers up pilots, that became a little easier to 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.600 get the next guy in line, because you certainly didn't 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:56.000 want to back down if you're you know, co pilot 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:58.480 was all gung how, I don't bet with the first 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.240 the first round of pilots, uh. Vice Admiral Taka Jiro 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:06.320 was like, holy, they actually did it, you know, yeah, 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.520 It's like it's gonna be easy, yeah, yea yeah, let's 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:10.560 line them up. So plus they tied it to the 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.880 samurai and what is like cooler probably more honorable to 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:17.000 a World War Two pilot in Japan than to be 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:19.080 tied to the ancient samit. Yeah, it was like a 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:22.280 resurgence of it. Absolute plus. Also, the Samurai had hands 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:27.000 down the coolest armor of any group of warriors in history. Agreed, 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.360 Even Tom Cruise looked cool as a Samurai, which is 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:32.599 really saying that says a whole lot, all five and 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.079 a half feet of them. Yeah, yeah, I think you're 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:39.920 being generous. Um, So this the the the perversion of 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.720 bushido was also extended to the rest of the military 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.800 to right. It wasn't just these common concert pilots, which 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.720 is why. Um. I think five percent of the Japanese 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:53.280 military surrendered during World War Two, not much five percent, 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:57.319 there was I think in the Pacific, the Japanese um 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.080 used to flood islands with tens of thousands of soldiers. 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:03.440 I can't remember which island it was, but there was one. 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:05.520 It may have been Saipan, it may have been Guam, 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:09.520 I can't remember. Um, there were twenty thousand Japanese soldiers 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.400 on there and only ten percent surrendered on that one battle. 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.480 So the rest were mostly killed, like that's just how 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.440 they fought. But that was the only thing you could do. Well, yeah, 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:22.640 because it's gonna surrender, you're forced to kill them, right, 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.800 So in a lot of these battles, actually, um, you 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:31.600 you didn't have to get killed. You could also hide right, right. 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.080 And a lot of these islands, these islands became key 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.600 towards the end of World War two because the United 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.160 States figured, hey, Midway and the Philippines and Guam would 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:45.240 be great places to stage attacks on Japan. In Japan thought, hey, 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:47.800 these are great islands of stage attacks on us. So 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.160 they became kind of the focal point. Whoever owned these 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:53.079 islands had great sway over the outcome of the war, right, 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:57.600 and like it switched hands here there. The Philippines were 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:00.360 a really a key island in World two in the 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:04.080 Pacific theater, right, So the Japanese had it for a while, 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.800 and then the Allies did their own um flooding with 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:12.480 Marines who took the Philippines from the Japanese um. And 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:14.920 while the Japanese control the Philippines, they set up their 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:19.080 own puppet regime, not a sign regime, not towards the Filipinos. 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:23.320 So the Filipinos had um. They're kind of rubbing their 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:26.480 hands in anticipation when the Allies liberated the island because 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:30.200 they started search parties and rooted out any um hiding 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.640 Japanese soldiers and just butchered them, I think up to 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:37.040 eighty a day for a while. Snakes. Isn't that what 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.600 they called them? Yeah, yeah, that's what somebody was quoted as, right, 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:45.120 And these uh, these islands were lousy with mountainous regions 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.920 and jungles. So some of these holdouts are stragglers as 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:52.320 we call them, could route down and kind of disappear. Yeah, 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:54.240 and a lot of them did, a lot of them did. 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.880 And actually, interestingly enough, uh, these a lot of these 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.199 Japanese stragglers are hold out to kept the whole thing 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:04.400 out or straggling, depending on the verbue you want to use. Uh, 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.240 after the war ended and refused to come down. Right, 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:11.560 there's some really famous cases of Japanese holdouts. Yeah, there 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.640 was one uh well summer a little like more heartwarming 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.800 than others. Um, definitely here there was one man who 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:23.520 apparently was charged with securing and island off the coast 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.320 of eastern Russia. So I said, defend this island. So 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.839 he did so until nineteen long time after the war 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.760 was over. And the nice in history is that he 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:34.760 settled in the Ukraine. He got used to things over 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.080 there and started a new family and just kind of 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:38.360 was like, all right, well, this is my life now. 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:39.960 It's kind of nice over here. It was nice for 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.280 his new family, not so much for his old family yet. 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:44.120 Did you have an old family? Probably, I don't know, 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:48.600 probably yeah, yeah, um yeah. That that is about as 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.720 happy as the stragglers stories go. From there, it goes 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:57.040 into cannibalism. Cannibalisms. One there was one group, uh it 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.160 was they were actually I think some of them were civilians, 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.920 but I think it was, uh, twenty men something like that. 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:10.040 Thirty uh so, twenty nine men and a woman. We've 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:13.640 talked about this off the air, about this woman, what 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:15.480 it must have been like to be the only woman 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:20.559 among thirty. Her name was her, Her first name was Kaziko. 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.680 And apparently she used to um decide that she liked 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:26.760 one man as a boyfriend, and then we get tired 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:30.320 of him and liked another man. And um. These people 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:33.520 were living making milk out of or making a wine 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.240 out of coconut milk. Right, They had their own clothes, 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.199 they made um they found I think a B twenty 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.360 nine super Fortress crashed nearby on this mountain that they 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:45.840 were living on, so they pillaged it and used like 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:50.400 the the rifle springs as fish hooks. And they were 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:52.920 doing pretty good living like Swiss family Robinson style, right, 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:55.720 for like six years. Right. And and the woman actually 0:12:55.760 --> 0:13:00.600 when she transferred her affections, people would mysteriously vanish. So 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:02.280 apparently there was a lot of in fight. And I 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:07.120 think um uh six or seven of the eleven deaths 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:10.840 that were caused um that were attributed to the group 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:15.240 itself were through violence. One guy turned up with thirteen 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:18.560 stab wounds, and then at least four other guys who 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:24.840 the woman had dated, uh, disappeared while fishing. Sure, that's 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:27.080 what you call it when it's like, you know, love 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:30.240 straggling style. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, just checking out 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.280 a movie. Right. Well, they they were finally convinced to 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:38.280 come out um in what Yeah, which wasn't so bad. 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.240 But there's there's a whopper. There's another guy. Well let's 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:47.600 talk about um oh what was his name? M you're 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:49.880 talking about him? Yeah, But I think we should do 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:54.760 this dramatically. Let's lead up forward, all right, I think 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:59.199 that's right for play it out, pay it out, yes, 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:04.120 wait for it, pay it for Showichi Yokoi. He was um. 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:07.079 He was a soldier, a fellow holdout who was discovered 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:11.400 fishing on a riverbank in Guam, wearing burlap pants and 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:16.559 a tree bark shirt. Clearly a survivor, John Rambo, if 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.200 you will, No, he wasn't much of a rainbow, that's true. 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:22.200 Wait for a rambow. He's coming up. When when Yokoi 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.600 got back, he basically I don't know if he admitted 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:27.320 it or what, but he he said, I thought the 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:29.680 war was still going on. And this is nineteen seventy two. 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:31.680 I don't think I even said that yet. Holy cow, 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.600 this is nineteen seventy two. I was one year old, 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.240 crawling around Stone Mountain, Georgia, and this guy was still 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.600 holding out and he was found fishing and kind of said, uh, famously, 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.160 I'm ashamed that I've returned alive. When he finally came back, 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:49.920 and he would have left, but he knew the war 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.400 was over, I think, But he he said that he 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:54.760 was forced to stay because of shame. He did not 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:58.080 want to return as a surrender. Oh you're right, yeah, 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.280 And and he was kind of met with national shame 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:03.640 here there. Everybody's like, hey, glad you made it. But 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:10.400 kid wouldn't be the worst, right, Um. In contrast to 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:15.000 your COI was the baddest dude in World War two. 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.040 Probably as a matter of fact, I invite our listeners 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:23.240 to email us anybody who can who want, any single 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.000 individual who can top the man we're about to talk 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:30.560 about as in badness, Okay, and Josh will personally email 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.840 you back and debate you on that choice. I don't 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:36.480 I don't know about that, but this is the Rambo. 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:38.640 Think about it, Chuck. There can't be too many people 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:42.440 who who exceed this guy. Now we're talking about lieutenant here, Noda, 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:48.480 bad dude. Right. So if your Ki was just kind 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:53.040 of hanging out fishing and ashamed of himself Onnada was 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:58.080 doing the exact opposite. He was um staging raids on 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:02.120 villages in the Philippines and murdering cows and and stealing 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.920 stuff out of freezers and cheating. Correct, let's start at 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:07.720 the beginning. How did you get there? He was on 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.600 what island? Chuck? He was on the island of lou Bang. 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.440 I love it when you say that, Chuck. My pronunciation 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:18.760 is stellar. Here. Uh, he was he was unaware, actually 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.160 the war was over he was a case that did 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.120 not no no. So they he and I think four 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:26.960 other guys end up on lou Bang. He was twenty 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.040 three at the time when they landed, and lou Bang 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:33.840 is a Filipino island. It had an Allied presence at 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:37.640 the time. Um. But this was prior to the Allies 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:43.080 just flooding the Philippines with marines and taking it from Japanese. Right. 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:44.960 But I get the impression that lou Bang was kind 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:48.240 of no man's lamp because he and his four man 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:52.600 crack commando teams were tasked with going and sabotaging everything 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.560 they could on lou Bang, right, And they did. They did. 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.920 They blew stuff up. They I think they did something 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.840 to one of the ports, the piers and things like that. Um. 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:05.680 And basically they're just saboteur commandos. While they were there, though, 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:09.440 that Allied invasion happened and these guys had to skidaddle 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:13.120 and they did into the jungle and became guerrillas. They did. 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:15.840 They did not stop fighting. They did not fish along 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:18.720 the river banks and get found by somebody who anybody 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.200 who wanted to talk to him. Now, these guys continued 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.679 carrying out the war. Yes, all five of them until 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:29.040 nineteen fifty when uh one of them surrendered in nineteen fifty. Yeah, 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:31.800 and then he turned around and said he wrote a 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.959 message exactly that said, hey, guys, the I've been treated 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.320 very well. The war is actually over, has been for 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:42.080 six texted them right, He's like l O L VTW 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:45.800 war over l O L come home for sushi nel 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:48.240 l O L exactly, I think is what the first 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.800 message said. And they didn't buy it. Now they didn't. 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.439 And then they blanketed the jungle with these messages. They 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.680 make copies, dropped them from the plains, and evidently they 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.920 even played over loud speakers into the jungle. Hey, war 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:07.159 over right. Well, there's a contingent, contingent of Japanese diplomats 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.240 that went and use loudspeakers and say, hey dude, we're 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.560 from Japan, like we're for real, the war is over 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.360 for like six years. It's been over right now. Lieutenant 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:19.919 onata Um did not buy this scene. His guys just 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:21.960 didn't buy it. They figured it was Allied tricks trying 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:23.439 to get him out. Yeah, but you know, I can 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:27.080 respect that. But it also shows that back in Japan, 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.040 everybody was aware that this was going on in the 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:34.240 bang there was a Japanese UM commando team that was 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.720 still fighting World War Two several years after it was over, right, 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:41.000 and the Japanese loved us, yeah, you know, in their 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:45.240 very reserved way. Um. And but one by one these 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:47.680 guys started to go down, right, Yeah, two of them. 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:52.160 He became separated from the remaining two evidently, and then 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.240 both of those UH holdouts were killed. So now he's 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.520 by himself, right, and he's still fighting this war, still 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:01.560 holding out. Like I said, when they wanted meat, they 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.680 go and murder a cow and I guess field dress 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.800 it and take the meat back into the jungle. Um. 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.840 Villagers retreated as spies and were shot at. Um. They 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:16.879 would get into firefights with the local Filipino police. Um. 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.680 And I read, and this is not verified, but I 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.359 read that they actually staged a raid on a local 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:24.280 police station. This is back when there was more than 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.680 just Lieutenant Nada. They raided a police station and got 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:32.200 into a firefight to steal ammunition and guns. Okay, So 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:37.120 flashed through the sixties, the entire decade of the sixties. Dude, 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.000 go through that and go midway into the seventies to 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:43.439 nineteen seventy So here we are. It's nineteen seventy four. 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:49.800 I'm three years old. It was a full decade before Ghostbusters. Correct. Yeah, unfortunately, 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.920 and uh a noda a noda excuse me, is still 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.159 hunkered down in fighting by himself, by himself, when a 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.280 Japanese student who was I heard of this legend goes 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:05.720 and seeks him out, right, a guy, a Japanese dropout, apparently, 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:10.120 nor Yo Suzuki. He was kind of a wandering drifters. Yeah, 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:12.359 he was college dropout. What better person to go talk 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:16.520 someone into quitting? So he nice he u. He leaves 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:18.639 Japan and tells his friends he's going to look for 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.960 Lieutenant Onata, a Panda and the Abominable Snowman in that order, 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.159 and they're like, okay, alright, to leave your rent check. Yeah. Um, 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:30.000 so this guy was not leaving rent. No, he's he 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.960 was the hippie rob of Japan exactly. So he goes 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.200 um to lou Bang if the first thing he did 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.440 was go to lou Bang to look for um Lieutenant Onada, 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:42.520 who by this time, this nineteen seventy four, everyone in 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.600 Japan is still aware that this guy's killing people left 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.080 and right, and and and he's carrying on the war 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:51.359 right in his fifties at this point. Yeah he uh 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:57.240 was twenty eight years later. Yeah, um, so he's still 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.000 fighting and everyone's aware of it. And so I guess 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.120 Szuki is kind of like going to make a name 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:04.080 for himself too as being the one who gets this 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.119 guy to come out. And he actually meets Sonata in 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:09.880 the jungle and they become friends. Crazy. Yeah, this needs 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:11.680 to be made in to a film. I can't believe 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:15.800 it hasn't already. Nanda even wrote a memoir. Yeah, it 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:17.520 was a best seller as far as in it. And 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:23.320 that was different. That was an entirely different story resemblance. 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:29.320 That was different too. Um. So Suzuki actually meets Sonata 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:31.719 and they become friends, right yeah, and he kind of 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:34.199 tells him, hey man, this is the worst pinover for 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:37.679 a long, long long time. You missed the sixties, you 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.199 miss Woodstock. Uh, Disco is on the horizon, He's like, 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:45.400 but Ghostbusters is coming because coming in a decade. Yeah. Um, 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:48.000 And here's here's the problem. Here's the problem. And this 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:50.160 is where the story starts to get sad. You get 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.400 the impression at this point that lieutena Onata. Lieutenant Onata 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:58.000 is aware that the war is probably over, but he 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:03.199 says that he can't stop fighting until his commanding officer 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:07.960 tells him to surrender because his he was originally given 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:10.760 orders not to kill himself. He was under no circumstances 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:13.439 allowed to take his own life, and he wasn't to 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:17.800 stop until they came and got him. And so Suzuki 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:19.760 was like, all right, let me see what I can do, 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.720 goes back to Japan, finds this guy's former commanding officer 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:29.560 who's now staged stooped over bookseller and um selling little 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.960 gremlins in the alley. As as part of the Marshall Plan, 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:37.080 Japan didn't even have an army anymore. There's no standing 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:39.040 army in Japan, they're not allowed to have one, right 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:44.200 um so, But this nice bookseller uh decides to come 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:48.399 along to lou Bang and Suzuki takes him to meet Onata, 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:52.280 and the guy officially orders Onata to surrender put down 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:55.760 his arms, and so after a second apparently it really 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:58.960 sinks in and Onata is hit with the fact that 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.640 he's just at twenty nine more than half of his life, 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:06.240 twenty nine years of his life fighting a war needlessly 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:09.920 and killing people needlessly, killing thirty people and wounding a 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:12.879 hundred others and god knows how many cows. Right, So 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:15.160