Status
Available
Call number
Call number
940.54 Ono
Collection
Publication
Kodansha International Ltd. (1974), Edition: 1st, 221 pages
Description
In the spring of 1974, Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese army made world headlines when he emerged from the Philippine jungle after a thirty-year ordeal. Hunted in turn by American troops, the Philippine police, hostile islanders, and successive Japanese search parties, Onoda had skillfully outmaneuvered all his pursuers, convinced that World War II was still being fought and that one day his fellow soldiers would return victorious. This account of those years is an epic tale of the will to survive that offers a rare glimpse of man's invincible spirit, resourcefulness, and ingenuit
Subjects
Original publication date
1974
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User reviews
LibraryThing member Schmerguls
One would think an account of jungle existence for 30 years would get to be tiresome, but I found this book consistently interesting. The author tells of his time from his birth on Mar 19, 1922, his entry into the Japanese Army after the war began, his being sent to Lubang Island in the
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Phillipines, and his carrying on as Japanese officer till 1974 when he finally came to believe the war was over. It is an amazing story, and held my attention throughout, even though one is dismayed by his refusal to believe what he learned in messages and radio broadcasts. He makes Robinson Crusoe seem like a piker. I came to admire some aspects of his character. Apparently he is till alive. This book was published in1974. Show Less
LibraryThing member Autodafe
One of my favourite books as a teenager. For those into survivalist stories, this in a great one.
LibraryThing member WinterFox
Wars are big places, full of people and moving parts, where it's easy for things to fall through the cracks. But when they do, it's not a trivial matter; that little crack can end up being big enough to actually hold the content of someone's life. I think when I was growing up, I heard stories of
No Surrender is the biography of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese officer with spy training who ended up getting posted to the Philippine island of Lubang towards the end of the year in 1944, where the tide of the war had already turned. We do get some description of what his upbringing was like (mostly about some time spent working in China and dealing with his army brother), what training was like towards the end of the war for Japanese offices (much reduced in length, with everyone cramming in as much hectically as possible), and the state of the Japanese war effort when he arrived on Lubang (pretty damn bad, and people were rather ready to give up). But the meat of the story is about the years between his arrival in December 1944, and when he finally was relieved of duty in March 1974.
So this is essentially a survivalist tale of the small band of people Onoda lived with, down to two for a couple of decades, through his last months spent alone. Onoda gives good details about what life on the island was like for them, moving from place to place, storing ammunition away, finding food by taking it from the trees at different points and stealing rice where they could, the maps they had in their minds, the difficulties of maintaining their clothes. And how they still tried to carry out their mission, tracking the people and troop movements for when the Japanese made their counter-attack. They also carried out little operations that would harass the villagers on the island.
To me, beyond the survivalist stuff, the most interesting parts of the story were how Onoda and Kozuka, his last remaining companion for the last couple of decades, came up with ways to distrust the updates they were given trying to get them to surrender. And there were many - newspapers left for them, leaflets dropped, pictures and letters from home placed in the forest where they were likely to find them. But they built up their own whole narrative of how the world had come to function, Japan's new allies and how they'd been holding out, finding a place for their mission and their life until then, even if it meant distrusting pictures from home because someone had been referred to by a different nickname, or because a neighbor was in the picture. There was delusion here, but to the fervent end of keeping their belief alive, that they hadn't wasted their time.
It's really quite an interesting story, and Onoda writes it clearly; the translation carries this pretty smoothly, as well, with a clear voice, simply presented. Onoda wonders at the end what all the time he spent there was for, if the cause had already been lost, and you certainly wouldn't want to trade places with him. It's not too bad to wonder what it'd have been to be there, though, and the book's not too heavy to find out.
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the Japanese soldiers who didn't know World War II had ended until decades after. A whole life spent in not just a futile cause, but a cause that was already lost years ago. A very interesting concept, if a tragic one.No Surrender is the biography of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese officer with spy training who ended up getting posted to the Philippine island of Lubang towards the end of the year in 1944, where the tide of the war had already turned. We do get some description of what his upbringing was like (mostly about some time spent working in China and dealing with his army brother), what training was like towards the end of the war for Japanese offices (much reduced in length, with everyone cramming in as much hectically as possible), and the state of the Japanese war effort when he arrived on Lubang (pretty damn bad, and people were rather ready to give up). But the meat of the story is about the years between his arrival in December 1944, and when he finally was relieved of duty in March 1974.
So this is essentially a survivalist tale of the small band of people Onoda lived with, down to two for a couple of decades, through his last months spent alone. Onoda gives good details about what life on the island was like for them, moving from place to place, storing ammunition away, finding food by taking it from the trees at different points and stealing rice where they could, the maps they had in their minds, the difficulties of maintaining their clothes. And how they still tried to carry out their mission, tracking the people and troop movements for when the Japanese made their counter-attack. They also carried out little operations that would harass the villagers on the island.
To me, beyond the survivalist stuff, the most interesting parts of the story were how Onoda and Kozuka, his last remaining companion for the last couple of decades, came up with ways to distrust the updates they were given trying to get them to surrender. And there were many - newspapers left for them, leaflets dropped, pictures and letters from home placed in the forest where they were likely to find them. But they built up their own whole narrative of how the world had come to function, Japan's new allies and how they'd been holding out, finding a place for their mission and their life until then, even if it meant distrusting pictures from home because someone had been referred to by a different nickname, or because a neighbor was in the picture. There was delusion here, but to the fervent end of keeping their belief alive, that they hadn't wasted their time.
It's really quite an interesting story, and Onoda writes it clearly; the translation carries this pretty smoothly, as well, with a clear voice, simply presented. Onoda wonders at the end what all the time he spent there was for, if the cause had already been lost, and you certainly wouldn't want to trade places with him. It's not too bad to wonder what it'd have been to be there, though, and the book's not too heavy to find out.
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LibraryThing member Stbalbach
No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War is a memoir by a Japanese soldier who held out in the mountains from 1944 to 1974. He lived off bananas and beef rustled from villagers who knew his shadowy presence in the mountains as the devil. The survival story is interesting, but what sets this apart is the
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psychology of denial that allowed him to believe, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that WWII was still going on. The depth of denial was absolute. It didn't matter this his own family arrived with bullhorns, hometown newspapers and even a transistor radio to prove reality. Nope, everything was a conspiracy by the Americans. More disturbing than Dostoevsky, it is the mind of insanity laid bare. Though he does not mention it, he killed several people during his 30 years in hiding. He received no punishment and was hailed a hero but really was a menace who killed without reason, an example how humans can pointlessly deceive themselves to destruction. Show Less
LibraryThing member bernsad
A lively and interesting read. The story moves at a good pace from his boyhood through enlistment, training and deployment to his time in the Philipines jungle and eventual rescue/surrender. The book gives a good insight into the lives of Onoda and the other couple of soldiers with him for a while
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as they move around the island to avoid the search parties and the local population and continue with their surveillance mission. It is staggering how they manage to convince themselves that the war is still on despite all the evidence to the contrary. It is also interesting how calmly Onoda looks back at those 30 years and can see where they made mistakes in their assumptions and interpretation of the information they were getting. The dedication to the cause was extraordinary. I highly recommend this work. Show Less
LibraryThing member hemens
This was one of the best, most poignant books I've read in years. Onoda is a surprisingly good author. He gets your attention immediately, then progresses through an autobiographical sketch leading to his arrival on Lugon, that immerses you in pre-war and wartime Japanese culture. If you have some
You will attend his greatest and most painful moments as if you were by his side. Accept him as he is, set aside your incredulity, and you will gain an incredible human experience.
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familiarity with that culture, the events of the book are easier to understand; he was thoroughly brainwashed. I found the sections of tortured reasoning to square the profundity of evidence of the war's end with their faith that it was not, painful insights into the nature of humanity, that drove these malnourished men to work themselves to the bone daily, fighting their own war thirty years after ours ended.You will attend his greatest and most painful moments as if you were by his side. Accept him as he is, set aside your incredulity, and you will gain an incredible human experience.
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LibraryThing member buffalogr
The story moves at a good pace. Onoda describes how he lived for 30 years on a small island, still fighting WW2. He was thoroughly brainwashed--came up with ways to distrust the updates they were given trying to get them to surrender. Great insight into the Japanese thinking prior to WW2 and how
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the world was plunged into that conflict...even, by extension, the ending of the war, too. Show Less
Pages
221