Shoichi Yokoi’s Thirty-Year War

Well, the trip to the doctor for my back malady seems to have paid big dividends.  By noon yesterday, I was feeling much, much better.  I could get out of a chair, walk around, sit down, drink a soda, eat pizza, and watch the Packers find their way to the Super Bowl.  Some of you football fans may remember last year’s meeting between the Packers and Steelers, when the two teams racked up nearly 1,000 yards of combined offense.  It was one of the most entertaining games I’ve ever watched, despite a Steelers win.  I hope for a repeat, except with the Packers carrying the day.

There’s a song that goes something like, “This is the song that never ends…“.  I don’t know any of the rest of the words and, who knows, maybe it’s not even a real song, but it came to mind this evening, and somehow seems appropriate for the subject…sort of.

For Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi, the Second World War didn’t end before Japan signed the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945.  The same cannot be said for most of brothers-in-arms, who either gave up the fight or gave up their lives in the fight.  For Yokoi, the fight had come to him on Guam in 1944 as a member of the 38th Regiment.  He managed to remain alive throughout the battle and ended up hiding in a cave with a few fellow infantry as the Pacific War passed him by and headed to the next island.

And for Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi, the Second World War didn’t end after Japan signed the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945, either.  Yokoi was still in hiding (more than a year later), waiting for the Japanese to return and give him his next orders.  But of course, those didn’t come.

For thirty years, they didn’t come, even though Yokoi waited.

Over the years, the ten men became eight, then five, then just three.  Eventually (at some point in the mid-1960s), the final three separated, remaining hidden but in contact with each other.  And pretty soon, there was just Shoichi, as the other two men died.  He hunted at night, and made his own tools and clothes.  And while the pay wasn’t very good, he stayed alive, ready to fight again should duty call.

On January 24, 1972, Shoichi Yokoi’s war finally came to an end, when he was captured by fishermen checking their traps.  He was one of the very last (if not the last) Japanese soldiers captured.  As we have seen many times in our discussions, for a Japanese soldier to be taken alive was a shameful thing.  But Yokoi returned to Japan as something of a hero.