30. Ei Yamaguchi in Peleliu
When American forces captured the island of Peleliu in 1944, lieutenant Ei Yamaguchi was among the few Japanese survivors. He took charge of 32 other Japanese survivors, and went to ground in the island’s extensive underground defensive network. There, the Japanese evaded capture by hiding in and moving about via the system of tunnels beneath Peleliu. Cut off from communications with Japan, they received no official word of the war’s end and dismissed American announcements that the war was over as an enemy trick. Dreaming of retaking Peleliu someday, the holdouts kept up a desultory guerrilla resistance.