12. There is Stubbornness, and Then There is the Extreme Stubbornness of the Guy Who Kept Fighting World War II For Almost Three Decades After It Had Ended
The aftermath of World War II in the Pacific was marked by the phenomenon of Japanese holdouts: military personnel who refused to surrender and kept fighting after Japan had surrendered. Some were cut off from communications with their chain of command, did not receive official notice to surrender, and were thus ignorant of the fact that the war had ended. Others were deliberately obtuse, knew that the war had ended, but went to extreme lengths to pretend ignorance. The latter held out for a variety of reasons, ranging from fear, pride, shame at defeat, or sheer bloody-mindedness.
Within a few months, most holdouts saw sense and laid down their arms, or were tracked down and captured or killed by the victors. Some, however, were unable or unwilling to see sense and evaded death and capture for months, years, and in some cases, decades. The most extreme of them, by length of holdout, was Teruo Nakamura – an Imperial Japanese Army soldier who refused to surrender and managed to hide out in a tropical island for twenty-nine years after World War II had ended.