22. The Fox of Saipan Had a Strange and Inexplicable Ability to Avoid Detection and Capture
Captain Sakae Oba hid the civilians who had accompanied him and other Japanese military survivors into Saipan’s jungles, by concealing them in caves and remote villages in Saipan’s interior. He then led his men in a guerrilla campaign against the US military. Oba led his men in raiding American outposts and supplies, ambushing patrols, and taking potshots at sentries. US commanders had assumed that the island was wholly pacified, but Oba’s pinprick attacks gave the lie to that assumption.
Numerous patrols were sent to track down and finish off Oba’s force, but to no avail. Plans were drawn for a massive dragnet in which American military personnel would line up across the entire island. Separated from each other by only two meters, the dragnet swept Saipan from end to end. However, the holdouts managed to avoid detection, leading to the reassignment of the chagrined officer in charge of the operation. Oba’s strange and inexplicable ability to avoid detection and elude capture led the Marines in Saipan to nickname him “The Fox”.