Holdouts

Today is the 72nd anniversary of V-J Day (the US sees September 2nd - when the formal surrender document was signed in Tokyo Bay - as the "real" V-J Day rather than when the Japanese Emperor announced the surrender to the Japanese people.) The last Japanese soldier didn't surrender until he was discovered in the jungles of Indonesia on December 18, 1974. Many such hold-outs either were so remote they didn't know Japan surrendered in 1945 or refused to surrender because it was seen in Japanese society as a great dishonor and so kept fighting.