“I feel ashamed to come back alive.” He just set foot in his country after living in the jungle for 28 years, fighting a conflict that no longer existed for 27. But those, according to the chronicles, are the words of Shoichi Yokoi once he returned to Japan. Exactly 50 years have passed since January 24, 1972, the day Yokoi is found on the island of Guam. Yokoi is one of the so-called “ghost soldiers” who continued to fight for Japan even though World War II was long over. A “division” of which he is among the most famous exponents for the duration of his “exile.”
Hidden in a cave, for him the war was never over and Japan had never surrendered to the United States. For him, the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had never been dropped. Although he had not encountered any other military from the opposing camp for nearly three decades, the sergeant of the Japanese Imperial Army had never abandoned his mission on an island considered strategic in the confrontation on the Pacific. So much so that today Guam is incorporated into American territory and hosts US military bases, which have recently returned to the limelight due to the new tensions between Washington and Beijing. But that’s another story.
The story of Shoichi Yokoi instead begins in 1941, when he was enlisted as a 26-year-old tailor and sent to Manchuria. In 1943 he was instead sent to Guam where Tokyo was engaged in trying to keep the Pacific front in the face of the US advance. Japanese resistance falls apart in 1944 and the US army conquers the island. Yokoi hides in a cave so as not to be captured with a group of fellow soldiers. The small patrol is part of a contingent of about five thousand Japanese soldiers who refuse to surrender to the Allies, preferring a life of fugitives to the dishonor of becoming prisoners of war. Symptom of the culture of honor and sacrifice typical of the Japanese tradition.
But over the years some lose their lives and others surrender to the opponent. Only two others remain with him until the end, dying in 1964 following a flood. Yokoi remained completely isolated for eight long years. Equipped only with military equipment, he began to use them as tools, making improvised clothes with the fiber obtained from the plants of the area.
Until, on the evening of January 24, 1972, two local fishermen spot him on the banks of the Talofofo river. They are the ones to take him to the local authorities, after having immobilized him. Yes, because Yokoi attacks them thinking they were enemies. Doctors describe him as healthy but anemic due to a diet characterized by the absence of salt. To survive, on the other hand, he had also eaten the bark of trees as well as fruit such as mango and papaya and what he managed to hunt, especially during the night. And above all, frogs and mice.
In March 1972 he returned to Japan, after learning that the war was over and he had remained hidden in vain. On the other hand, he had only followed orders. “We Japanese soldiers were told to choose death in the face of the misfortune of being captured alive,” he explains in an interview a few years later. After his return, he is received at the Imperial Palace by Naruhito and receives a small pension in addition to the equivalent of $ 300 in back wages. He quickly becomes a celebrity, books and documentary films are dedicated to him. Before reinventing himself as an instructor in survival courses, in 1974 he ran for elections aiming to start a political career. Without success. On the other hand, in the same year the record of longest-lived “ghost soldier” was removed from him by Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, who agrees to leave his post on the island of Lubang (Philippines) only after his former commander goes to him. to communicate in person the end of the assignment.
Between legend and reality, several sightings of alleged Japanese soldiers on more or less remote islands have also occurred in the following decades. But the case of Yokoi remains, together with that of Onoda, the most famous. Even today, 50 years after his discovery and almost 25 years after his death (which occurred from a heart attack on September 22, 1997), his story tells a lot about the recent history of Japan.