In 1974, a Japanese soldier named Hiroo Onoda emerged from the Philippine jungle, unaware that World War 2 had been over for nearly 30 years. During those three decades, Onoda waged a murderous guerilla insurgency against the residents of Lubang island, leaving a trail of corpses and broken lives in his wake. Meanwhile, the defeated Empire of Japan was undergoing a radical transformation that would reshape the trajectory of East Asia. In this standalone episode of Conflicted, we weave these two parallel stories together into an examination of the nature of loss, persistence, and hope.

SOURCES: Ballinger-Fletcher, Zita. “Was Hiroo Onoda a Soldier or Serial Killer?” History Net. May 2 2023. Betuel, Emma. “73 Years Later, The A-Bomb Trees Still Grow in Hiroshima” Inverse. Aug 6 2018. Buruma, Ian. Year Zero. A History of 1945. 2013. Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. 1999. Gallicchio, Marc. Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II. 2020. Harmsen, Peter. War in the Far East: Asian Armageddon 1944-1945. 2021. Onoda, Hiroo. No Surrender: My Thirty Year War. 1974. Paine, S.C.M. The Japanese Empire. 2017. Spector, Ronald. In The Ruins Of Empire. 2007. Toll, Ian W. Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific 1944-1945. 2020. Walker, Brett L. A Concise History of Japan. 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices