War & Paradise: The Territories Of The U.S.

One Soldier Never Surrendered, Lived

In the aftermath of the vicious Pacific Theater campaigns of WW II, Guam was left in relative peace. However, for one Japanese solider, his fight didn’t end until almost 28 years after the Allies had already formally won. Shoichi Yokoi, a sergeant in the Imperial Japanese Army, managed to survive on the island completely isolated from human contact through hunting and scavenging at night. When he finally returned to Japan in 1972 after being discovered by two villagers, he reiterated his sense of duty to his late emperor and the dedication that fueled his will to survive in a series of interviews with an incredulous press. The caves he once inhabited are now memorialized and preserved as a tourist attraction and monument.

But estranged soldiers haven’t been the only strange visitors to the island…