Teruo Nakamura
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Teruo Nakamura | |
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Birth name | Attun Palalin |
Born | Takasago Volunteer Unit 高砂義勇隊 | 8 October 1919
Battles/wars | World War II |
Teruo Nakamura (中村 輝夫, Nakamura Teruo, born Attun Palalin;[1][2] also known as Suniuo;[3][4] 8 October 1919 – 15 June 1979) was a Taiwanese-Japanese soldier of the Imperial Japanese Army who fought for Japan in World War II and did not surrender until 1974. He was the last known Japanese holdout to surrender after the end of hostilities in 1945.
Military service
Nakamura was an
After the Allies captured the island, it appears Nakamura remained there with other stragglers well into the 1950s, though setting off for extended periods on his own. In 1956, apparently, he relinquished his allegiance with his fellow holdouts, and set off to construct a solitary camp consisting of a small hut in a 20 m × 30 m (66 ft × 98 ft) fenced field.[5]
Discovery
Nakamura's hut was accidentally discovered by a pilot in mid-1974. In November of that year, the Japanese Embassy in Jakarta requested assistance from the Indonesian government in organizing a search mission, which was conducted by the Indonesian Air Force on Morotai, leading to Nakamura's arrest by Indonesian soldiers on 18 December 1974. He was flown to Jakarta and hospitalized there.
News of his discovery reached Japan on 27 December. Nakamura decided to be repatriated straight to Taiwan, bypassing Japan. Upon his return, the
At the time, the Japanese public's perceptions of Nakamura and his repatriation differed considerably from those of earlier holdouts, such as
Five years after his repatriation, on 15 June 1979, Nakamura died of lung cancer.[6]
See also
- List of solved missing person cases
- Shoichi Yokoi, among the last three Japanese holdouts to be found after the war, he was discovered in the jungles of Guam in 1972
References
- ^ a b "The Last Last Soldier?", Time, 13 January 1975, archived from the original on 1 February 2009
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7748-2659-4.
- ^ a b c Han Cheung (2 January 2016). "The last holdout of Morotai". Taipei Times. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
- ^ Han Cheung (16 September 2018). "Taiwan in Time: Abandoned by the rising sun". Taipei Times. Retrieved 16 September 2018.
- ISBN 978-1500527013.
- ^ ISBN 0-415-31218-3.
- ISBN 0-415-31218-3.
External links
- Wretch (Blog), CC: article with a photo of Nakamura (on the right).