Shoichi Yokoi, the Japanese soldier who held out in Guam

By Mike Lanchin   23 January 2012

It's exactly 40 years since a Japanese soldier was found in the jungles of Guam, having survived there for nearly three decades after the end of World War II. He was given a hero's welcome on his return to Japan - but never quite felt at home in modern society.

For most of the 28 years that Shoichi Yokoi, a lance corporal in the Japanese Army of world War II, was hiding in the jungles of Guam, he firmly believed his former comrades would one day return for him.

And even when he was eventually discovered by local hunters on the Pacific island, on 24 January 1972, the 57-year-old former soldier still clung to the notion that his life was in danger.

"He really panicked," says Omi Hatashin, Yokoi's nephew.

Startled by the sight of other humans after so many years on his own, Yokoi tried to grab one of the hunter's rifles, but weakened by years of poor diet, he was no match for the local men.

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Shoichi's story

• Born in 1915 and conscripted in 1941 to serve in Manchuria, before being sent to Guam in 1944
• On his return to Japan he expressed embarrassment at having returned alive, rather than dying in the service of the emperor
• Japan had changed utterly during his three-decade absence - some found his stoicism and loyalty inspiring, others found it absurd
• He married in 1972, within months of his return and died in 1997, aged 82
• He longed to meet Emperor Hirohito - in the end he was granted an audience with Emperor Akihito in 1991

"He feared they would take him as a prisoner of war - that would have been the greatest shame for a Japanese soldier and for his family back home," Hatashin says.

As they led him away through the jungle's tall foxtail grass, Yokoi cried for them to kill him there and then.

Using Yokoi's own memoirs, published in Japanese two years after his discovery, as well as the testimony of those who found him that day, Hatashin spent years piecing together his uncle's dramatic story.

His book, Private Yokoi's War and Life on Guam, 1944-1972, was published in English in 2009.

"I am very proud of him. He was a shy and quiet person, but with a great presence," he says.FullStory>>>