Some continued fighting for years after the war had ended.
They survived on bananas and coconut milk from the jungle, and occasionally stole cows from nearby villages.
Sporadically they engaged in shootouts with local police.
Onoda was now left completely alone.
By this point he had become a legendary figure on Lubang and beyond.
In 1974, a Japanese man named Norio Suzuki finally managed to seek Onoda out.
Hiroo Onoda eventually laid down his rifle nearly 29 years after the end of the war.
He returned to Japan in 1984 and opened educational camps for young children across the country.
He died on 16 January 2014.
Norio Suzuki poses with Onoda and his rifle after finding him in the jungles of Lubang Island.
Lt. Hiroo Onoda, sword in hand, walks out of the jungle on Lubang Island after 29 years.
Onoda offers his sword to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos to express his surrender at the Malacanan Palace in Manila.
Onoda waves upon arriving back in Tokyo in 1974.
Hiroo Onoda wasnt the only one with an extraordinary story.
More than 2,600 km away in the jungles Guam, another Japanese soldier was staging a holdout.
Shoichi Yokoi was a Japanese sergeant when he was sent to Guam in February 1943.
When American forces captured the island in the 1944, Yokoi went into hiding with nine other Japanese soldiers.
Seven of the original ten eventually moved away and only three remained in the region.
These men separated but visited each other until about 1964, when the other two died in a flood.
The last eight years Yokoi lived alone in a small cave he dug out for himself.
you might still visit his cave in Guam.
The ceiling is supported by strong bamboo canes and the floors and walls were covered with bamboo.
His clothes were made of old burlap sacks, coconut and pago fibers, sewn together with handmade needles.
The buttons of his suits were made from discarded plastic.
Shoichi Yokoi and his cave were discovered in 1972.
Yokoi died in 1997.
Photo credit:www.grobetrotting.com
Photo credit:edward6967/Panoramio
Photo credit:kawahiro/Panoramio
Sources:Wikipedia/Wikipedia/Damn Interesting/BBC/www.guampedia.com/Mashable
