Sabbath Thought - Fight the Good Fight

When the war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945, the Allied forces moved their focus to the war still going on in the Pacific theater. The U.S. eventually decided to use the atomic bomb that had been developed, which they dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan the first week of August that same year (which ended the war in the Pacific theater). Because of the extensive territory that had been taken by the Japanese forces throughout the war, it took time for word to get around to the troops that were in the remote jungles of Southeast Asia that the war was over.

One such soldier to get the news eventually was Hiroo Onoda. He was a second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army and had been tasked with guerrilla warfare operations on the Philippine island of Lubang. When he was first sent to the island, he was told that under no circumstances was he to surrender to the enemy or to take his own life. He did not succeed in his mission of preventing the United States and Philippine Commonwealth forces from taking back the island (which they did in February 1945), but Onoda and three other soldiers with him fled into the mountains on the island to continue their fight.

The first time Onoda's group saw a leaflet announcing that Japan had surrendered was in October 1945; another cell of Japanese guerillas had found a note left behind by islanders which read: "The war ended on 15 August. Come down from the mountains!" They concluded that the leaflet was Allied propaganda, and also believed that they would not have been shot at if the war had indeed been over. Toward the end of 1945, leaflets with a surrender order from General Tomoyuki Yamashita of the Japanese Fourteenth Area Army were dropped by air on the island. Onoda's group studied it closely and determined it was not genuine.

For almost 29 of the following years, Onoda carried out guerrilla warfare on Lubang Island, and on several occasions engaged in shootouts with locals and the police (killing some, but how many is unclear). Onoda was contacted in 1974, but refused to surrender until he was relieved of duty by his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, who was flown to Lubang. Onoda finally surrendered on March 10, 1974. Onoda surrendered his sword to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos at the ceremony on March 11, 1974, having held out for 28 years, 6 months, and 8 days (10,416 days) after Japan's surrender in 1945. Onoda, who had been declared dead by the Japanese government in 1959, received a hero's welcome upon his return to Japan.

Hiroo Onoda was trained to kill people and blow things up. His record as a military man put him at odds with God's law, and yet we can marvel at his dedication and unwavering focus to follow through on his order. How seriously do we take our "marching orders"? We are not called to kill people and blow things up, but are we willing to stay the course of our calling and to "fight the good fight" (2 Timothy 4:7)? Our fight is to hold onto the faith we have been given in Jesus Christ, and to strive for the crown of righteousness laid up for us (eternal life) that will be given to us at Christ's return (v.8). Will we do the work of the one who has "sent" us (John 4:34)?

Hiroo Onoda had a mixed life after his return to Japan. He never really fit back into that society. He wrote a best-selling autobiography about his decades in the jungles of Lubang Island. He started a charity to help young people after a Japanese teenager killed his parents. He tried to make peace with citizens on the island of Lubang, but many could not forgive him because he had killed some of their relatives. He refused back pay from the Japanese government for his years of fighting after the war ended, and any money donated to him by well-wishers he donated to a Shinto Shrine in Tokyo. Hiroo Onoda died in January 2014.

What will be the legacy of the "fight" we are in? We should all pray that we will hear the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant," (Matthew 25:21)

I wish you a very meaningful Sabbath,

Dan Dowd

29 June, 2024