The Forever War

For most people World War II ended in 1945. And, though many remained in service in occupations of affected countries and in prisoner of war camps, most soldiers and support staff began the often long journey home. Defeated and victorious nations alike breathed a sigh of relief as their menfolk returned.

But for a few, the war didn't end. And it wouldn't end for quite some time to come. On December 17, 1944, 22 year old Lt. Hiroo Onoda left Japan for the Lubang Island, in the Philippines, to join the Sugi Brigade (the Eighth Division from Hirosaki). He was ordered to do all that he could to hamper enemy attacks on the island, including destroying the airstrip and the pier at the harbor, his orders also stating that under no circumstances was he to surrender or take his own life.

You are absolutely forbidden to die by your own hand. It may take three years, it may take five, but whatever happens, we'll come back for you. Until then, so long as you have one soldier, you are to continue to lead him. You may have to live on coconuts. If that's the case, live on coconuts! Under no circumstances are you [to] give up your life voluntarily.

Onoda's mission was compromised by the reluctance of more senior members of the Japanese armed forces already there and, within months, the island was overrun by Allied forces. The soldiers who survived split into smaller and smaller groups to evade capture until Onoda ended up in a group of 4 people: Corporal Shoichi Shimada (age 30), Private Kinshichi Kozuka (age 24), Private Yuichi Akatsu (age 22), and Lt. Hiroo Onoda (now age 23). They survived on meagre supplies and the occasional stolen cow from a local farm. They were not the only cells operating on the island and by October 1945, 2 months after the Japanese surrender, a campaign was launched by the Allied forces to inform the cells that the war was over. Leaflets were left on the farms where cattle were taken from:

"The war ended on August 15. Come down from the mountains!"

The group didn't understand how this could be possible and remembering that another cell had been fired upon just a few days before, dismissed it as a trick.

Over the following months more leaflets were dropped from planes, but left paranoid and without communications from superiors the group again dismissed each one after another as frauds.

For years after they lived in squalid conditions, occasionally firing on the locals:

"We considered people dressed as islanders to be enemy troops in disguise or enemy spies. The proof that they were was that whenever we fired on one of them, a search party arrived shortly afterward."

In 1949 (4 years after the war!), Private Yuichi Akatsu made his escape from the group and after 6 months on his own, he surrendered. It only served to increase the paranoia of the remaining three.

In 1953 Corporal Shoichi Shimada was injured in a skirmish, and whilst it healed left him glum. On May 7th 1954 he died in another skirmish.

For the next 20 years the remaining two continued to dutifully await reinforcements to retake the Philippines. In October 1972, now 27 years after the end of the war, Private Kinshichi Kozuka was killed by a Filipino patrol. His body spurred interest in the idea that Private Onoda, declared dead in 1959, might still be alive. However searches for him were fruitless and he continued his now lone vigil.

In 1974, a college dropout named Norio Suzuki decided to travel to around Asia. He told his friends that he was going to search for Lt. Onoda, a panda, and the Abominable Snowman. Surprisingly, on his visit to the Philippines, he found Lt. Onoda and attempted to convince him that the war really was over. Onoda explained that he would only surrender if his commander ordered him to do so.

Hiroo Onoda 1940s

Suzuki headed back to Japan and found Onoda's former commander, Major Taniguchi, who had become a bookseller. On March 9, 1974, Suzuki and Taniguchi met Onoda at a preappointed place and Major Taniguchi read the orders that stated all combat activity was to be ceased. Onoda was shocked and, at first, disbelieving.

We really lost the war! How could they have been so sloppy?

Suddenly everything went black. A storm raged inside me. I felt like a fool for having been so tense and cautious on the way here. Worse than that, what had I been doing for all these years?

Gradually the storm subsided, and for the first time I really understood: my thirty years as a guerrilla fighter for the Japanese army were abruptly finished. This was the end.

I pulled back the bolt on my rifle and unloaded the bullets. . . .

I eased off the pack that I always carried with me and laid the gun on top of it. Would I really have no more use for this rifle that I had polished and cared for like a baby all these years? Or Kozuka's rifle, which I had hidden in a crevice in the rocks? Had the war really ended thirty years ago? If it had, what had Shimada and Kozuka died for? If what was happening was true, wouldn't it have been better if I had died with them?

During his units 30 year campaign, 30 innocent Filipino's had been killed and 100 had been injured. After formally surrendering to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Marcos pardoned Onoda for his crimes while in hiding.

When Onoda reached Japan, he was hailed a hero. Life in Japan was much different than when he had left it in 1944. Onoda bought a ranch and moved to Brazil. In May 1996, he returned to the Philippines to see once again the island on which he had hidden for 30 years.

But he was not the last member of the Imperial forces to surrender! Teruo Nakamura had that honour, a few months later. From Wikipedia:

Nakamura was an aborigine, probably Amis, from Japanese-colonized Taiwan. Born in 1919, he was conscripted into a Takasago Volunteer Unit of the Imperial Japanese army in November 1943. He was stationed on Morotai Island in Indonesia shortly before the island was overrun by the Allies in September 1944 in the Battle of Morotai. He was declared dead in March 1945.

After the capture of the island, it appears that Nakamura lived with other stragglers on the island until well into the 1950s, whilst going off for extended periods of time on his own. In 1956, he apparently decided to relinquish his allegiance with the other remaining holdouts on the island and set off to construct a small camp of his own, consisting of a small hut in a 20-by-30 meter fenced field. When asked for the reason why he left the others, Nakamura claimed that other holdouts had tried to kill him; however, this claim was denied by three other stragglers from his group who had been discovered in the 1950s.

Nakamura's hut was discovered accidentally by a pilot in mid-1974. In November 1974, the Japanese Embassy to Indonesia in Jakarta requested the assistance of the Indonesian government in organizing a search mission, which was conducted by the Indonesian Air Force on Morotai and led to his arrest by Indonesian soldiers on December 18, 1974. He was flown to Jakarta and hospitalized there. News of his discovery reached Japan on December 27, 1974. Nakamura decided to be repatriated straight to Taiwan, bypassing Japan, and died there of lung cancer five years later in 1979.

For a full list of Japanese holdouts, see here.

It wasn't just in Asia that the 2nd World War continued in the minds of some men... in Europe Polish resistance to Soviet occupation continued until the '60s until the death of Józef Franczak. World War's are incredibly messy and history is never quite as simple as you think...

Further Reading

No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War (Bluejacket Books) (UK Amazon)

Japanese Army Stragglers and Memories of the War in Japan, 1950-75 (UK Amazon)
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Ghost Rockets: Sweden's Mini UFO Flap

Sometime early in 1946, strange objects began to appear in the skies above Sweden. It wasn't the first time this sort of thing had happened. During WWII neutral Sweden had been at the forefront of Allied research into Hitler's V weapons due to it's proximity to the research site at Peenemünde, and it's "luck" to be the crash site of several wrongly directed V2 rockets (timeline here). But in early 1946, the war had been over for more than six months. The Nazi's had long before abandoned their V2 research sites and they were now under new management (our old friends the Soviets). So where were these new aerial phenomena coming from?

The first reports of luminous fireballs and mysterious lights in the sky started to come in during February 1946. As the months went by the sightings became both more frequent and more descriptive.

Over the course of about a year over 2000 objects would be reported in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. Most, like the picture below, would turn out to be mis-identifications of meteors and the like, but some remain unexplained.

Picture of a probable meteor taken by Erik Reuterswärd.

Some of the "rockets" were seen making "maneuvers" in the skying that would be impossible for a meteor. Others were described as slow moving cigar shaped objects which is a very common report in modern UFO reports and, of course, from the 19th century mystery airship flaps. "Crashes" were observed mainly into lakes, here's some examples taken from here:

1946 July 9. Lake Barken, Sweden

Object w/ blue & green flashing lights crashed into lake.

1946 July 10. Bjorkon, Sweden

Projectile trailing luminous smoke slammed into beach. Slaglike material. Cylinder 20-30m in dia. Military investigated.

1946 19 July, noon. Lake Kolmjarv, Sweden

Ghost rocket into lake.

1946 august 12. SW Sweden

Cigar shaped object, 5 ft. long trailing smoke landed on small uninhabited island.

1946 august 16 Malmo Sweden

Ghost rocket exploded breaking windows & dropping fragments.

1946 mid-October Southern Sweden

Small dart with wings & ball shaped tip exploded as it crashed into water.

1946 July 18. Lake Mjosa, Norway

2 - 8' long missiles with wings crashed into lake with notable turbulence.

These reports were taken very seriously by the Swedish military, especially given the emerging political order of the soon to start Cold War, and an investigation launched under the leadership of Swedish Air Force officer Karl-Gösta Bartoll.

Karl-Gösta Bartoll at Lake Kölmjärv on July 19, 1946 investigating "crash"

Searches were conducted for the remains of objects at crash sites and whilst some things were found, all were later put down to meteor debris. Gradually the sightings dropped off in Scandinavia and the investigation found nothing concrete although Bartoll always insisted what people were seeing was something "real".

Given the sensitivity of the events, the USA got involved and a rather interesting document exists from that time:



Further sightings were reported in other parts of Europe, mainly Greece but also in Belgium, Portugal and Italy.

So what were they? It's hardly likely that the Soviets had, within a year of the end of the Second World War, reestablished the V2 experiments and moved them on to the point of having the V2 rockets be maneuverable. It is also highly unlikely, given the situation at the time, that they'd risk an international incident by testing these over the northern European skies. I find it unlikely any other player on the international scene would get involved. Whilst the idea that these were alien spacecraft of some form is widespread, again I just don't see it. Why would they do something so distinctive from other UFO reports for just that year in just that place? Makes no sense.

Personally, based on the lack of physical evidence or witness testimony to the contrary, I believe these to be meteors and other natural phenomena reported by people already paranoid because of the world events unfolding before them, and no doubt some were embellished a little. The evidence for anything else is just so weak and scarce I can't see any other sensible explanation.

Sadly I think the ghost rockets were not as exciting as the name would suggest.

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Unidentified Submerged Objects: The Golfo Nuevo Incidents

I admit, until recently my only knowledge of USOs came from reports from South America (specifically Brazil and Argentina) and so it seems appropriate for the second entry in this series to focus on one of the most famous series of incidents from that part of the world.


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Golfo Nuevo is a body of water formed by the Península Valdés and Punta Ninfas in the province of Chubut in the Argentine Patagonia. It is located 650 miles (1,046 km) southwest of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Puerto Madryn is its major seaport - Wikipedia

When it comes to USO activity, the Golfo Nuevo has previous, so to speak. Even before the more famous incidents in 1958-60, it was a place weirdly frequented by submarine activity.

New information has now come to light regarding U-boat activities around Golfo Nuevo. On 7 March 1942 the CO, Third Argentine Destroyer Division advised his superior, CO Destroyer Squadron of a sighting:

"...Today 1730 hrs when the Division was heading to enter Golfo Nuevo, destroyer San Juan signalled: 'After seeing wake and ripples, hydrophones station reported a submerged vessel one to two kilometres off port bow, position 42°55' 64°01'...."

On 25 March 1942 in his report to Navy Minister Fincati, Admiral Sueyro stated: "This is not the first time that such reports have been received by me, all from the same area, Golfo Nuevo, but at different times since last year."

There was little, if any, known German hostile U-boat activities off the Argentine coast, yet here as early as 1941 submarines were being sighted visually at the entrance to Golfo Nuevo.

In the SA newspaper "Der Stürmer" of 17 June 1938, thus before the outbreak of war, Dönitz had stated: "The German Navy is proud. It has built for the Führer and Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler an absolutely impregnable retreat where he will be safe from all enemies." - UFO Casebook Forum Post

Now, of course, the events of WWII were confusing and often didn't make much sense so it's hardly surprising submarines were seen in odd places. But how about a German Type XXI U-Boat being seen here, 15 years after WWII had ended? Now that is certainly interesting.

On the 21st of May 1958 the cruisers "General Belgrano" (a ship very familiar to us Brits), "9 de Julio" and "La Argentina" were performing exercises in the Golfo Nuevo along with the destroyers "Buenos Aires", "Entre Rios", "Misiones" and "Santa Cruz" plus support vessels and naval aircraft.

Sanaviron

Around about 10.00pm the tugboat "Sanaviron" began sonar testing. Thirty five minutes later the submarine detection sonar operator reported a contact even though no submarines were operating in the fleet maneuvers. The commanding officer of the fleet, Benjamín Moritán Colman, ordered the destroyers on to anti submarine duties. Depth charges were dropped in the shallow waters of the gulf, and during the operations a periscope was sighted from various points on the "Buenos Aires" and an oil spill seen. A schnorchel was also reported. Operations continued for two weeks with irregular sonar contact. On the 10th of June 1958 it was announced the submarine had left the gulf at a fast speed. Based on sonar reports the sub had consistently been travelling between 8 and 10 knots during it's two week enclosure. (sources Maritime History and Archaeology and UFO Casebook)

A two week search, a strange unidentified submarine and one of the largest anti-submarine operations since WWII. You would have thought that would have been weird enough.

Yet in October 1959 another unidentified submarine was detected in the Golfo Nuevo. After 5 days, and following an intensive search by the Argentinians, it again left without signs of significant damage. What was so exciting about the Golfo Nuevo? Were the Soviets spying on the naval activities at Puerto Madryn? Perhaps it was NATO doing the same?

Three months later the submarine returned... and one of strangest and woefully under reported military operations of the Cold War era began. Given the complications I'll quote from source, which is this rather excellent forum post (I know it's hardly academic, but this is a USO story we are talking about here!).

At 0930 on 31 January 1960 the torpedo boat "Cervantes" obtained a sonar contact of an object moving slowly at 90 feet, identified as a submerged submarine. A depth charge attack was carried out.

1 February 1960: In an official communiqu� published in the newspaper "La Naci�n", the Chief of the Naval Staff Operations Centre, capit�n de corbeta Juan Vasallo stated: "Yesterday the task force of cadets of the Naval Military School engaged on the annual training cruise on teh Atlantic coast, composed of the torpedo boat "Cervantes" and the patrol boats "King" and "Murature", obtained a sonar contact inside the entrance to Golfo Nuevo identified as a probable submarine. An air-sea task force has been assembled to investigate."

3 February 1960: Secretary of the Navy contraalmirante Clement announced that more warships had been attached to the task force. He considered it probable that there were two submarines "because these boats generally operate in pairs."

4 February 1960: After hours and hours of depth-charging by seaplanes it was thought that the submarine must have been destroyed. Escape was impossible, for a minefield had been laid across the ten-mile wide entrance to the gulf, and a large foce of anti-submarine vessels stationed on listening watch seaward of the minefield. The search force was finding it impossible to obtain a bearing on the boat by radar, sonar or hydrophones. Although the submarine could be heard, its geographical location was impossible to establish. This made it extremely difficult to attack the boat.

For days and days the aimless attacks went on. At night hundreds of flares lit the night sky while ships' searchlights swept the waters. Up and down, up and down they steamed, depth-charging then listening, then depth-charging again. It had become a wonderful festival for all the many holidaymakers who visit Puerto Madryn at this season of the year.

10 February 1960: The submarine was confirmed as being audible within the gulf. Ten warships waited in a semi-circle beyond the minefield while maritime aircraft circled overhead. The corvette "La Rep�blica" had arrived with replacements including many experienced sonar operators while Argentine marines occupied Cracker to prevent a possible landing. On this day at 2245 hrs a second submarine surfaced in international waters. This was considered to be a lure. The newspaper "La Naci�n" quoted military sources next day as saying that the surfaced submarine "has a profile very similar to the German Type XXI wartime U-boat. It is said that the design has been copied and can make 16 knots submerged." This boat had "great manouevrability" and had made "audacious attempts to draw off the Argentine Fleet to allow the intruder to escape from the gulf."

11 February 1960: Argetnine President Frondizi ordered an all-out attack to destroy the intruder. He had thirteen warships and forty aircraft available.

13 February 1960: Modern depth-charges, flares, sonar buoys and other advanced anti-submarine weaponry arrived from the United States together with WWII anti-submarine veterans. The US technical team was led by Captain Ray Pitts, Naval Operations HQ reporting directly to Vicealmirante Raga, Chief of Argentine Naval Operations. The new depth charges were of terrific effect and could destroy a submarine down to 200 metres, which was deeper than anywhere in Golfo Nuevo.

On The Diplomatic Front: 13 February 1960: The Spanish newspaper "Las Provincias" published a telex from correspondent William Horsey in which he reported that the intruder submarine had been positively identified as a Type XXI German U-boat of WWII. In unconfirmed reports, oil which the boat had discharged was analyzed and found to be the kind made by satellite states of the USSR to the formula used by the Third Reich.

The Argentine Navy now issued a final ultimatum to the submarine to surface and surrender or be sunk. To avoid any possibility of an international incident, Argentina requested 26 nations including the US, USSR, Britain, France and West Germany to admit that the submarine was theirs. All answered in the negative.

The suspicion was that this must be a Soviet submarine. The Soviet naval attach� to Buenos Aires, rejcted the accusation in indignation while Vice-President Mikoyan stated "...the only thing they are going to kill in that gulf is a heap of fish." The formal denial of the Soviet Government was reinforced over the next few days when the Soviets made no attempt on the diplomatic or military fronts to assist the submarine to escape. If it had been sunk and identified as Soviet, the USSR would have been exposed to ridicule worldwide, while the USA would have made endless capital out of its part in the sinking.

14 February 1960: Two strange submarines arrived in international waters outside the gulf and began to manouevre near the Argentine Fleet. They were described as "gigantic" but the type "could not be ascertained with exactitude". Inside the gulf the depth-charging with the new, powerful explosives began, one every ten minutes all day.

15 February 1960: The naval forces reported that the intruder submarine "had the mysterious ability to avoid electronic detection." This meant that it did not return the radar beam, and its bearing could not be determined from hydrophone or sonar equipment. Late this day the Argentine Minister of Defence, Justo Vilar, announced that that submarine "must have escaped". This meant he believed it had sailed through the minefield and got between the vessels on listening watch.

17 February 1960: The patrol boats "King" and "Murature" maintained contact with the submarine briefly.

18 February 1960: Official Argentine sources reported that they were" sure that the submarine had escaped".

20 February 1960: Contact was re-established with the intruder inside the gulf, and the biggest navy-air concentration since the Second World War gathered for the "final onslaught".

21 February 1960: In the early hours the intruder surfaced. It was seen to be a Type XXI German U-boat of WW2 design. Homing torpedoes were fired but "incomprehensibly all missed". More salvoes were fired at the submarine, but these also missed. Finally the newest sonar-type torpedoes were launched. These also all missed.

22 February 1960: The intruder submarine surfaced briefly to discharge oil.

23 February 1960: The Argentine Navy reported "carefully combing the waters of Golfo Nuevo on 21 and 22 February without making any further contact with the intruder, which is believed to have escaped. It is felt however that it may return. Nevertheless the search is being stepped down...."

Lest you think these are the delusions of some crazy conspiracy theorist, here's the Time Magazine article that was released during the events.

Type XXI U-Boat (US U3008 in 1948)

There is a much more popular, and slightly more crazy, version of events out there which are repeated in exactly the same, word for word, way:

In 1960, the Argentinean Navy tracked two unidentified submerged objects in the Golfo Nuevo, 650 miles south of Buenos Aires. At first it was thought that they were US submarines, but then they appeared to break apart and fly out of the water. Paul Stonehill, co-author with Philip Mantle of UFO-USSR, explained how the objects simply emerged from the water and vanished. Paul went on to tell us that the Soviet leader at the time, Nikita Khrushchev, was so impressed with the report that he ordered his representative in Buenos Aires to find out more about the event

I think this version of events does NOT go with known length of time the USOs were detected for. It seems to have gained popularity in this rather lazily researched USO documentary (more lazy than my research and that's saying something!)

So who's submarines were they? Was one of the superpowers using their old XXI's to spy on smaller countries (Puerto Madryn was a major anti submarine base) with impugnity? Certainly everyone denounced such suggestions, the US even sending more depth charges to Argentina!, but in the Cold War such duplicity was not uncommon. However I suspect even the Soviets wouldn't have denied involvement given the almost certain destruction of the submarine (I'll get to that in a minute!). Could it be our friends in the Fourth Reich? Perhaps the Nazi's last refuge was not Antarctica but some secret base in south America, hence the interest in south America. "Former" Nazis have strong connections to south America and specifically Argentina (thanks to things like the ODESSA programme) so it's not completely insane. Or perhaps it's some unknown player, a country who got hold of an XXI and was testing it out? Unlikely but possible. Ivan T. Sanderson believed it indicates an advanced civilisation lives beneath the waves, one that is responsible for all UFO and USO unexplained encounters.

Based on the information it seems clear to me that this was SOMETHING and not just sonar echoes. The problem is that if we say it was submarine, how on Earth did it survive in the Golfo Nuevo for weeks under such a constant bombardment (possibly the biggest anti submarine campaign post WWII). Some, such as my favoured source, suggest that the submarines were of a much higher technical capability with force fields, invisibility and/or the ability to jump into another dimension. This would certainly jive with most of the Antarctic base stories for the Nazis for instance. BUT it's a bit too out there for my liking. The Time magazine article suggests that hammering noises were heard (which would indicate repairs being carried out) and oil slicks were seen. Perhaps it wasn't invulnerable but just able and lucky. Based on the information available it is impossible to draw a conclusion as to the origin of these mysterious submarines but that's half the charm isn't it?

Whatever the case, I find this story truly compelling. It also highlights USOs are NOT (just) UFOs. No need for aliens or exciting time travel to explain away some USOs, although I suppose that also applies to most UFO reports. But hey still... no aliens required.

Further Reading

Invisible Residents - Ivan T. Sanderson (UK Amazon, US Amazon)

The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists - Martin A. Lee (UK Amazon, US Amazon)

This blogger works for nothing but the joy of writing but always appreciates things bought from his wishlist