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Last month, a young Japanese adventurer named Norio Suzuki went to Lubang to hunt down Onoda. When the two men finally met in a remote jungle clearing, the lieutenant laid down his condition: "Only in case my commanding officer rescinds my order in person will I surrender." Last weekend Suzuki returned to Lubang accompanied by former army Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, 63, a Kyushu bookseller who had been Onoda's last military superior. Dressed in a shapeless cap and a tattered uniform and clutching his old regulation infantry rifle, Onoda stood at attention as Taniguchi read out an Imperial Army order dating from September 1945: "As of this moment, all officers and men under this command shall terminate all hostilities." Onoda bowed stiffly in acknowledgment that his war was over—and then proceeded to brief his commander about his 29 years of intelligence gathered on "enemy movements."
At a ceremony in Manila later, Onoda formally presented his rusty samurai sword to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in a gesture of surrender. Mindful perhaps of his country's valuable economic ties to Japan, Marcos returned the sword and pardoned Onoda for whatever crimes he may have committed during his years in hiding. "You're a great soldier," said the President.
Returning home to the plaudits of his countrymen, Onoda accepted his new-found celebrity with philosophical calm. What had been his toughest experience? "To have lost my comrades-in-arms." And the most pleasant experience? "Nothing—nothing pleasant happened to me through all these 29 years." Still, he was not quite willing to admit that it had all been in vain. "My country today is rich and great," he said. "When my purpose in the war has been attained, in the fact that Japan today is rich and great, to have won or lost the war is entirely beside the point."