Shoichi Yokoi

Shoichi Yokoi (Japanese横 井 庄 一; * March 31, 1915, † 22 September 1997) was a skilled tailor and a sergeant in the 38th Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Japanese Army in Manchuria the 29th Division, a Japanese elite unit, of the years 1944-1972 spent as a holdout in the jungles of Guam.

As U.S. troops under General Douglas MacArthur in the summer of 1944, the island of Guam conquered gradually to Yokoi went with some members of his unit back into the jungle. The news of the surrender of Japan, the group did not reach first. The discovery of a leaflet in 1952, which reported on the end of the war, Yokoi did not move to the task and return to civilization, as he held a surrender for dishonorable. After his last two companions died in 1964, he persevered still another eight years and lived in a small, self-dug hole in the ground; he supported himself among others of nuts, snails, frogs, crabs, birds and rats. He was discovered by fishermen in search of crayfish and overwhelmed by this, as he attacked her in 1972. Its discovery on January 24, 1972, to great media attention, his return persecuted more than 70 million Japanese television.

He commented on his return with the words:

「恥ずかしながら 生きながらえ て,帰っ て き まし た. 」

" Hazukashinagara ikinagaraete, Kaette kimashita. "

"It is very embarrassing to return alive. "

This statement - which you have to see in the context of the then expected heroic death in battle rather than task and escape - has become a household word.

Yokoi spent on his return 83 days in a hospital in Tokyo. After he had disappeared from the front pages again, he married six months after his return, and retired in Aichi Prefecture return to the countryside.

In 1991 he received an audience with Emperor Akihito. This he felt was greatest honor of his life.