Word: onoda
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Doctors at Tokyo's First National Hospital have discovered one way to prevent middle-age spread: jungle living. They ran some 200 tests on ex-Lieut. Hiroo Onoda, 52, the diehard loyalist who returned home triumphantly after nearly 30 years in a Philippines jungle, where he had continued fighting World War II. The findings: Onoda is healthier than most of his contemporaries who live off the fat of the land. His body is supple, his muscle tone is good and his animal instincts are honed: his eyes move constantly, he hears clothing brush against skin, and he wakes fully...
Another class of people in favor with People's editors might be called wierdos. Alice Cooper (who turns out to be a multi-millionaire golfer and Nixon supporter), Lt. Hiroo Onoda (guess who he is), an African beauty queen in General Amin's Uganda cabinet--these and many more grace this magazine's pages. And they are all featured in the same marvelous black and white photography, as the editors of People have artistically (as in The Last Picture Show) decided to avoid more expensive color shots. These and other cost-cutting measures make it possible to offer People...
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...
...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...