The Holdout

January 24, 1972 - It was on this night that Shoichi Yokoi, a sergeant in the Imperial Japanese Army was found alive in Guam, 27 years after World War II ended. Yokoi had been in hiding since 1944.

Yokoi had encountered information as early as the early 1950s suggesting the war was over, but he did not believe or accept it and chose to remain hidden out of a sense of shame and duty.

Upon returning to Japan as a hero, Yokoi famously said, "It is with much embarrassment that I have returned alive.”

Yokoi died of a heart attack in 1997.