The Japanese Soldier Who Fought WWII for 30 Years Too Long

It was on this day, 44 years ago, that a Japanese soldier still fighting what he thought was the Second World War formally surrendered, coming out of hiding in a Philippine jungle more than 29 years after the war ended.

"The sun began to sink. I inspected my rifle and retied my boots ... I jumped over a barbed-wire fence and made for the shade of a nearby bosa tree, where I paused, took a deep breath, and looked at the tent again. All was still quiet. The time came. I gripped my rifle, thrust out my chest, and walked forward into the open."

With those words, Hiroo Onoda described what happened on March 9, 1974, the day he was to meet face-to-face with his former commanding officer - a man who was by then a book-seller and the only person who could convince Onoda once-and-for-all that World War II was over and had been for a generation.