Ep 087 "Hybrid Warfare in the New Age: Japan Expands the Conflict Aperture (Part Two)"

Bill Buppert (0:08)

The Army doesn't like more than one disaster in a day. It looks bad in the newspapers and upsets civilians at their breakfast.

I'm Bill Bubert, retired Army officer and a regular warfare practitioner and scholar. Welcome to Chasing Ghosts, an Irregular Warfare Podcast. The show that examines the mythos, loss history, bad thinking, martial malpractice and government incompetence that informs so much of irregular warfare. Today, I want to peek behind the curtain at the vast machinery and briar patch politics of insurgency and counterinsurgency and everything in between. Now, let's go ghost hunting together. Hello, this is Bill and welcome to Chasing Ghosts, an Irregular Warfare Podcast. This is episode 087, Hybrid Warfare in the New Age, Japan Expands the Conflict Aperture, Part 2

Now, I thought that when I did my historical snapshot for Hybrid Warfare, maybe I could examine color revolutions that America has conducted arguably since 1984 in the Philippines, but again, arguably going back to the end of World War II and what was happening around the planet with the creation, unfortunately, of the CIA and the US and Western intelligence community. And I thought, well, maybe I'll take a look at the Allies and their successes, but I think everybody has trod that ground as it were. Well, why don't I examine the axis? Well, apparently the German intelligence perspectives and anti-counterbandit warfare and things like that and their use of hybrid warfare has been so well documented, why would I travel in ruts that have already been created? Well, I happened to have been listening to the unauthorized history of the Pacific War for nearly 200 hours, I think, of that outstanding podcast, which I am in awe of with the folks who create it and their ability to bring a new lease on life to what many of us have read since children about World War II, in this case the Pacific War, and that's what they have isolated themselves to. So they're talking about the Philippine surrender of December, which happened in April of 1942, but the Japanese attacked the Philippines in December, December 8th and 10th, one day after Pearl Harbor, in what I've often spoken about, for those of you who have listened before, the brilliant December through April 1942 centrifugal strategy and campaigning that was a complex and composite affair by the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army, and it is something to be studied for the ages. So I started examining that, but as a result of listening to that podcast, it just so happens that they mentioned something I have never heard of before, which happens to be the special service organization called Tokumu Kikan that the IJA, the Imperial Japanese Army, use during World War II.

And it's heavily associated with both operations during that time and post-war networks that would be there. As a matter of fact, that gentleman in 1974, that IJA official who happened to have surrendered after being in the Philippines, yes, I said 1974, by the name of Hiru Onoda. Please, for my Japanese listeners are those who are very seasoned in the Argo of the Japanese dialects. Please excuse my mispronunciations if I do so.

He lived from 19 March 1922 to 16 January 2014

Well, it just so happens that his mission when he was deployed to Lubang Island in 1944, apparently he was part of SSO, the Special Service Organization. He received strict orders from his commander to conduct guerrilla warfare and never surrender even if the unit was defeated. When the US and Filipino forces took the island, Onoda and three other soldiers retreated into the jungle. They thought surrender leaflets and messages from home were enemy tricks. Japanese adventurer Norio Suzuki found Onoda in 1974 and told him the war was over. But Onoda refused to quit without a direct order from his former superior. Thus, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi traveled to Lubang Island in uniform to read the official orders, relieving Onoda of duty. Onoda handed over his sword and received a full pardon from Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos at the time. Another interesting aspect of this, and you will find out more as we get into this episode, is that it just so happened that he did not conduct himself in the best way. He was something of what would call a not only a mischief maker and a master of mayhem, but may have been guilty during that time, those 30 odd years in the jungle, of killing Filipinos, maiming Filipinos, and stealing from Filipinos, during the conduct of his guerrilla operations after the formal surrender of Japanese forces in September 1945

There was a film made, as a matter of fact, about this very thing called Onoda, 10,000 Nights in the Jungle. Haven't seen it, plan on seeing it, and it should be interesting. The leader of the SSO organization prior to World War II and during World War II was one Lieutenant General, Seiyichi Asmata.