Foreign News: Banzai

In the Philippine hills, there are still several hundred Japanese soldiers holding out in isolated misery, unaware that World War II is over. Occasionally one gives up. Not so Seaman Noboru Kinoshita, who escaped from a sinking troopship off the Philippines in 1944. For eleven years, Seaman Kinoshita lived on lizards, frogs, fruit and wild monkeys in the jungles of Luzon awaiting the day when a victorious Japanese navy would come to rescue him. That day never dawned, but last fortnight, as he raided a jungle-side sweet-potato patch, Kinoshita was picked up by Philippine police. "When," he asked, "will my head be cut off?" Told that he would not be killed at all, but sent home a free man, Kinoshita grew very sad. Last week, deprived of a hero's death by a too-forgiving enemy, he hanged himself.