Hungarian soldier imprisoned for more than half a century
ifind it hard to believe, but my mum swears it’s true – she says a Japanese soldier was found hiding in the jungle in the 1970s, not knowing that the Second World War was over.
Did this really happen? And was he the last combatant to find his way home after the war? – M.
It is true, and three Japanese soldiers were not discovered until the ’70s.
The last to surrender was Teruo Nakamura, a private in the 4th Takasago Volunteer Unit.
He was stationed on Morotai Island in Indonesia shortly before the island was overrun by the Allies in September, 1944.
Nakamura lived on his own in a hut on the island, which was only discovered, by accident, by a pilot as he flew over the island.
A rescue mission was launched and Nakamura was located on December 18, 1974 – 29 years after the end of hostilities.
However, he wasn’t the last combatant to be repatriated. That unwelcome title belongs to Tamas Anders, a Hungarian soldier who was taken prisoner by the Russian Red Army in 1945 and sent to a prison in the city of Vladimir.
Unfortunately, he seems to have simply been forgotten.
As he only spoke Hungarian and everyone in the prison spoke Russian, guards decided his mutterings proved he was insane and he was sequestered to a psychiatric wing,
It wasn’t until a Hungarian journalist, in the prison to research a TV documentary, overheard him and realised Anders was Hungarian.
He was finally freed in 2000, 55 years after the end of the war.