March 1, 2002

11:02 AM

After 6 years hiding in the hills, Illija Panincic discovers that the war in Bosnia is over. On BBC today he told how he fought his next door neighbour, a bear, for the rights to the pear tree. I wonder how long they will be hiding in the hills in Afghanistan.
posted by Geo (6 comments total)

I wonder how long they will be hiding in the hills in Afghanistan.

Personal opinion: for some people there, it's probably been since 1979.
posted by PeteyStock at 11:34 AM on March 1, 2002

At the end of WWII, the Americans had a whole mess of trouble for months dealing with Japanese who either did not know, or refused to believe, that the war was over. Most of them were on the front lines, but a lot of them were in Japan itself.

I remember reading about one Japanese guy they found hiding on some island in the 1970s, still convinced WWII was in full swing.
posted by aaron at 11:39 AM on March 1, 2002

Aaron,

His name was Hiroo Onoda, and he finally surrendered in 1974 on Lubang island in the Philippines. He ignored all attempts at trying to convince him that the war was over, including pleas from relatives. It took a direct order from his commanding officer, Major Taniguchi, to get him to come out of the jungle! [1, 2]

There were a surprising number of other Japanese holdouts from the war. Check out a timeline.
posted by thewittyname at 11:56 AM on March 1, 2002

There are still thousands of southerners fighting the U.S. Civil War, but I guess that's a different sort of story.
posted by HTuttle at 11:59 AM on March 1, 2002

"The Civil War?"

Typing from where it started, I much prefer calling it The Recent Unpleasantness.
posted by ebarker at 1:58 PM on March 1, 2002

good thing we don't have to worry too much about those southerners...
posted by lotsofno at 4:25 PM on March 1, 2002