Masashi Itō

When the Americans liberated Guam in July 1944, Itō was separated from his unit. He hid with two other soldiers and learned to survive in the jungle. For sixteen years, he hid even after finding leaflets declaring that the war had ended.

When the last of his companions, Bunzō Minagawa (皆川文蔵), was captured by woodsmen in 1960, Itō was convinced to surrender on 23 May 1960, after 14 years and 264 days of Japan's surrender in World War II and was treated at a nearby American military base.

Itō married on January 7, 1961, and had a daughter. A movie was made about his life.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}} He later worked as a watchman for the Toei Motion Picture Company in Tokyo. He wrote a book about his experiences entitled The Emperor's Last Soldiers, published in 1967.

{{cite magazine |first=E. J. |last=Kahn |title=II-The Stragglers:: Oh What a Miserable Life This Is! |magazine=The New Yorker |date=March 24, 1962 |page=47 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/03/24/ii-the-stragglers-oh-what-a-miserable-life-this-is }}

{{cite news |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899677,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081215134613/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899677,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=December 15, 2008 |title=Books: Straggler's Ordeal |work=Time Magazine |date=July 14, 1967 }}

{{cite book |title=Japanese Army stragglers and memories of the war in Japan, 1950–1975 |first=Beatrice |last=Trefalt |date=18 June 2004 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9780203480472 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kEsgyXpcXtoC&pg=PA103 }}

{{Japanese holdouts after World War 2|state=collapsed}}

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Category:1921 births

Category:2004 deaths

Category:Japanese holdouts

Category:Imperial Japanese Army personnel of World War II

Category:Imperial Japanese Army soldiers

Category:Japanese expatriates in Guam