Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, Honorable Imperial Japanese Soldiers or War Criminal?

Over at Mashable they have the story about Lieutenant Hiroo Onada posted who was the Japanese soldier who after Japan surrendered during World War II decided to fight on with his companions.  The below article features some great photos that are worth checking out:

After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on Aug. 15, 1945, Japan announced its surrender, bringing an end to World War II.

But for some, the war was not over.

Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was 22 years old when he was deployed to Lubang Island in the Philippines in December 1944. As an intelligence officer, he was given orders to disrupt and sabotage enemy efforts — and to never surrender or take his own life.

Allied forces landed on the island in February 1945, and before long Onoda and three others were the only Japanese soldiers who had not surrendered or died. They retreated into the hills, with plans to continue the fight as guerrillas.

The group survived on bananas, coconut milk and stolen cattle while engaging in sporadic shootouts with local police.

In late 1945, the group began encountering air-dropped leaflets announcing that the war was over, and ordering all holdouts to surrender. After careful consideration, they dismissed the leaflets as a trick, and fought on.  [Mashable]

You can read the rest at the link, but Lt. Onoda and his companions over the decades would either surrender or be killed leaving him ultimately along until his surrender in 1974.  I always thought that Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda should have been hunted down and held accountable for his crimes.  His group had to have known that the war was over and yet they continued to kill civilians.  I believe the real reason his group did not surrender was not because of honor, but because they did not want to be held accountable for the war crimes they committed.