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Yokoi Shoichi (1915 - September 22, 1997) was
drafted into the
Imperial Japanese Army in
1941 and sent to
Guam during the Japanese occupation there. He went into hiding on Guam
in
1944, when
Douglas MacArthur's army liberated the island.
In January of
1972, Sergeant Yokoi was found by two hunters in a remote part of
Guam, and he was repatriated to Japan a month later. After a whirlwind
media tour of Japan, he was married and settled down in rural
Aichi prefecture. After living alone in a cave for 27 years, Yokoi
became a popular television personality, and an advocate for austere
living. He was featured in a 1977 documentary called
Yokoi and His Twenty-Eight Years of Secret Life on Guam.
He received an audience with Emperor
Akihito in
1991, which he called the greatest honor of his life.
He died of a
heart attack at the age of 82, and is now buried at a
Nagoya cemetery, under a gravestone that was initially commissioned by
Yokoi's mother in
1955.
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