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strain and excitement of running for their lives still showed on their faces.
    We stayed one more night at Clark and then went to Manila on the twenty-fourth. That morning a low-flying enemy Consolidated B–24 had dropped Christmas cards on the city. Addressed to the Philippine people, they bore a picture of a lamb and a message in English saying: “We are now in the South Pacific, hoping to ring in a Happy New Year with you!”
    When one of my fellow officers translated this for me, Igritted my teeth and said, “Fools! Idiots! Who do they think they are!”
    The Special Intelligence Squadron was located in what had been a foreign residential district in Manila. It was in a two-story concrete building, and the sign over the entrance said “Institute of Natural Science.”
    We were greeted by a darkish man who turned out to be Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, the squadron commander. After we had presented our credentials, the major told me that I, together with five others, would be stationed with the Sugi Brigade, as the Eighth Division from Hirosaki was known. Future orders, he said, would come from division headquarters.
    The Sugi Brigade was in charge of defending the west central part of Luzon from Nasugbu to Batangas. Its headquarters were in Lipa.
    That night we held a farewell gathering in the “institute.” Those of us from Futamata realized that we were perhaps splitting up for the last time, but we had been expecting this. I saw no signs of gloom, though the party was quiet. We drank cold sake with each other, and Major Taniguchi filled us in on the war situation. I was not particularly moved.
    On December 26, in the middle of the night, the six of us who were going to the Sugi Brigade left Manila with Major Taniguchi in a truck that was also carrying a fairly large load of ammunition. Dressed in summer uniforms, with swords, revolvers and binoculars, the six of us looked like ordinary army officers, but Major Taniguchi wore the uniform of the Philippine Area Police and a mountain climber’s hat.
    Under bright moonlight, the truck made its way south toward Lipa. Not long after we started, I saw Bay Lake over to the left, and the sight of its calm moonlit surface relaxed the tension inside me. It was hard to believe that this beautiful landscape was soon to become a battlefield. The scene was unearthly, enchanting, but I was soon brought back to realityby the noise of the transport trucks that passed going the other way. As we went farther south, their number increased.
    Our own truck arrived at division headquarters just before dawn. The orders that I was to receive here would decide my fate for the next thirty years.

    The road, which had been hurriedly constructed by the Engineer Corps, ran deep into a forest of palms. Sugi Brigade headquarters were located just off to one side of the road. The installation consisted of a scattering of nipa houses, round huts like the ones the natives lived in, with plain boarded walls and roofs thatched with palm leaves. We followed Major Taniguchi into one of them.
    Inside were a number of officers: Lieutenant Colonel Motoyama of Strategic Command, Major Takahashi of Intelligence Command, Captain Yamaguchi of the Rear Squadron, First Lieutenant Kusano of the Intelligence Squadron, and a few others.
    We waited tensely in a corner of the room while Major Taniguchi and Major Takahashi talked in low voices about how we should be assigned. Sensing that this was a moment of destiny for me, I clenched my fists. After a while, Shigeru Moriguchi and Shigeichi Yamamoto were called over and ordered to lead fifty troops in an attack on San Jose. Next Shin Furuta and Ichirō Takaku were assigned to lead a guerrilla group on the island of Mindoro.
    Now it was my turn. Major Takahashi said, “Apprentice Officer Onoda will proceed to Lubang Island, where he will lead the Lubang Garrison in guerrilla warfare.”
    This was the first time I ever heard of