Yoichi was living in a cave, eating fish and rats, and made clothes out of tree bark. Like other Japanese troops, he was trained to fight to the death and told that surrendering was shameful. Upon returning to Japan he discovered that he had been declared dead in 1944.
The Japan that he came back to was very different than the one he left. He had never heard of jet planes, television, or the atomic bomb. ''I am ashamed that I have returned alive,'' he said.
Shoichi Yokoi wasn't the only Japanese WWII vet to hide out that long, either. Two years later, a lieutenant named Hiroo Onoda was discovered hiding out in the Philippine jungle.
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