September 22nd, 1945 (SATURDAY)
GERMANY: U.S. General George S.
Patton tells reporters that he does not see the need for "this
denazification thing" and compares the controversy over Nazism to a
"Democratic and Republican election fight." His impolitic press
statements questioning the policy resulted in General Eisenhower's removing him
as U.S. commander in Bavaria. He is transferred to the 15th Army Group, but in
December 1945 he suffers a broken neck in a car accident and dies less than two
weeks later.
FRENCH INDOCHINA: French forces occupy official
buildings in Saigon.
1997 (MONDAY)
JAPAN: Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese Imperial Army straggler who lived in the jungles of Guam for 28 years after World War II ended, died at 1707 hours today of heart failure in Nagoya. He was 82. Yokoi lived in a tunnel-like, underground cave in a bamboo grove until 24 January 1972, when he is discovered near the Talofofo River by hunters. Yokoi, who had been a tailor's apprentice before being drafted in 1941, made clothing from the fibers of wild hibiscus plants and survived on a diet of coconuts, breadfruit, papayas, snails, eels and rats. "We Japanese soldiers are told to prefer death to the disgrace of getting captured alive," Yokoi said in 1972. "The only thing that gave me the strength and will to survive is my faith in myself and that as a soldier of Japan, it is not a disgrace to continue on living," Yokoi said in 1986. No one in the history of humanity, except stragglers later discovered in Philippines, has equalled his record. Few have struggled with loneliness, fear, and self for as long as 28-years. (Gene Hanson)