Nakamura's hut was accidentally discovered by a pilot in mid-1974. In November of that year, the Japanese Embassy in
Jakarta requested assistance from the Indonesian government in organizing a search mission, which was conducted by the
Indonesian Air Force on Morotai, leading to Nakamura's arrest by Indonesian soldiers on 18 December 1974. He was flown to Jakarta and hospitalized there. News of Nakamura's discovery reached Japan on 27 December. Nakamura decided to be repatriated straight to Taiwan, bypassing Japan. As his wage arrears, Nakamura received 38,279
yen, which at the time was equal to a month's pay for a private in the
Japan Self-Defense Forces. He also received 30,000 yen for "necessary expenses", so he could be repatriated to Taiwan. Upon Nakamura's return, the
Taiwanese press referred to him as "Lee Kuang-hui", a name he learned of only after his repatriation. At the time, the Japanese public's perceptions of Nakamura and his repatriation differed considerably from those of earlier holdouts, such as
Hiroo Onoda, who had been discovered only a few months earlier and was both an officer and ethnically Japanese. As a private in a colonial unit on foreign soil, Nakamura was not entitled to a pension due to a 1953 change in the law on pensions, and he thus received only the sum of ¥68,000. Five years after his repatriation, on 15 June 1979, Nakamura died of
lung cancer. ==See also==