Missing Japanese WWII Soldier Alive in Ukraine
A former Japanese soldier last seen by his family when he went off to fight in World War II has resurfaced in Ukraine and is returning home to see his relatives after more than 60 years, the government said Monday.
Ishinosuke Uwano, now 83, had been declared among Japan’s war dead in 2000.
Suminori Arima, a health ministry official in charge of locating war veterans lost overseas, declined to say where Uwano had been the last six decades or why he had not been in touch with his family.
He said Uwano was expected to arrive Wednesday with his Ukrainian son to spend 10 days with his surviving relatives in Iwate, about 300 miles northeast of Tokyo. “It’s wonderful that Mr. Uwano can make a homecoming visit in good health,” Arima said.
Uwano was an Imperial Army soldier in a force occupying the island of Sakhalin in Russia’s far east when the war ended in August 1945. Arima said he was last reported seen there in 1958.
Arima said the aging Uwano asked someone in Ukraine to help him track down his Japanese relatives. Inquiries by the acquaintance eventually reached Japan’s health ministry, which sent staff members to interview Uwano at the Japanese Embassy in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, Arima said.
The Kyodo News agency said Uwano moved to Ukraine in 1965 and had three children. He lives in Zhytomyr, about 90 miles west of Kiev, the agency said.
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