Latest news with #JapaneseSoldiers
Japan Times
4 days ago
- Japan Times
The long search for Japan's lost soldiers
When Keita Imamura, 22, traveled to a remote highland village in northeastern India for two weeks in February 2024, he felt unusually nervous. It wasn't his first time abroad — he had visited other Asian countries as a tourist — but this trip was different for two reasons. Imamura, a Waseda University student, was part of an official delegation searching for the remains of Japanese soldiers who had fallen during World War II. More personally, the region he was visiting was where his distant relative — a brother of his great-grandfather — died during the Battle of Imphal in 1944.
Japan Times
03-08-2025
- General
- Japan Times
80 years on: Thai man wants to return soldiers' remains to Japan
A Thai man who built a memorial to Japanese soldiers killed by members of a Thai resistance group during World War II hopes that their remains will be returned to their home country. The memorial in the Long district in Phrae Province, northern Thailand, was built by Puchong, 83, a local man whose father was a member of the Free Thai resistance group, which fought against Imperial Japan. During World War II, Japan allied with Thailand, using the Southeast Asian country as a base for operations in India and Burma, now Myanmar. Thais dissatisfied with the alliance formed the anti-Japanese group, which expanded its presence in the country with support from the Allied forces. According to Puchong, whose father was a senior member of the group in the province, the two Japanese soldiers died in a gunfight with Free Thai fighters in the Wiang Ta subdistrict in Long about two years before the end of the war. Their bodies were buried at the site of the conflict. The soldiers are believed to have come from neighboring Lampang Province, where Japan had a garrison, for reconnaissance. Puchong, who manages a museum on the Free Thai movement, built the memorial to the two soldiers near the burial site in 2018. During the war, Japan was an enemy to the Free Thai group, but the soldiers were victims of the war, which was unnecessary, Puchong said. The memorial features an inscription in Thai, Japanese and English that reads, "In honor of two brave unknown Japanese soldiers who perished while performing their duties in searching for Phrae Free Thai during WWII." "The bones of the Japanese soldiers should be brought back to Japan. Those poor souls would love to go home," Puchong said, expressing his wish to recover the remains and return them to Japan. "We are aware of information that the remains of people who died in war are in Phrae Province," said an official of the Japan Association for Recovery and Repatriation of War Casualties, which works to recover the remains of Japanese soldiers who died overseas. "We are coordinating with the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and local organizations to conduct an on-site investigation in fiscal 2025," the official added. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, but wars are going on in many parts of the world, Puchong remarked. "There is nothing good about war. No one gains," he said. "We don't want it to happen again."
NHK
01-07-2025
- General
- NHK
Bringing Japan's war dead home
Bringing Japan's war dead home Newly discovered remains on the island of Peleliu in Palau are thought to be those of Japanese soldiers who died in World War Two. A forensic expert and others are working to identify them and return them to Japan.
Asharq Al-Awsat
09-06-2025
- General
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Explosion at US Air Base in Japan Injures 4 Japanese Soldiers
An explosion at a storage site for unexploded wartime ordnances at a US military base on Japan's southern island of Okinawa injured four Japanese soldiers, though the injuries are not life threatening, officials said Monday. The four soldiers had injuries to their fingers while working at a facility that belongs to Okinawa prefecture to store unexploded ordnance found on the island, where one of the harshest battles of World War II was fought, local officials said. According to The Associated Press, prefectural officials said the injuries were not life threatening, but no other details were immediately known. The Self Defense Force's joint staff said they were looking into reports of an explosion at Kadena Air Base that occurred while a team of Japanese soldiers that specializes in handling unexploded ordnance was working near or at the base. The SDF said they are trying to confirm the cause of the accident and where it occurred. Hundreds of tons of unexploded wartime bombs, many of them dropped by the US military, remain buried around Japan and are sometimes dug up at construction sites and elsewhere. In October, an unexploded wartime US bomb exploded at a commercial airport in southern Japan, causing a large crater and suspending dozens of flights.
The Independent
09-06-2025
- General
- The Independent
Explosion at US military base in Japan injures four Japanese soldiers
An explosion at a storage site for unexploded wartime ordnances at a US military base on Japan 's southern island of Okinawa injured four Japanese soldiers, though the injuries are not life threatening, officials said Monday. The four soldiers had injuries to their fingers while working at a facility that belongs to Okinawa prefecture to store unexploded ordnance found on the island, where one of the harshest battles of World War II was fought, local officials said. Prefectural officials said the injuries were not life threatening, but no other details were immediately known. The Self Defence Force's joint staff said they were looking into reports of an explosion at Kadena Air Base that occurred while a team of Japanese soldiers that specialises in handling unexploded ordnance was working near or at the base. The SDF said they are trying to confirm the cause of the accident and where it occurred. Hundreds of tons of unexploded wartime bombs, many of them dropped by the U.S. military, remain buried around Japan and are sometimes dug up at construction sites and elsewhere. In October, an unexploded wartime U.S. bomb exploded at a commercial airport in southern Japan, causing a large crater and suspending dozens of flights.
