'Japan soldiers' found in jungle

[Gunner]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4585287.stm

Japanese officials are investigating claims that two men living in jungle in the Philippines are Japanese soldiers left behind after World War II.
The pair, in their 80s, were reportedly found on southern Mindanao island.

The men were expected to travel to meet Japanese officials on Friday, but have yet to make contact.

The claim drew comparisons with the 1974 case of Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, who was found in the Philippines jungle unaware the war had ended.

'Incredible if true'

The two men on Mindanao contacted a Japanese national who was collecting the remains of war dead on Mindanao, according to government sources.

They had equipment which suggested they were former soldiers.

"It is an incredible story if it is true," Japan's consul general in Manila, Akio Egawa, told the AFP news agency.

"They were found, I believe, in the mountains near General Santos on Mindanao Island.

"At this stage we are not saying either way whether or not these two men are in fact former soldiers. We may be in a better position later today," he said.

According to Japanese media reports, the pair had been living with Muslim rebel groups and at least one of them has married a local woman and had a family.

The BBC's Tokyo correspondent says the likelihood is that they are well aware the war is over but have chosen to stay in the Philippines for their own reasons.

Remote jungle

Mindanao has seen more than two decades of Muslim rebellion and many areas are out of central government control.

Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and set up a brutal puppet government.

In the closing months of the war, there was heavy fighting with US troops in the mountainous, heavily forested islands.

The Sankei Shimbun daily said the men would most likely be members of the Panther division, 80% of whom were killed or went missing during the final months of the war.

It speculated there could be as many as 40 Japanese soldiers living in similar conditions in the Philippines.

When Lt Onoda was found on the Philippines island of Lubang in 1974, he initially refused to surrender.

Only when his former commanding officer was flown over from Japan did he agree to leave the jungle.

He later emigrated to Brazil.

 

[Teddy Ruxpin]

I think I saw this on Gilligan's Island once...  ;D

 

[Gill557]

I've heard of other cases like this.  Old Japanese soldiers found on isolated Pacific islands.  Guess they were like the Coastwatches or something.

 

[old medic]

The Tokyo papers are following the story:

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200505280153.html

Mountain men in Philippines likely World War II soldiers

05/28/2005

The Asahi Shimbun

Japanese officials arrived on the Philippines island of Mindanao on Friday to unravel the mystery behind two aging men believed to be former imperial army soldiers who have lived in the mountains since the end of World War II.

But the work to confirm their identities has already hit a snag. The two men, who were scheduled to meet Japanese Embassy officials in the city of General Santos on Friday, have refused to descend from their mountain dwellings, apparently because of the crowd of reporters gathered there, Foreign Ministry officials said.

"The time for the interview has not been decided yet," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.

The two men, who could be Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, and Tsuzuki Nakauchi, 85, both members of the 30th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army, were carrying several articles that indicated they were former soldiers, officials said, without elaborating.

The embassy staff in Manila decided to head to Mindanao after receiving information Thursday from a Japanese about two men claiming to be Japanese soldiers on a mountain near General Santos.

The Japanese who contacted the embassy lives in Mindanao and spends his time collecting the remains of Imperial Japanese Army soldiers.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare also received information about possible former soldiers in October last year from a different Japanese who was helping the ministry recover the remains of soldiers in the Philippines.

This man was quoted as saying, "Four men who could be former Japanese soldiers are apparently living in a mountain area in the Philippines."

Clues to the men's identities came in February, when a man in Japan, who said he was a friend of three former Japanese soldiers during the war, sent a petition to health minister Hidehisa Otsuji requesting an inquiry. Mentioned in the petition were the names "Yoshio Yamakawa" and "Tsuzuki Nakauchi." The name "Sakurai" was also listed.

According to health ministry officials, these three soldiers were listed as dead in a roster of personnel who were dispatched overseas as of January 1945 but never returned home.

Nakauchi was from Kochi Prefecture and Yamakawa from Osaka.

When asked about the possibility that even more former soldiers remain in the region, Otsuji told reporters Friday, "I was only informed about the two, not several dozen."

The embassy officials plan to determine who these men are and if they had continued to fight for Japan in the region during the six decades since Japan's surrender.

If the men are indeed former soldiers, the embassy officials want to know whether the men have started new lives in Mindanao and if they are married, officials said.

"They may have settled down there through marriage," a government official in Tokyo said, when asked about possible support for the two. "But we must first meet them directly to know what they want."

Other former Japanese soldiers have been found several decades after the war ended. Shoichi Yokoi, then 56, returned to Japan after being discovered on Guam in 1972. He died in 1997.

Hiroo Onoda, then 51, returned to Japan from Lubang island in the Philippines in 1974.

According to the health ministry, 437 people-24 military and paramilitary personnel and 413 civilians-have not returned to Japan from overseas battlefields in World War II. Their whereabouts and status remain unknown.

Of them, 15, including 12 civilians, had been sent to southern areas, including the Philippines, during the war.

The total number of those who did not return from battle exceeded 1,000 about 20 years ago. But the number has decreased because many family members have since registered their missing relatives as dead.

Not all former soldiers want to return to Japan. A number of them have settled overseas.(IHT/Asahi: May 28,2005)

 

[old medic]

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200505300108.html

Trail runs cold on Philippine mountain men

05/30/2005
The Asahi Shimbun

GENERAL SANTOS, Philippines-Japanese officials continued Sunday trying to confirm whether two elderly men hiding out in mountains here are former Imperial Japanese Army soldiers.

The two are presumed to be Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, and Tsuzuki Nakauchi, 85, who served in the army's 30th Division. The southern island of Mindanao where they live is controlled by anti-government rebel forces such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the New People's Army, and is considered dangerous.

Embassy officials here said earlier that they were in contact with a Japanese man who brought news of the two possible former imperial army soldiers. They said they were unable to reach him on Sunday.

The man, a Philippine resident in his late 50s, told The Asahi Shimbun in a telephone interview Saturday that he had not actually met the two men.

He said an employee of his who speaks Japanese met the men in the mountains on the outskirts of General Santos.

The man concluded the men are former imperial army soldiers who stayed on in the Philippines because they apparently speak Japanese quite fluently.

The Philippines, which Japan invaded in 1941, was the scene of heavy fighting in the closing days of World War II.

For 10 to 15 years after the war, anti-Japan sentiment in the Philippines was strong and many former soldiers stranded over there hid their identities, Philippines observers say.

The man said he paid $250,000 (about 26 million yen) to rebels controlling the area to allow the two men to come out of hiding. But the rebels sent an e-mail message Saturday warning the Japanese Foreign Ministry and media against entering the area.

It said they would be abducted if they did so.

News that two former imperial army soldiers may still be alive in the Philippines came as no surprise to war veterans in Japan.

Yoshihiko Terashima, 85, of Saitama Prefecture, said he and two others visited Mindanao early in December and heard about the men then.

Terashima, who visits regularly to retrieve remains of comrades who died in the fighting, said he met a Philippine woman living in Mindanao who introduced him to apparent guerrilla leaders controlling the jungle where the former soldiers are supposed to be living.

The men displayed a Japanese rising-sun flag with messages written on it, as was the custom during World War II, along with black-and-white photos.

Terashima's group gave the men cash, letters and gifts from Japan. The woman who acted as mediator also received cash and letters.

However, Terashima said he never received a reply from the presumed former soldiers.

``The woman has a considerable social standing locally and knows some influential people,'' Terashima said. ``I came to believe that the soldiers are alive.''

Early this month, Terashima also met a Japanese man who collects remains of Japan's war dead in the Philippines and asked for his help in locating the former soldiers.

The man recently called Terashima to say that the two had been located.

The man who called Terashima is believed to be currently acting as a go-between for the Japanese government.

Terashima said he figured out the identities of the two men from a letter the woman in the Philippines wrote him last fall which mentioned their surnames.

Terashima contacted Goichi Ichikawa, 89, who heads a group called Hyo no kai (group of the leopard), whose members were in the Imperial Japanese Army's 30th Division that fought on Mindanao.

Ichikawa, a resident of Osaka Prefecture, compared Terashima's information and his division's roster as well as records of fighting and also concluded the two men are probably Yamakawa and Nakauchi.

The woman also told Terashima that two others, only referred to by phonetic reading of family names of Sakurai and Watanabe, are also alive. Sakurai is believed to be in Mindanao and Watanabe on Blut Island, just off the southern coast of Mindanao.(IHT/Asahi: May 30,2005)

 

[Spr.Earl]

I was in Japan in the Feb/March of 74 when Lt. Onada came out of the jungle's of the Philippines.
I read his Biography,it was very informative on how he survived and kept his kit in shape.