Soldier’s flag returned to family after 73 years
A US Marine who served in the Pacific during the Second World War has travelled to a remote village in Japan to return a flag he took from the body of a fallen Japanese soldier 73 years ago.
Marvin Strombo handed over the calligraphy-covered Japanese flag to the family of Sadao Yasue. They had never received his body or – until that moment – anything else of his.
Yasue’s sister Sayoko Furuta, 93, covered her face with both hands and wept silently as her brother Tatsuya Yasue placed the flag on her lap. Mr Strombo gently rubbed her shoulder.
“I was so happy that I returned the flag,” Mr Strombo said. “I can see how much the flag meant to her. That almost made me cry.”
The flag’s white background is filled with signatures of 180 friends and neighbours in the tea-growing village of Higashishirakawa, wishing Yasue’s safe return. The signatures helped Mr Strombo, 93, find its rightful owners.
Tatsuya, an 89-year-old farmer, said the return of the flag brought closure. “It’s like my brother can come out of limbo,” he said.
He last saw his older brother alive the day before he left for the South Pacific in 1943. He and two siblings made a small send-off picnic. Sadao whispered to him to take good care of their parents.
A year later, Japanese authorities sent the family a wooden box with a few stones at the bottom – a substitute for his body. Months after the war ended, the family were told he died somewhere in the Mariana Islands, presumably on July 18, 1944, the day Saipan fell. He was 25.
Mr Strombo was able to tell them he found Sadao’s body on the outskirts of Garapan, a village in Saipan. Their brother probably died of a concussion from a mortar round. He told them Sadao was lying on the ground on his left side, looking as if he was asleep.