Flag goes home: ‘enemies then, friends now’

vanquished.

But not much is known about either one. No one knows how or when Koga died on Iwo, or what his job was there. Back home he had been a coal miner from Kyushu and a graduate of Manchuria University. Born in 1921, he was the ninth of 10 siblings.

“My mother told me he was smart and excellent,” Mr. Oniike said.

He left for the war in 1943, trained in Japan and then served in Korea, Manchuria and finally Iwo Jima.

“If he were still alive today, he would be 97 years old,” Mr. Oniike said.

Cpl. Lane, who died in the 1980s, was born in 1911 and grew up in New Brighton in a family of steelworkers. When the war came he volunteered.

“He was a very proud Marine,” Ms. Kester said.

On Iwo Jima he was part of the Fifth Marine Division and worked in the motor transport unit. No one knows how he came to have Koga’s flag or the other items. Did he kill Koga? Or did he come across his body after a battle and take what he could find, as did most Marines?

He never said. Like almost all World War II vets who saw action, he was silent on his combat experiences.

“I asked my mother if she knew how he got these things,” said Ms. Kester. “She said no. I could tell it was one of those cases where he didn’t talk about the war.”

After the war he moved to California, remarried and made his life there. When he came back home, Ms. Kester recalls, he was always proper and well-dressed, but she knows little else about him.

The good luck flag he brought home would never have reached Mr. Oniike were it not for some happenstance.

Ms. Kester was working at Air Heritage one day when Yoshihiro Yoshimura, a Japanese engineer who works in Mount Pleasant, was visiting with his family. She showed him the flag. He knew immediately what it was, did some research and then contacted a TV station in Japan, which did a story on it in December in an effort to find Koga’s family.

Mr. Oniike happened to see that broadcast. That too was happenstance. He was off work for a holiday when the show aired and happened to see it. Had it been a regular work day, he would have missed it.

“That’s my uncle Shiro’s flag!” he said and contacted the TV reporter to find out more.

They soon arranged for the trip to the U.S. to get the flag and bring it home.

“It’s not just a flag,” said Mr. Yoshimura. “The soldiers carried them always. By keeping the flag with him, he can feel his family with him.”

One twist to this tale is that Ms. Kester’s mother was originally not keen on giving it up. To her, it was part of her father’s identity. Mr. Ziak said it is common for the families of U.S. servicemen to be reluctant to part with the flags.

“These are relics that for some families, this is their memory of their father,” he said.

Ms. Kester understood but felt that the flag belongs to Koga’s family. Regardless of the politics of the war, she said he fought for his country and died like so many others.

“And that in my mind is a hero,” she said. “We were just explaining it to my mom the other day. Her dad came home. All they got was a piece of wood.”