22 WWII artifacts returned to Japan

A local family that found looted World War II artifacts in their late father’s personal effects “did the right thing” and alerted the FBI, leading to the agency returning the historic art to Japan after eight decades.

The FBI Boston division announced that it has recovered 22 artifacts that were looted after the Battle of Okinawa. They had been missing for almost 80 years.

The agents got a tip last year after a Massachusetts family sifted through their late father’s personal effects and came across what appeared to be very valuable Asian art. The art included portraits, scrolls, pottery and an ancient map.

“It looked old and it looked valuable,” said FBI Boston Special Agent Geoffrey Kelly, a member of the FBI Art Crime Team. “And because of this, they did a little research and they determined that at least the scrolls had been entered about 20 years ago in the FBI’s National Stolen Art File.

“And once they realized that they were stolen, they reached out to the FBI and it came to me,” Kelly added.

Among the artifacts was an unsigned, typewritten letter stating that the items were collected in Okinawa during the last days of World War II.

The FBI conducted an investigation and was able to authenticate the artworks.

“One of the basic things to do in this is just do a side-byside comparison,” Kelly said. “And so we had images of the looted antiquities that were looted sometime in the mid1940s.

“Not great-quality photos, black and white, but still clear enough that you could compare them side-by-side with the antiquities in Massachusetts and form a pretty good conclusion that they were a match,” he added.

The 22 artifacts — some of which date back to the 18th and 19th centuries — represent a significant piece of Okinawan history. The artifacts include six portraits, a handdrawn map of Okinawa dating back to the 19th century and various pieces of pottery and ceramics.