93 y.o. Japanese Soldier Found Alive in the Ukraine!?

[Edward]

Read all about it at the BBC website.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4916294.stm

Edward

[Dan King]

When I was living in Japan I met a WWII Lt. General who was atually just a scientist working on turning vegetable oil into fuel for airplanes. He was captured by the Russians and was in the Gulag until 1961 or '62 when he was released by Kruschev under an amnesty program. I wrote up his story in the Japanese collector's newsletter called BANZAI back in 1990.

He said there were LOTS of Japanese that were left behind in the Gulags and doesn't know why he was selected for release.

[GerritJ9]

This story doesn't surprise me in the least. Apart from Japanese soldiers and civilians, the USSR also detained POWs and civilians they "liberated" in Eastern Europe in 1944-45 for, basically, slave labour. Many of those still missing (though officially listed as dead) disappeared that way, from almost all Allied nations- the U.S., the U.K., France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark. A good source for this is "The Iron Cage" by Nigel Cawthorne.

[Alfred]

There was a documentary here in Japan years ago of Japanese ex POWs living in Russia with their Russian wives