One Hell Of A Homecoming: The Strange Tale of Uwano Ishinosuke

A few days ago, I happened upon a rather curious story being reported on by various news outlets; an 83 year-old Japanese man who was believed to have died in Russia following the Second World War had been discovered in Ukraine and was preparing to visit Japan for the first time in 63 years. Much like the countless Koreans, Taiwanese and other colonial subjects who remained trapped in Japan following the war, many Japanese soldiers who served overseas were also never repatriated. Many of these soldiers, especially in Russia, were either outright killed or died in labor camps. So the story of Uwano Ishinosuke’s return-especially after more than half a century-is indeed quite odd.

The actual details of his life since the end of the war are still quite sketchy-not much has been revealed to the media at this point. All we know is that he was last spotted in 1958 on Russia’s Sakhalin Island where he had fought during the war. Mind you, that’s a full 13 years after Japan’s surrender in 1945. In 1965 he moved to Ukraine where he has since married and fathered three children. Apparently, after living in Eastern Europe for over 60 years, Uwano suddenly decided to get in touch with the Japanese government. While he technically never returned from the war and probably had no means of doing so immediately following capitulation, it seems quite likely that he decided not to return to Japan out of his own free will. That is to say that the story seems less like the “missing solider discovered after 63 years” tale that the media is billing it as and more like “guy who happened to be a soldier and who disappeared following the war decides to return”.

The Japanese media do love a good story about a soldier discovered after decades of hiding in some remote part of the world though. Ever since 1945, a number of so-called “holdouts” have been discovered, eluding capture in remote locations where word of the war’s end never reached them-one as recently as 1980. To comprehend the logic behind this seemingly extreme behavior requires an understanding of the doctrine of personal sacrifice as a means for preserving national honor that was espoused by the Japanese wartime government. As one holdout plainly stated upon his surrender in Guam in 1972, “We Japanese soldiers were told to prefer death to the disgrace of getting captured alive”.

Almost all of the holdouts recovered since the war have returned to doting media attention and a hero’s welcome from the Japanese public. While their stories are certainly remarkable and worthy of telling, I can’t help but question whether the celebration of these stories might somehow stem from the ability to reclaim some honor for the defeated Imperial Army-something that right-wing revisionists seem likely to celebrate. Regardless, the Japanese media has been aching for a fresh holdout for a while now, especially after last year’s search for two soldiers in the Philippines turned out to have most likely been a wild goose chase.

So it’s no surprise that the media is having a field day with Uwano’s return. I just watched a segment on TV where reporters followed him as he returned to his birthplace in nearby Iwate Prefecture. He and his half-Ukrainian son met with aging family members, visited his elementary school and paid homage at the grave of his parents. After 60 years away from Japan, Uwano has lost the ability to speak Japanese and as such, was accompanied by Russian interpreters virtually everywhere he went. Since he was listed as dead in his family register, his Japanese citizenship is no longer valid, so he is actually visiting Japan as a Ukrainian national. At one point during his tour of the school, an elderly man walked up to him and excitedly began retelling some story about them having traveled to Morioka together back in the day, in the completely unintelligible speech that seems characteristic of all old Japanese men. Poor Uwano just stared at him with a completely blank look on his face before bowing his head and slowly shuffling away. As a fellow foreigner in Japan, let me impart one piece of advice onto you, Uwano-San: you had better get used to it.