A Japanese soldier from World War II who had been declared dead but resurfaced in Ukraine returned on Wednesday after six decades.
TOKYO: A Japanese soldier from World War II who had been declared dead but resurfaced in Ukraine returned on Wednesday after six decades, saying he remembered cherry blossoms but little of his mother tongue.
"I have not spoken Japanese for a long time. The first thing I want to say is 'Konnichiwa' ('hello')," Ishinosuke Uwano, 83, told reporters in Russian as he arrived at Narita airport near Tokyo.
Uwano served in the Imperial Army on Russia's Sakhalin island at the end of the war and lost contact with his family in 1958. He was declared dead by Japan in 2000 but he turned out to have married a woman in Ukraine.
Accompanied by his Ukrainian son, the silver-haired Uwano smiled a little and covered his face at times to compose himself on his emotional homecoming.
He appeared to be in good health, walking by himself with only occasional physical support from a translator as an army of journalists welcomed him.
"I feel very good now," said Uwano, wearing a gray suit with a buttoned-up shirt.
He said the former Soviet Union had prevented him from maintaining contact with his family.
"I can't find the words to express my gratitude to the Japanese government," he said.
Before coming to Japan, he told Japanese journalists in Ukraine that he looked forward to seeing his homeland.
"I had not dreamed about going to Japan. I remember the 'sakura' (cherry blossoms)," he told TBS television.
Uwano will head to Iwate in northern Japan on Thursday to meet with his relatives.
He is scheduled to return to Narita on April 27 and head to Ukraine on the following day.
He came to Japan technically as a Ukrainian citizen with a Ukraine passport because his name has already been deleted from official records here.
The welfare ministry confirmed his whereabouts last year after a local resident informed the Japanese embassy in Kiev about him.
The whereabouts of some 50 former Japanese soldiers, many of whom were imprisoned by the Soviet military in Far Eastern Russia, are still unknown, the government said.
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