Posted on 07/29/2023 12:56:05 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Toshihiro Mutsuda was only 5 years old when he last saw his father, who was drafted by Japan's Imperial Army in 1943 and killed in action. For him, his father was a bespectacled man in an old family photo standing by a signed good-luck flag that he carried to war.
On Saturday, when the flag was returned to him from a U.S. war museum where it had been on display for 29 years, Mutsuda, now 83, said: “It's a miracle."
The flag, known as “Yosegaki Hinomaru,” or Good Luck Flag, carries the soldier's name, Shigeyoshi Mutsuda, and the signatures of his relatives, friends and neighbors wishing him luck. It was given to him before he was drafted by the Army. His family was later told he died in Saipan, but his remains were never returned.
(Excerpt) Read more at wral.com ...
Thank you.
Touching.
Agree. Politicians from anywhere are the scum of the earth.
That good luck flag worked real good 😏
How would you
Like a lucky flag
From bidend - obama - the Ukraine
Diversity war crusader
Not much luck for the soldier. Very fortunate for his family. They have closure and an important keepsake he carried with him.
I was in my late teens when my HS history class was covering WWII in the SPT, my father told me about the day he shot and killed a Japanese soldier.
His unit was going from building to building in Manila as the city was in the final stages of being liberated, searching for any remaining enemy holdouts.
He was alone on the second floor of a partially bombed out building when he heard a noise. He shouted out in English – “Identify yourself!” (in case it was another GI) then quickly, after no answer “Surrender - Hands up!”
Although he also told me that in many cases, they did not take prisoners as it wasn’t always logistically possible to do so in battle, and yes, while he didn’t participate, he saw some captured Japanese soldiers lined up and shot. But my father having heard of the atrocities committed by Japan and anger over Pearl Harbor, didn’t exactly shed any tears at the time.
A disheveled and confused looking uniformed Japanese soldier came around the corner. My father wasn’t sure if he had his hands up or not as he was partially in shadow, so in a life or death split second decision, my father shot him - a single bullet to the man’s head.
My dad said they were under orders to search the bodies of those they killed, if possible, in case they had anything on them useful for intelligence; maps, codes, etc., especially if they appeared to have any rank.
My dad searched the dead soldier’s pockets and found he had no weapons on him what so ever, but did find Rosary Beads in one pocket and in the other pocket he found a wallet and in it found many pictures of the man’s wife and children and an older couple he presumed were his parents, Catholic Prayer cards and what appeared to be a hospital ID card, partially in English indicating as my father later remembered was in Nagasaki, over ten years old leading my father to believe the man was probably a medic and perhaps had been a doctor before the war. Probably like my father, drafted into service.
He placed the Rosary Beads on the man’s chest and put the wallet back in his pocket and walked away.
My father believed he was right to kill the man as he didn’t know if he was armed, had a grenade, etc., and that some Japanese would booby trap themselves in order to kill GI’s, but said the images of the pictures of the man’s wife and children, the Rosary Beads and Prayer cards never left him.
My father talked about it again not long before he died in 1996. He told me of all the “Japs” he had killed in the war, after all these years, these images still haunted his dreams.
He wondered if the man’s wife, children and parents had survived the war, the bomb and if he could meet them before he died, if they would pray the Rosary with him and forgive him.
Saipan was a bloodbath a lot of dead US marines I would rather remember instead
The japs started the war. We finished it
Well, kind of Russia finished it.
Read about how Japanese soldiers and sailors acted down to the lowliest private, how they treated civilians and prisoners, before getting all teary-eyed.
At the end of world war II, my grandfather became the commanding officer of the last Japanese battleship afloat - the Nagato.
It was being made seaworthy so that the United States could take it to
Bikini Atoll to be sunk in the atomic bomb test.
When my grandfather died, we opened up his foot locker and found a huge Japanese Battle flag. It obviously came from the Nagato.
We contacted the Japanese embassy in Washington and ended up repatriating the flag to the Japanese people.
Back in 1962 I was in the bed of a neighbor’s hay truck and found a big knife all rusted up.
I held it up and asked him if he wanted it since it was all rusted up.
His words were...”Ah hell! I wondered where that was! I cut a Jap’s throat on Iwo with that!”
He kept the knife.
The Russians carried on for a few more weeks past atom bomb surrender in order to seize Manchuria
The battle at Saipan also had the largest banzai attack the pacific war with 4000 crazed japs fighting to the death
Spare me about this poor little jap luck flag IDGAF
Russia agree to declare war on Japan three months after VE Day. (Approximately, I guess)
The U.S. dropped one bomb on Hiroshima on August 6th, and Japan did not surrender. Remember, the conventional bombing of Japan did more damage than the atomic bombing.
Russia invaded Manchuria at midnight August 9th, and sliced through the Japanese force. Japan was already afraid of Russia after the 1939 battle of Khalkhin Gol.
Japan's council voted to surrender after that. They much prefered being occupied by the U.S. then occupied by the USSR, even partially.
The council never had surrender before they ever considered the bombing on Nagasaki.
Dropping atomic bombs on Japan had nothing to do with their surrender.
There wouldn’t have been a council left to vote if they hadn’t surrendered. We could decimate an entire city with a single bomb
You’re full of it
And 3000 marines died with 13000 wounded to take that sorry ass little island from those crazed suicidal japs so take that lucky jap flag and shove it up your ass
You greatly underestimate how severe the conventional bombings of Japan were. Up to 9 or 10 times as many people died.
The firebombing of Tokyo was the most destructive bombing raid in history, worse than either of the atomic bombs. It destroyed 16 square miles, and more than 100,000 died and 1,000,000 left homeless.
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