WWII veteran and Marine Marvin Strombo has returned a Japanese soldier's battle flag to the man's family after Strombo found the flag on the soldier 73 years earlier during the 1944 Battle of Saipan.
Strombo, who was 20 years old when he found the flag on Sadao Yasue, had promised the dead soldier he would return the flag to his family, but for years displayed it in a glass case inside his home, The Washington Post reported. The flag had about 180 signatures of family members and others in Yasue’s community, and was meant to deliver good luck in battle.
Strombo traveled to a remote farming village in Japan Tuesday to return the soldier's flag. The trip was made with help from the Obon Society, an Oregon-based nonprofit that works to bring about reconciliation between wartime enemies.
Yasue’s younger brother, now 89, and sister, 95, accepted the flag gratefully. A younger sister also was present. They never knew what happened to Yasue during the war, the Marines website reported. Strombo said it appeared Yasue died of a mortar blast, and that he had no visible wounds.
“Looking at this flag, the signatures are very clear, and I can almost smell my brother’s skin from the flag,” Tatsuya Yasue said, the Post reported. “We know you have kept it well for so long,” the Post reported.
The reunion came on the 72nd anniversary of Japan’s World War II surrender, and local residents and schoolchildren attended the ceremony of the flag’s returning.
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