Home beckons Japan war martyrs

Japanese team arrives in Guwahati to exhume soldiers & take them back
The Telegraph, Calcutta, January 19 , 2012

Guwahati, Jan. 18: A Japanese team today stood in Gauhati War Cemetery trying to exhume the remains of 11 compatriot soldiers who were killed and buried in this foreign land during World War II over 60 years ago.

If and when they find the remains, they will return home, conduct their last rites and give the soldiers their final resting ground.

“According to our records, the remains of the soldiers were buried here in wooden boxes but we have not found any remains till now. If we find anything we have been instructed to take them back to Japan for rituals. Digging is not complete and will continue tomorrow,” a Japanese team member said at the cemetery, which was set up by Commonwealth War Graves Commission during World War II.

The team comprised Ken Miyashita, deputy director of office of foreign affairs, planning division of War Victim’s Relief Social Welfare and War Victim’s Relief Bureau, ministry of health, labour and welfare of Japan, Kiju Matsubayashi, first secretary of embassy of Japan in India and Masahiro Takeda of the planning division of War Victim’s Relief Bureau.

The team reached here yesterday and will stay here till January 23 to carry out research and forensic examinations of the remains, if required.

None of the team members spoke English and communicated only through an interpreter, who explained that the officials were unwilling to speak to the media.

That left a lot of questions unanswered.

No one, for instance, could explain why the Japanese government wants to exhume the remains of the soldiers over 60 years after they were buried.

The 11 graves dug out today going by the epitaphs included those of 10 soldiers and a lance corporal of the Japanese forces who had died during World War II from 1939 to 1945. Hachivetsuyoshi (buried in 1944), Urata Yotaka (1944), Ishiwara Hiroya, Shotasabaro (1944), Ikdimiraisao (1944), Kito Zwao (1944), Komatsutomoshige (1944), Morata Doshu (1944), Yamado Kesakti (1941), Okamoto (1945) and Miyata Kotsuo (lance corporal), buried in 1944, were on the officials’ list.

Most of these soldiers must have been involved in the World War II’s “China-Burma-India theatre”, since 1944 saw the battle of Kohima and the battle of Imphal, two of the major battles in the region.

The Japanese team reached here yesterday on the exhumation mission following a request from the Japanese government to New Delhi.

The state home department received a letter on December 14 last year from the ministry of external affairs and the Japanese embassy seeking help for carry out the exhumation and examination of the remains.

The graves were dug in the presence of the district magistrate, forensic experts and an official from the state archaeology department. When asked if they would carry the soil from the graves, the team said, “We have no such instructions.”

According to the regional manager of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Salew Pfotte, there are 486 graves in the Gauhati War Cemetery, of soldiers belonging to the UK, Japan, China, besides 18 unknown soldiers.

The cemetery was established during World War II for burial of soldiers brought from various military hospitals in the pre-Independence eastern region, including Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Later, other coffins were brought in by the Army Graves Service from Amaribari Military Cemetery, Sylhet Military Cemetery, Mohachara Cemetery, Nowgong Civil Cemetery and Gauhati Civil Cemetery, where permanent maintenance of bodies could not be assured.

Coffins were also brought to the cemetery from isolated sites in the Lushai Hills (now Mizoram) and from civil cemeteries in Badarpur, Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, Dhubri, Dibrugarh, Dinjan, Katapahar, Lebong, Lumding, Shillong and Silchar, in 1952, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.