'Lost' Japanese Veteran Returns From Ukraine

The last time Ishinosuke Uwano's family saw him he was leaving for the Russian far east to fight for imperial Japan in the second world war. Today Mr Uwano will return to the country he left behind more than 60 years ago, to be reunited with relatives who until last year were convinced he was dead.

They had presumed that Mr Uwano, now 83, had died while serving on Sakhalin, an island in the Russian far east seized from Japan by Soviet forces in the dying days of the Pacific war. He was last seen there in 1958, reportedly by an acquaintance, but he did not get in touch with his family in Japan and in 2000 they agreed to have him listed among the country's war dead. But yesterday it emerged that he is alive and well, living with his other family in Ukraine

Mr Uwano's journey back began when he asked a friend to help him trace his elderly Japanese relatives. Last year the health and welfare ministry, which is responsible for tracing veterans lost overseas, sent officials to interview him in Kiev and they confirmed his identity. He had married a local woman, and will be escorted to Japan for a 10-day visit by his son.

Mr Uwano is one of about 400 Japanese veterans thought to have remained in the former Soviet Union after the war. Dozens of old soldiers are believed to be scattered around Japan's former foreign battlefields across Asia. The most famous is Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, who emerged from the jungle on the island of Lubang in 1974, unaware that the war had ended. He agreed to leave only after talking to his former commanding officer.