GENERAL SANTOS (Philippines): Japanese diplomats pressed ahead with efforts to contact two Second World War soldiers who have reportedly been living in the southern Philippines since they were separated from their division 60 years ago. On Monday they were to be joined by an official from the Japanese health ministry, which is in charge of keeping records of former soldiers who survived, as well as recovering the remains of those killed during the war. The men, who would now be in their 80s, were said to have been separated from the 30th division of the Imperial Japanese Army and then stayed in the remote mountains on Mindanao island for fear of being court martialled in Japan. The astonishing claim that they may still be alive has attracted huge interest in Japan, where veterans are marking the 60th anniversary of the war’s end.

But the Japanese government urged caution, saying the report came from somebody who had not seen the men. Efforts to contact the pair were complicated by the fact that the area in which they supposedly were found is notorious for kidnappings and attacks by Muslim guerillas, who have waged war for three decades. Communist rebels also are active there. Tokyo first learned of the former soldiers in January, from a Japanese trader on Mindanao who has been trying since last Friday to arrange a meeting so officials could try to confirm the men’s’ identities, said a Japanese embassy spokesman, Shuhei Ogawa.

He said the diplomats who travelled to General Santos city, 960 kilometres south of Manila, were still “trying to work out (details of) a meeting.” According to Japan’s Kyodo News agency, the two missing soldiers might be Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, and Tsuzuki Nakauchi, 85. The Philippines, then a US colony, was a major battleground in the Pacific. The Japanese occupation is remembered for its massacres of civilians and deaths of hundreds of thousands of US and Filipino soldiers. After the US retook the islands, the country became independent in 1946. Years after the war ended, there were signs in the Philippines warning about Japanese soldiers still in the hills. A few surrendered as late as 1948. In March 1974,an intelligence office, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, came out of hiding on northern Lubang island, but he refused to give up until the Japanese government flew in his former commander to inform him the war was over. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service