WWII Veteran Travels 10,000 Miles To Return Hinomaru Yosegaki Flag To Family

PORTLAND, OR — For 73 years, World War II veteran Marvin Strombo kept locked in a glass gun cabinet the silk Japanese flag he took from a fallen Japanese soldier while fighting on the island of Saipan in 1944. Like many soldiers at the time, Strombo took the flag as a war souvenir. This week, however, Strombo traveled more than 10,000 miles — from Portland to Japan — to return the flag to the soldier's family, with help from the Obon Society, an Astoria-based nonprofit.

The Obon Society helps return to Japanese families the flags taken from fallen soldiers. Strombo's flag, the society learned, belonged to Yasue Sadao, a Japanese soldier from a small mountain village 200 miles west of Tokyo. Strombo told Associated Press reporter Gillian Flaccus that he pulled the flag from Sadao's jacket after finding the man on the outskirts of the Saipan town of Garapan. Sadao, Strombo said, had apparently been killed by mortar fire and was lying on his left side with a corner of the white flag poking from his jacket.

"I knew he was young because I could see his profile as I bent over him. He was laying on his back, kind of on his left side," Strombo told Flaccus. "I realized there were no bullets or shrapnel wounds, so I knew he was killed by the blast of a mortar."

The flag he found was a hinomaru yosegaki, or good luck flag, a traditional flag of Japan depicting the red sun but with the addition of Japanese calligraphy surrounding the center. The flags, which were typically covered with signatures and messages from friends and family, were often given to soldiers departing for war. Along with Strombo, countless other American soldiers brought flags back to the U.S. following World War II. Strombo's flag had the signatures of 180 people close to Sadao, including his still-living 89-year-old brother and two sisters — who will receive the flag when Strombo meets them on Aug. 15.

Returning the flag to Japan, Strombo said, gives him the opportunity to answer questions the family has about how and where their brother died. The Obon Society has reportedly reunited 125 flags with their rightful owners.

Top Photo: WWII veteran Marvin Strombo holds up a Japanese flag with names written on it in Portland, Oregon, Monday, Aug. 7, 2017. Strombo recovered the flag from a dead Japanese soldier in the Pacific more than 70 years ago and now, at age 93, will return the flag to the Japanese man's surviving siblings. (AP Photo/Don Ryan)