BossGnome
Posts: 658
Joined: 5/29/2004
From: Canada
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I have a crazy, true world war 2 story, quite different from the ones posted thus far. 
Now, I am Canadian, but have lived several years in Japan. My first experience living in Japan was as a high school exchange student, living with a Japanese host family.
This host family's grandfather, whom I met four or five times when he was already at the ripe old age of 93 and 94 (he has since unfortunately passed away) had served as a military doctor in China, in which unit I cannot remember. But I saw black and white pictures of him serving around nanchang, posing with his battalion for a picture under the rising sun flag.
Of his military service I know little, as he would not talk about it much. However, I know that he had an interest in China since before the war, and had specifically requested a posting there when he was drafted from his civilian practice. He spoke Chinese quite well, and often served as his unit's unofficial interpreter.
When Japan lost the war, he became (for reasons unknown to me) separated from his unit and unable to get a ship to take him back to his country. This was, to put it mildly, extremely inconvenient for him, as his young wife, whom he had married only a few years earlier, was still in Saitama, north of Tokyo. The Chinese Civil War was ongoing, however, the Japanese administration in Shanghai and Beijing was in the process of collapsing, and the entire country was apparently in a state of chaos. So, this military Japanese doctor asked some Chinese acquaintances he had to hide him, knowing full well that he was in grave danger for his life should he ever be discovered by someone who had a particular grudge against Japanese soldiers.
His Chinese friends did in fact, harbour him, and during the summer of 1946 he came out of hiding and went to Shanghai to open up a doctor's practice, all the while pretending to be Chinese. In a country like China, his strange accent was easy to explain as he simply pretended he was from a random village in some other part of the country where everybody spoke like he did. 
Now, he worked in Shanghai for a few years, becoming a respected doctor, until the outbreak of the Korean war. The Chinese authorities, desperately needing trained military doctors for the "People's Volunteers", and having heard that he had served in the military during the war, requested his services. He, not wanting them to start looking further into his rather shaky background, was not in a position to refuse. In the early months of 1951 this man thus once again found himself fighting in a war, though this time on the side of the Communist Chinese!!!  When I asked him how North Korea was, he simply replied "It was cold. It was really damn cold."
This man, somewhat miraculously, survived the Korean war as well, and went back to Shanghai, when he continued looking for a way to get back to Japan, while always remaining careful not to divulge his true identity, given the extent of anti-Japanese sentiment running through China at that time. His chance finally came in 1954, with the first agreement for the official repatriation of Japanese Soldiers to Japan between the PRC and the Japanese government. Lack of official recognition of the PRC by the Japanese had, among other things, made the agreement take this long.
This story also has a happy ending. Once this doctor went back to Saitama, he found his wife, with whom he had had absolutely no contact for over 10 years, still faithfully waiting for him to come home; his death had never been confirmed, and she had never lost hope.
I met both of them several times in 2005-2006. The doctor has since passed away, but his wife is still alive and healthy at a robust 92. The doctor, by the time I met him, was already in poor health, and possibly going a little senile. He often intercut Japanese with Chinese in his speech (no one else in his family spoke Chinese, so it was difficult for everybody to understand), and he had difficulty remembering my name. Well, that last part may just have been old age. Nonetheless, the man's room was an impressive sight. It contained, not only Chrysanthemum military medals of the IJA which he recieved for his service in China, but also Hammer-and-Sickle medals from the PLA, which he gained fighting in Korea. Interspersed were black and white pictures of him with his IJA regiment, and a very striking portrait of him in a Mao suit.
This man was one of my main inspirations to begin studying Chinese, and Sino-Japanese relations.
< Message edited by BossGnome -- 9/9/2011 8:41:02 AM >
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"Hard pressed on my right; my left is in retreat. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking."
-Gen. Joffre, before the battle of the Marne
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True WWII story - 
and he was quite proud of the feat (i.e. having told off Himmler, albeit in Italian). 
RE: True WWII story - 
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