Post by VeeVee on Dec 7, 2008 8:21:15 GMT -5
Interesting story
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there's a news video snippet in this link as well:
kob.com/article/stories/S686557.shtml?cat=519
Search on for owner of WWII photo album
A photo album that was found in the Philippines and believed to belong to a national guardsman has made its way to New Mexico. Now, the search is on for is rightful owner.
The album would not be in New Mexico today if a Japanese soldier in the Philippines wouldn't have picked it up from a pile of trash in a U.S. prisoner of war camp in 1942.
"For us it's significant to get a piece of this history," said Amanda Straub of the New Mexico National Guard. "It's really come full circle from WWII to bring this photo album back to us and show the way that relationships between Americans and Japanese have mended over the years,"
For years, the soldier was unsuccessful in finding the owner of the album. He then met another Japanse man who was in interested in his writings of World War II and that's when things turned.
“Through the course of talking about their different experiences, this veteran from the Japanese army brought out this photo album and showed it to them and told him he wanted to return it to America, to the family," Straub said.
The two did Internet research and found names in the book that were those of New Mexico National Guard Soldiers. They then contacted the Bataan Memorial Museum in Santa Fe. The names that came up in the search are believed to be members from the 200th Coast Artillery of the New Mexico National Guard.
The friend of the Japanese soldier traveled across the world to Santa Fe on Monday and returned the album.
The National Guard is now trying to find the owner or his surviving family.
Of the 1,800 members of the 200th Coast Artillery of the New Mexico National Guard, many died in the Bataan Death March, only 800 returned alive.
-----------
there's a news video snippet in this link as well:
kob.com/article/stories/S686557.shtml?cat=519
Search on for owner of WWII photo album
A photo album that was found in the Philippines and believed to belong to a national guardsman has made its way to New Mexico. Now, the search is on for is rightful owner.
The album would not be in New Mexico today if a Japanese soldier in the Philippines wouldn't have picked it up from a pile of trash in a U.S. prisoner of war camp in 1942.
"For us it's significant to get a piece of this history," said Amanda Straub of the New Mexico National Guard. "It's really come full circle from WWII to bring this photo album back to us and show the way that relationships between Americans and Japanese have mended over the years,"
For years, the soldier was unsuccessful in finding the owner of the album. He then met another Japanse man who was in interested in his writings of World War II and that's when things turned.
“Through the course of talking about their different experiences, this veteran from the Japanese army brought out this photo album and showed it to them and told him he wanted to return it to America, to the family," Straub said.
The two did Internet research and found names in the book that were those of New Mexico National Guard Soldiers. They then contacted the Bataan Memorial Museum in Santa Fe. The names that came up in the search are believed to be members from the 200th Coast Artillery of the New Mexico National Guard.
The friend of the Japanese soldier traveled across the world to Santa Fe on Monday and returned the album.
The National Guard is now trying to find the owner or his surviving family.
Of the 1,800 members of the 200th Coast Artillery of the New Mexico National Guard, many died in the Bataan Death March, only 800 returned alive.
