{"id":23504,"date":"2019-10-05T15:47:18","date_gmt":"2019-10-05T15:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/10\/05\/captured-in-war-a-diary-returns-home\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:01:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:01:54","slug":"captured-in-war-a-diary-returns-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2019\/10\/05\/captured-in-war-a-diary-returns-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Captured in war, a diary returns home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DOUGLASSVILLE, Pa. \u2014 Judy Reitz was making turkey suppers in the kitchen at St. Paul\u2019s UCC in Amityville when she got a call on her cellphone a couple months ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not recognizing the number, she hesitated to answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She’s not sure why, but something made her take the call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I have good news for you,” the voice on the other end said. “We found the grandson of the soldier.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No further explanation was needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a frenzy, the retired Douglassville first-grade teacher ran around the kitchen sharing the news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I was blabbing to everybody,” recalls Reitz, acknowledging most didn’t know what she was talking about. “I was so excited.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news: a Japanese soldier’s diary her father brought back from World War II had made its way back to the soldier’s family in Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the tiny black book was in the possession of Toshie Nagasawa, the soldier’s grandson, who lives in Fukushima Prefecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news was the fulfillment of hopes Reitz had when, in spring of 2018, she sent the diary to the Obon Society in Oregon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A nonprofit founded by Rex and Keiko Ziak, the society seeks to heal wartime wounds by returning Japanese flags and other materials to families in Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I had high hopes it would make its way back to his family,” said Reitz, 76, who taught in the Daniel Boone School District for 32 years. “I felt his name might be somewhere in the writing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Boeing B-29 ” bomber, Indian Maid, has the Seabee emblem painted on its nose by 1\/c Roscoe Saunders, at Tinian, circa late 1944. At left is Seabee ship fitter 3\/c Eddie J. Schouest. At right are plane crewmen SGT. Robert O. Ballow and Crew Chief Raymond F. Hehr. Schouest originated the idea of painting Seabee insignia on a B-29. This plane is sponsored by the 67th construction battalion and wears its insignia. (National Archives)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Seaman Merle K. Bock of Earlville was with the Navy Seabees<\/a> on the island of Tinian<\/a> in the Pacific Ocean, clearing jungle for a runway that would figure in the end of World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was from Tinian that the Enola Gay departed, carrying an atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. Japan surrendered three days later, after a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resistance to American forces was strong, and Japanese troops were dug in, inhabiting caves on the island. In one of those caves, Bock removed the diary from a deceased Japanese soldier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn’t until Bock’s death in 1986 that Reitz, his daughter, got the diary. When attempts to have its printed characters translated failed, she tucked it away in a Tupperware sandwich container.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, early last year, she read a story in Reader’s Digest about an Oregon group that returned battlefield souvenirs to Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She wasted no time in rushing to the Douglassville post office and mailing the treasured artifact to the Obon Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year and a day later, Reitz received confirmation that the society had found the soldier’s grandson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is our pleasure to report that we have found the family in Japan that belongs to your diary,” the society reported in an email dated April 6. “The Japanese family is eager to receive these remains.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Included was the name of the soldier, Kiyoshichi Nagasawa, who died at Tinian Island on Aug. 2, 1944.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Caption: Men of the 302nd Construction Battalion repair a pontoon causeway that had broached at Tinian’s White 2 beach during a storm, 1 August 1944. (U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of the 2 million Japanese soldiers who died in the war, Rex Ziak says, 1.1 million were declared missing in action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tiny box with a pebble or piece of coral in it, he says, was the only notification families had that their loved one had died in combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when diaries, Japanese flags or officers’ swords make their way back to Japan, still grief-stricken families rejoice. Nearly 74 years after the war ended in September 1945, emotional wounds have yet to heal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These items are the first and only trace of their loved one that these families have gotten,” Ziak says. “It is their only spiritual connection to them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reitz strongly believes that battlefield souvenirs brought home by GIs should be returned to Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have an obligation to return them to their families,” she insists. “They don’t belong to us. They belong to them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\t