Buck Weatherill gives a thumbs up. Photo: Daily Astorian Keiko Ziak's grandfather was one of over 1 million Japanese soldiers who went missing in action in World War II. More than 60 years later, her family received a flag he'd carried into battle, taken as a wartime souvenir and ultimately returned to them by the son of a Canadian military memorabilia collector.
“It’s a miracle that happened,” Keiko Ziak told The Daily Astorian. “I passed that story on to [my husband] Rex. He researched it and we found out that so many miracles could happen.”
The Japanese-American couple founded a project to help veterans and their families, and other citizens, return these flags to their families in Japan. They named their effort OBON 2015, after the Japanese season when ancestors’ spirits are honored.
Known as good luck flags, yosegaki hinomaru is literally translated as “group-written flag.” Every young Japanese sent off to war carried one imprinted with blessings and messages from their family. They carried them in their pockets. Countless numbers were taken from the corpses of the 2 million soldiers who wouldn't return home alive.
“All the people who cared about that person, all the people who thought about him, were going to war with him,” says Rex Ziak about the flags. Today, these flags represent the only trace of most of those who died in the war. Bringing the flag home represents the return of the ancestors' spirit.
“It’s a miracle that happened,” Keiko Ziak told The Daily Astorian. “I passed that story on to [my husband] Rex. He researched it and we found out that so many miracles could happen.”
The Japanese-American couple founded a project to help veterans and their families, and other citizens, return these flags to their families in Japan. They named their effort OBON 2015, after the Japanese season when ancestors’ spirits are honored.
Known as good luck flags, yosegaki hinomaru is literally translated as “group-written flag.” Every young Japanese sent off to war carried one imprinted with blessings and messages from their family. They carried them in their pockets. Countless numbers were taken from the corpses of the 2 million soldiers who wouldn't return home alive.
“All the people who cared about that person, all the people who thought about him, were going to war with him,” says Rex Ziak about the flags. Today, these flags represent the only trace of most of those who died in the war. Bringing the flag home represents the return of the ancestors' spirit.
Earlier this week, in a former train depot in Astoria which once sent US troops off to the very battlefields where these flags were taken, OBON 2015 held a Returning Ceremony. Attended by members of the National Guard units that served in World War II, veterans now in their 90s and their families, the ceremony was the first official public transfer of the flags in America. Five flags were presented to Hiroshi Furusawa, Consul General of Japan to Portland.
These five flags are among the 100 or so OBON 2015 has collected. With Rex working the American channels and Keiko the Japanese, they've reunited 30 of these flags with Japanese families. To overcome the challenges of changing Japanese script and the elimination of phone books, they've recruited a panel of scholars along with departments of health and veterans affairs, and religious leaders.
“To me, it’s very spiritual,” Keiko Ziak told The Daily Astorian. “We believe this is the right thing to do on both sides of the ocean.” For Rex: “This is making peace at a family level.”
Buck Weatherill, giving the thumbs up sign in the photo above, is one of the Oregon vets who returned the flag he took from a dead Japanese soldier. "I just thought, the war is over. We're not enemies anymore, we're friends,” he said at the ceremony. “They should get the flag back."
These five flags are among the 100 or so OBON 2015 has collected. With Rex working the American channels and Keiko the Japanese, they've reunited 30 of these flags with Japanese families. To overcome the challenges of changing Japanese script and the elimination of phone books, they've recruited a panel of scholars along with departments of health and veterans affairs, and religious leaders.
“To me, it’s very spiritual,” Keiko Ziak told The Daily Astorian. “We believe this is the right thing to do on both sides of the ocean.” For Rex: “This is making peace at a family level.”
Buck Weatherill, giving the thumbs up sign in the photo above, is one of the Oregon vets who returned the flag he took from a dead Japanese soldier. "I just thought, the war is over. We're not enemies anymore, we're friends,” he said at the ceremony. “They should get the flag back."
Photos of victorious troops with captured souvenirs from obon2015.com
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