Relatives of War Dead from WWII Battle on Attu Island Hope to Retrieve Remains Soon; Over 2,000 Soldier’s Remains Still on Island

By Shinnosuke Nakagawa and Ichiro Hatae/Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers

13:11 JST, March 17, 2025

The relatives of Japanese soldiers who died fighting U.S. forces on Attu Island, a fierce battlefield of World War II, have voiced expectations for the recovery of their remains.

Their expectation follows the exchange of a memorandum between the Japanese and U.S. governments to launch a project for their recovery.

The Japanese government has not conducted a project to retrieve the remains for more than 70 years due to the island’s harsh environment.

Japanese forces captured the island, one of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, in June 1942. On May 12, 1943, roughly 11,000 U.S. soldiers arrived there to retake it. The Japanese garrison fought back, and a fierce battle lasted for 18 days. 2,638 soldiers perished during the battle and 27 survived. Following this battle, the Japanese military began to glorify the annihilation of troops as “gyokusai,” or “honorable death.”

Remains of 2,000 soldiers

“I feel like we’re making progress. I want to return the remains of the soldiers to their children, who are now elderly,” said Nobuyuki Yamazaki, 66, who chairs the Attu Island War-Bereaved Families Association in Abiko, Chiba Prefecture.

Yamazaki’s grandfather, Col. Yasuyo Yamazaki, led the garrison on the island.

Having judged that it would be difficult to maintain control of the island, which was then surrounded by U.S. warships, Japanese military leaders gave up sending reinforcements to the island.

It is believed that the colonel issued the order continue fighting to the death and led the soldiers. His order was based on war minister Hideki Tojo’s “senjinkun” military code created in 1941. The code said that soldiers should “not live to be humiliated by becoming a prisoner of war.”

According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, 1953 was the only time the remains of some of the soldiers were collected during a government project. At that time, the remains of 320 deceased were recovered, while more than 2,000 soldiers’ remains still lie on the island.

Yamazaki said the child generation of the war dead, who account for about a third of around 150 association members, are now in their 80s or older.

Yamazaki’s father, Yasuyuki, went to the island in 1953 with the government’s bone collection team. According to him, his father found what is believed to be the remains of Yasuyo where the colonel is said to have died during the battle. But Yasuyuki buried the remains again, thinking “I cannot take him back to Japan, leaving his men behind.”

Yasuyuki died in 2015 at the age of 90.

“My grandfather must feel very sorry that the remains of so many soldiers are still there,” said Yamazaki, who also is waiting for the day when his grandfather’s remains can be returned home.

Harsh weather conditions

The island’s harsh environment is part of the reason why the collecting the remains has not continued. Frequent strong winds and fog, as well as high waves, make it difficult to land on the island. Since the island is covered in snow from September to June, only a short period of time is available for recovery efforts.

According to the ministry, a U.S. Coast Guard base was located on the island until 2010, now an uninhabited island. It is necessary to build an accommodation facility there to carry out recovery activities, but the impact on flora and fauna as the result of such constructions need to be assessed beforehand since almost the entire island is designated as a U.S. environmental protection area.

In November last year, the Japanese and U.S. governments concluded the memorandum after a series of talks before the 80th anniversary of the end of the pacific war. They agreed to complete a preliminary survey for the environmental impact assessment by March 2027.

Japan plans to conduct a field survey in summer this year and make the necessary recovery preparations in or after fiscal 2028.

In August last year, the ministry conducted trial excavations on the island and discovered the remains of two people. An appraisal of them in the United States says that they are likely to be the remains of Japanese. Some of the remains will be brought back to Japan for further study.

“We’re finally at the starting line. We want to proceed the recovery as soon as possible,” a ministry official said.

Many remains still outside Japan

There are regions where endeavors to recover the remains of soldiers have not progressed despite 80 years having passed since the end of the war.

According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, the number of those who died in the war outside mainland Japan, including Okinawa Prefecture and Iwo Jima (now formally called Iwoto), is about 2.4 million. As of the end of last year, the remains of 1.12 million war dead have not been brought home to Japan.

Recovering the remains has been a challenge, especially in northeastern China, where public sentiment toward Japan is complicated. The retrieval has also been difficult in the Philippines, where remains collected in the past were later found not to be those of Japanese nationals.

In total, about 206,000 war dead remains have not been recovered from northeastern China and 369,000 have not been recovered from the Philippines.

As the years continue to pass, there are fewer people who know the reality of those war years, and fewer clues left to find the remains.

In fiscal 2014, the remains of 1,411 war dead were recovered. That number nosedived from fiscal 2020 to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and fell to 139 in fiscal 2023.

Due to this, the government has extended the period for recovering the remains from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2029.

Prof. Kazufumi Hamai of Teikyo University, who is familiar with the project to recover remains, said: “It is assumed that preservation conditions of remains in northern regions are good, as the temperature and humidity is not as high. The memorandum [between the Japanese and U.S. governments] can be a good opportunity to have people become aware of how remains are retrieved and the battle in Attu Island.”

He added, “It is necessary to create a forum for discussions on how to conduct future projects, involving younger generations who never experienced the war. Their enthusiasm can give the projects a boost.”