Years On - Creating Peace through Honor

[MineralMan]

This morning, I attended a ceremony in St. Paul, MN. That's not something I do often, except for weddings and funerals. But this was an unusual ceremony. A 94-year-old Minnesota WWII Veteran returned a Katana to the son of the Japanese man who carried it during WWII. Orval Amdahl served in the Pacific in the Navy. After the end of the war, his ship went to Nagasaki. There, he was allowed to take a souvenir from a pile of Japanese military equipment confiscated from Japanese military personnel. He chose a Katana and its sheath, complete with a wooden tag inscribed with characters. The tag identified the owner of the sword, but was never translated until recently.

68 years later, with the help of members of the St. Paul/Nagasaki sister city committee here, he located the son of the man who carried that sword, fighting in China, during WWII. Today, Tadahiro Motomura, accepted the sword, which had originally belonged to his grandfather, but was carried by his father. Motomura is the President of the Nagasaki Shinbun, the leading newspaper in Nagasaki.

I attended this ceremony, which was done with grace and solemnity, because my father also served in WWII, half a world away, flying B-17 bombers over Europe. He is still living, but lives in California, so I don't see him often enough. The ceremony today helps link me to that time, so long ago, and so soon to be no longer remembered by those who served during that war. The ceremony was very touching and important, I think.

I'm glad I went. The link below is to a story in the St. Paul Pioneer Press about the return of that sword and how it came to be. It's worth a read.



More at link...
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_24143914/minnesotan-return-wwii-sword-its-rightful-owner-from

[MineralMan]

1. BTW. The Japanese officer who carried the katana

survived the war, too, but died some years ago.