U.S. WW2 veteran returns flag to family of fallen Japanese soldier

TOKYO - 17 August 2017: When U.S. Marine Marvin Strombo found a Japanese flag on the body of an enemy soldier during World War Two, he took and promised to one day return it to the family of his fallen foe.

That vow was fulfilled on Tuesday, exactly 72 years after Japan's surrender, when Strombo, 93, handed the flag to the brother and sisters of Sadao Yasue.

Yasue, the eldest of six children from a farming town in central Japan, followed a common practice of carrying into battle a Japanese flag covered with messages and the signatures of family and friends.

Strombo said he found the flag on Yasue's body after a 1944 battle on the island of Saipan, the site of fierce fighting in the Pacific war.

"I finally realized that if I didn't take it, somebody else would have and it would be lost forever," Strombo said in an interview provided by U.S. forces.