A reminder that our combined losses in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 10 years pale next to our losses in just one bloody 35-day battle - Iwo Jima – during WWII.
JAPAN TO SPEED UP RECOVERY OF IWO JIMA WAR REMAINS
The Straits Times
February 15, 2011
TOKYO - JAPAN'S Prime Minister Naoto Kan vowed on Tuesday to step up the recovery of the remains of around 13,000 Japanese soldiers still missing on the World War II battlefield island of Iwo Jima.
Mr Kan made the comments at a ceremony in which the remains of 822 Japanese soldiers collected on the remote Pacific island over the past year were handed to the health and welfare ministry.
'We will continue strengthening the recovery project, which is the government's responsibility, so that the war dead still remaining on the island will be repatriated as soon as possible,' he said.
'At the same time, we will continue conveying to younger generations this tragic history, which should not fade into oblivion,' the 64-year-old premier told the ceremony in Tokyo.
In 1945, some 22,000 Japanese and 6,800 US soldiers died in just 35 days as US Marines captured the island, 1,250km south of Tokyo, in one of the fiercest battles fought in the Pacific during WWII.
A picture of US troops raising the Stars and Stripes flag on the island's highest point, Mount Suribachi, became a symbol of US victory in the war. -- AFP
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