Flags once carried by fallen Japanese soldiers in WWII returned to families by 2 Long Island collectors

Two Long Island historical memorabilia collectors say they will turn over 41 flags carried by Japanese servicemen in World War II — the only trace of some soldiers whose bodies were never recovered — to a nonprofit that specializes in reuniting the artifacts with the men’s families.

"It has a stronger meaning for the family in Japan than keeping it with myself in America," said William Donahue, an investment adviser from Westhampton who collected the flags with David Hughes, a social studies teacher at Comsewogue High School in Port Jefferson Station.

Millions of Japanese soldiers carried the flags, known as yosegaki hinomaru or good-luck flags, bearing a red circle upon a white background where family, friends or co-workers wrote messages of encouragement to the young men.

Allied troops traded for the flags or took them as souvenirs, sometimes from dead Japanese soldiers. More than 50,000 flags are thought to remain in the United States, some in museums and personal collections. Some are sold at auction or online, where prices range from a few hundred to thousands of dollars.

For the soldiers' survivors, though, the flags are not commodities. In some cases they are the only remaining physical trace of the men who once carried them. A video that the nonprofit, Obon Society, posted to YouTube shows an elderly Japanese man, identified in a caption as the brother of a dead soldier, unfolding a flag. He puts his palm on the cloth and weeps. "You have finally returned home," he says in Japanese. Obon calls the flags "nonbiological human remains," a term intended to convey their deep connection to the departed soldier.

Donahue and Hughes said they began buying the flags during the COVID lockdown, acquiring many from a vendor at a Pennsylvania collectibles show.

Their plan, they said, was to return as many as possible to the soldiers' families, enlisting Hughes’ students and other local high school students in the project. In 2022, they returned one through the Japanese Consulate in New York City, but said the Japanese government advised them to go through the Astoria, Oregon-based Obon Society for future returns. 

Donahue said he would deliver the flags to Obon in the next month.

Obon’s founders, Japanese-born Keiko Ziak and her husband, Rex, said they have returned about 650 flags and are working to return as many as 2,000. In a phone interview, they declined to talk in detail about the methods they use to find families of the soldiers, other than to say they use cemetery and public records to trace the names written on the flags. They said they did not want to inspire imitators who might be well-meaning but indelicate in their dealings with the soldiers' families.

Many survivors are in their 80s or 90s, speak only Japanese and do not use email, they said. "We are dealing with the deepest and most traumatic moments of a person’s life," Rex Ziak said in a recent Zoom with Donahue, Hughes and Long Island students. "It’s more of a funeral than a celebration when the person’s returned. It’s surrounded by a lot of grief."

The Ziaks started their work in 2009 after the son of a Canadian collector returned to Keiko Ziak's family the flag once carried by her maternal grandfather, who had gone missing in action in the former Burma.

In lieu of the body, the Japanese wartime government sent a stone for a burial ceremony. The absence of a body was not uncommon. Bodies of about 1.2 million Japanese soldiers who died during that nation's invasions across Asia and war against the United States remain missing, with little emphasis on recovering those missing in action from the postwar U.S. occupying forces. The civilian governments that followed initially focused on economic development, though recovery of remains resumed in the 1960s and in 2016 the Japanese parliament launched an eight-year recovery initiative that promoted DNA matching.

By contrast, in the United States, a vast effort to recover the remains of missing service members began when combat ended and continues today. According to the U.S. Department of Defense's POW/MIA Accounting Agency, only 71,974 Americans remain missing from all theaters of World War II.

Kazufumai Hamai, a Teikyo University historian whose research focuses on postwar Japan and recovery of war dead, said in an email that the Japanese government had "outsourced" some of the work surrounding return of wartime artifacts from foreign countries including the U.S. to Japanese organizations that focus on bereaved families. The return of Yosegaki Hinomaru flags drew occasional news coverage in Japan, Hamai added.

"However, as the memory of the war fades, particularly among younger generations, awareness of these artifacts is gradually declining," Hamai wrote. "For the families of Japan’s war dead, many of whom have not yet received the remains of their loved ones, the return of artifacts such as the 'Yosegaki Hinomaru flags' is deeply meaningful and a source of emotional healing. I believe that the work of the Obon Society is highly significant in this regard."

For families like Keiko Ziak’s, the appearance after more than half a century of a flag their husband, grandfather or brother carried next to his body is an emotionally charged event.

During the Zoom, she said the experience was like "lightning hit my head. Until then, I didn’t think about my grandfather. He was just a small rock." Her family spoke little about him or the war when she was growing up. The war, she said, was "not a nice topic." 

Some flags are as large as 6 square feet but fold small enough to be carried in a pocket and weigh mere ounces. Early in the war, they were made from silk. When that material was needed for parachutes, they were made from hemp and cotton. The Ziaks, having examined hundreds, said that one message wishing the bearer long life and good luck in battle was standard, often written in bold characters. But some flags, they said, included more personalized messages:

"Give Churchill a punch in the nose." 

"We'll take care of your parents." 

"We'll look after the farm until you get home."

The Ziaks said they paid for most of their work by dipping into their own savings, though Obon accepts donations and the Japanese government funds about 15% of Obon's budget. In 2023, according to tax filings, the organization spent $42,343 on research and travel. In 2023, according to the Consular Office of Japan in Portland, Oregon, Rex Ziak was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun "in recognition of his contributions to promoting understanding and friendly relations between Japan and the United States." The press office of the Japanese embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

Over the last decade, several military and regional museums have returned the yosegaki hinomaru flags from collections, moves that parallel initiatives by major institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art to scrutinize the provenance of some objects they hold, repatriating some that were looted.

The Ziaks said they had persuaded eBay to stop listing the flags for sale in 2016. But, they said, they cast no judgment on the young men who took mementos of war — a practice they pointed out is probably as old as war itself — or on the families who kept them. "We don’t tell people what they should do or what they should think," Rex Ziak said. "For some people, that flag is part of their family history and lore." EBay did not respond to a request for comment. 

Donahue said he hoped that students from Long Island high school history classes including Hughes’ will participate in some of the Obon researchers’ work, perhaps emailing families after their flags have been returned or even accompanying Obon members for the returns.

Carmine Capezza, a Comsewogue High School senior who participated in the Zoom call, said in an interview that he owned artifacts of war — a helmet, a bayonet — but that the flags were different. "It was meant to provide solace and safety to the individual carrying it. It shows deeper care than a helmet, because it was a personal memento. It wasn’t mass-produced in some factory."

North Babylon High School sophomore Tyler McNamara, who has examined one of the flags, said it had made him think of the man who carried it: "not wanting to leave home, leaving a good life and going into a war." Returning the flags felt right, he said. "It’s the only true remnant we have left of them, from people who loved that person the most," he said. "They deserve to have that."

With AP