U.S. Vet Returns Captured Japanese Flag-- Part 3: "My Brother Came Out of Limbo"

The return of the flag brought closure to the Yatsue family.  "It's like the war has finally ended and my brother can come out of limbo," younger brother Sadao Yasue, 89, said.

Tatsuya Yasue last saw his older brother  the day before he left for the South Pacific in 1943.  he and two siblings had a small sendoff picnic for his oldest brother outside his military unit over sushi and Japanese sweet mochi.  At the end of it, his older brother whispered to him to take care of the parents as he was going to the the Pacific island s where chances of returning were minimal.

A year later, the Japanese government sent the family a wooden box with a few stones at the bottom -- a substitute or the body.  They knew no details of Sadeo's death until months after the war ended, when they were told he died somewhere in the Mariana Islands, presumably on July 18, 1944, the day Saipan fell.  The brother was just 25.

"That's all we were told about my brother," he said.

--GreGen