Ishinosuke Uwano

Who is Ishinosuke Uwano?

Ishinosuke Uwano is a former soldier in the Japanese Imperial Army who came to media prominence in April 2006 after it was found that he had been living in Ukraine for six decades after the end of World War II. He had been recorded as dead in official Japanese databases.

Uwano was stationed in the Japanese half of Sakhalin Island at the end of the war, and had been in contact with his family as late as 1958. He subsequently married a Ukrainian woman and settled in Kiev, where he had three children. However, his lack of contact with his family led to the declaration that he was legally dead in 2000; as a result, when he returned to Japan to visit family in 2006, he had to enter his homeland on a Ukrainian passport.