98-Yr-Old Calls for Remembering 3.1 M. Japanese Lives Lost in War

Tokyo, Aug. 16 (Jiji Press)--Kazuhiko Takahashi, 98, who was the oldest war-bereaved relative to attend Saturday's war-end anniversary ceremony in Tokyo, calls for remembering the fact that some 3.1 million Japanese people died in World War II.

With the horrors of the war becoming a distant memory for many, Takahashi decided to attend the ceremony to mark the 81st anniversary of the end of the war, with a pledge to pursue peace.

Takahashi, who currently lives in the city of Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, lost his 11-year-older brother in the Philippines.

The brother, Tomihiko, graduated from Waseda University and joined the now-defunct Imperial Japanese Navy in 1942. Tasked with fighter jet maintenance, Tomihiko traveled across the Marshall Islands, the Philippines and Taiwan.

"He was the scariest person after my father," Takahashi recalls. Still, he said that he has fond memories of Tomihiko playing with a toy steam locomotive and going to bookstores with him.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]