28. Ishinosuke Uwano in Sakhalin Island
Ishinosuke Uwano was drafted into the Japanese army, and posted to the then-Japanese southern half of Sakhalin Island in 1943 – the northern half belonged to the Soviet Union. When the Soviets invaded Sakhalin’s southern half in 1945, the Japanese put up a fierce resistance, before they were overwhelmed. Uwano held out, but was eventually captured and shipped to Soviet camps in Siberia. There, the Japanese POWs labored for years, until they were repatriated to Japan in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Uwano was not among the repatriated.