26. Uwano Became a Soviet Citizen
However, Uwano had eventually accepted Japan’s defeat, and surrendered to the Soviets. Between the Soviet Union’s paranoid penchant for excessive secrecy, exacerbated by Cold War tensions, as well as bureaucratic ineptness, neither the Japanese government nor Uwano’s family was notified. After his release, he settled in the USSR instead of returning to Japan. He got naturalized as a Soviet citizen, ended up living in the Ukrainian SSR, married, and had three children. In 2006, an aging Uwano asked friends to contact the Japanese government, and when it sent officials to interview him in Kiev, the story of his survival finally came out.