Japan believes story of WWII soldiers possible

TOKYO -- The Japanese government has not dismissed the possibility that two former Japanese World War II soldiers are hiding in the Philippines, officials say, despite mounting suspicions the story is a hoax.

The Yomiuri newspaper, Japan's largest, reported on Wednesday that the Japanese mediator who tried to arrange a meeting between two alleged soldiers in the southern Philippines and Japanese officials had confirmed they were not Japanese.

But Japanese officials said they hoped to have more contact with the unidentified mediator and had not given up on the possibility that the accounts were true.

"We are still waiting for information," said Akira Chiba, a spokesman for the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo. Chiba refused to comment on the report, saying only that Japan had not decided "at this moment" that the story was a hoax.

The Japanese Embassy in Manila also said officials were still working on the case, despite having pulled negotiators out of the southern Philippines back to the capital.

The mediator, a 58-year-old Japanese trader who first reported the men's existence, told the Yomiuri he had met the two alleged soldiers in the mountains on Mindanao island and found they were not Japanese.

Neither of the men could answer when asked where they were born and to which military unit they belonged, the mediator was quoted as saying in the Yomiuri.

According to the report, after the Japanese trader's Filipino staff notified him about the wartime stragglers, he spent $46,000 paying local residents for information in hopes of tracking them down.

The story of the two soldiers, who were reportedly separated from their unit six decades ago and were afraid to return for fear of being court-martialed, broke as Japanese veterans prepared to mark the 60th anniversary of the war's end.

Japan withdrew diplomats from General Santos, in the southern Philippines, on Monday after four days of unsuccessfully trying to verify reports about the two soldiers.

Japanese officials cited security concerns in a region notorious for Muslim guerrilla attacks and criminal gangs for pulling out. Japan's Kyodo news agency said Tokyo also concluded that the mediator couldn't be trusted.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said attempts to arrange a face-to-face meeting with the men would continue despite suspicions the tale is a hoax.

The Philippines, a U.S. colony during the war, was a major battleground in the Pacific. The Japanese occupation is remembered for its massacres of civilians and deaths of hundreds of thousands soldiers. Years after the war ended, there were signs indicating Japanese soldiers still lived in the hills.

In March 1974, intelligence officer 2nd Lt. Hiroo Onoda came out of hiding on northern Lubang island, but he refused to give up until the Japanese government flew in his former commander to tell him the war was over.

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