As Tokyo marks the end of war in Pacific, conscripts’ families search for information on where their forebears fell

'I don't have much hope': Koreans search for loved ones who died fighting for Japan

Kim Jung-im was three years old when her father, Kim Dong-won, was conscripted into the Japanese imperial army in 1940.

He died, aged 23, in the jungles of New Guinea in 1943, two years before Japan’s wartime defeat and the Korean peninsula’s liberation from more than three decades of colonial rule by Tokyo.

“We didn’t know whether he was alive or dead, even after Korea was liberated,” Kim told the Guardian during her recent visit to Tokyo along with other elderly relatives of South Korean conscripts desperate to learn the fates – and in some cases the final resting places – of “forgotten” soldiers who fought on distant battlefields more than seven decades ago.

But as Japan and South Korea marked the 74th anniversary of the end of the war on Thursday, the families’ prospects for a breakthrough appeared gloomier than ever amid an escalating bilateral dispute stemming from the legacy of their bitter wartime history.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kim Jung-im holds the service record of her father, who was conscripted into the Japanese imperial army and died in New Guinea in 1943. Photograph: Justin McCurry/The Guardian

Campaigners in Japan and South Korea suspect the records of thousands of Korean men forced to fight in the name of Japan’s wartime emperor, Hirohito, have gone missing.

As the Korean peninsula’s colonial power, Japan conscripted almost 244,000 Koreans, according to Japan’s health ministry, including 110,000 drafted from early 1945 whose records appear to have vanished.

An estimated 22,000 conscripts died in battle, their souls enshrined alongside those of Japanese soldiers at Yasukuni, a controversial war shrine in Tokyo.

The absence of any documentary evidence of the fates of thousands of conscripts has left gaping holes in the families’ histories, while some claim their own government has been reluctant to help.

Many say they have struggled to win compensation because they have no evidence that their relatives ever served in the Japanese military, or that the money they have received is insufficient.

The push to find out the fate of relatives comes amid an ongoing feud between Seoul and Tokyo about South Korean court rulings last year that ordered Japanese companies which used forced wartime labour to compensate survivors and the families of those who have died – a move that sparked outrage in Japan.

The dispute has hit trade, triggered boycotts of Japanese goods in South Korea and prompted some restaurants and businesses to ban Japanese visitors. Japan’s foreign ministry urged travellers to South Korea to “exercise caution” over their safety ahead of Thursday’s war anniversary.

Tokyo has insisted that the rulings broke a 1965 treaty normalising bilateral ties and an accompanying agreement that settled compensation claims “completely and finally”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Men wearing Japanese imperial military uniform visit the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, on the 74th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in the second world war. Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

‘Their records have disappeared’

Kim, who was six when her father died, has no recollection of the man who fell in New Guinea, one of the longest, and for the Japanese, costliest campaigns of the Pacific war.

But she knows more about her father’s fate than many South Korean families whose members fought for Japan.

“What is certain is that towards the end of the war, Japan ruthlessly conscripted a large number of Koreans,” said Choi Sang-yong, who heads an association of families seeking information about relatives who were conscripted by Japan.

I don’t have much hope left Kim Jung-im

“We believe that tens of thousands – possible many more – were conscripted after January 1945 but and that their records have disappeared,” said Choi, whose great uncle served in the Japanese navy. “This issue has never been properly dealt with, so a lot of people in Japan and South Korea don’t even know there is a problem.”

An official at the Japanese health ministry said identifying conscripts had been complicated by the colonial era policy of forcing Korean conscripts to take Japanese names, which bereaved families may never have known. In addition, the outbreak of the Korean war disrupted efforts to inform families of the fate of their loved ones, the official added.

The Japanese government sent its remaining records of conscripts to South Korea at Seoul’s request in 1993. “Claims that Japan did not pass the rosters it had to the South Korean government are untrue,” the official told the Guardian.

“Japan says the only records it has only go as far as January 1945 and that it sent those after that date to South Korea, but the South Korean authorities say they never received them,” said Kim Kum-ja, whose uncle, Shin-joon, was conscripted in February 1945. He died in the 1950-53 Korean War, but there are no official records of his time serving in the Japanese military during the second world war.

“There’s a huge discrepancy. What are we supposed to do when all the two governments can do is blame each other [for losing the records]?”

Kim’s family had no idea her father had died in Japanese uniform until 1971, when they received 300,000 won [£205/$250] in compensation for his death from the South Korean government.

“The South Korean government didn’t contact individuals or send documents notifying families of their deaths of their relatives until then,” she said. “My mother even went to fortunetellers to find out what had happened to him.”

Kim’s family does not possess a single photograph of her father, fearing that evidence of his time in the Japanese army could be used to accuse them of collaborating with their country’s colonial masters.

“After the war, the South Korean government said it would punish ‘traitors’ who had fought for Japan, along with their families. We were petrified and had no choice but to burn his photographs … even his clothes. We told people he had died of an illness.”

Now 81, Kim said she had almost given up hope of finding her father’s remains or learning more about how he died in the service of imperial Japan.

“I don’t have much hope left,” she said. “We’ve been fighting for the truth for decades, and we’re all in our 80s now. Who knows how much longer we have? I don’t even remember what my father looked like. I never got to call him dad.”

Additional reporting by Kyungmi Choi