Slideshow

Slide Show: The Lost Album of Okinawa

June 15, 2014

One of two photos that served as the first clue for Erik Lundberg and Jorge Itokazu, who recognized the Japanese characters on the shirts. Mitsuko Sunabe, the owner of the album, sits bottom right.

The boy on the bottom right was Mitsuko's brother and the father to Iha Sunabe's nephew, who received the photo album on behalf of the Sunabe family at the ceremony.

The first photo recognized by an Irei community leader at the Chatan city offices. The young man pictured was still alive but in poor health at a nursing facility.

Mitsuko, second from left, with her sisters. Iha was too young at the time to be included and is not in any other photos in the album.

Carolyn Wieden's favorite photo. She loved the pose of the baby in white, who she learned after the ceremony was in attendance.

When Carolyn removed the photos from the mildewed original album and placed them in a new album, she discovered writing on the back of many of the photos, which she tried to copy onto the back of colorful paper that she pasted in next to the photos.

Japanese movie stars

Mitsuko is bottom left

In 1945, a Portland navy officer salvaged a book of photos from the Okinawa battlefield. Seven decades later, his widow began a journey to find its owners. Read the full story.

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