Akira Nagamine was drafted into the Japanese Army from Kagoshima in early 1945. He was deployed to the Japanese colony of Manchuria where he was stranded when the war ended later that year. He was one of the few surviving members of his unit and lived amongst other remained Japanese colonists, Chinese and Russians. His outgoing personality helped him get along and make friends. On a return visit to Manchuria with his wife, daughter, and UC Santa Cruz historian Alan Christy, Nagamine looked for the places and people he had left behind after returning to Japan in 1954 and immigrating to Watsonville, California in 1956.
Tosh Tanaka 