Otaru, Hokkaido –
A 103-year-old former soldier of the now-defunct Imperial Japanese Army still vividly remembers suffering a sudden Soviet attack on one of the Chishima islands, also known as the Kuril Islands, he had been stationed three days after Japan’s surrender in World War II.
“I want no more war,” says Shoichi Takahashi, also a former Soviet labor camp detainee in Siberia. “War is simply unacceptable.”
A native of Aomori, Takahashi moved to Otaru in Hokkaido when he was 19 and became a fisherman. Later, he joined the army.
103-year-old remembers Soviet attack right after WWII
