Nipponica

Japanese government workers will survey an uninhabited southwest Alaskan island from Monday to pave the way for the first recovery in over 70 years of remains of World War II soldiers who died fighting U.S. forces there.

Some 2,600 Japanese soldiers died on Attu Island in May 1943, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, in a doomed attempt to hold the northern Pacific island, captured in June 1942, from over 10,000 U.S. personnel.

Remains of around 320 soldiers were recovered in 1953, but later inspections in 2007 and 2008 did not culminate in the collection of any remains.