He speaks of starving, nearly dying and catching malaria in Siberian POW camps with a voice that is quietly humorous and genteel
Iwao Peter Sano was returned to Japan in 1948 and worked for the U.S. occupation forces before coming back to the United States in 1952. He is now a retired architect living in Palo Alto.
"Born in Brawley, California, Sano went to Japan in 1939 to become
the adopted son (yoshi) of his childless aunt and uncle. In March,
1945, he was drafted into the Japanese army and sent to join the
Kwantung Army in Manchuria. Five months later, when Japanese forces
had surrendered to the Soviet army, Sano became a prisoner of war.
For nearly three years he labored in a Soviet munitions factory, on
a collective farm, and in a Siberian coal mine. . . . [This] is a
unique and fascinating account of mixed and divided loyalties,
dismay and confusion, sacrifice and salvation--clearly told with an
understated mixture of fatalism and hope. . . . A vivid, revealing
memoir."--Japanese-American Veterans Newsletter
"How does a one-time American farm boy become a Japanese Imperial
Army prisoner of war in the Soviet Union after World War II? Iwao
Peter Sano's tale of how this happened to him is remarkable enough.
But equally remarkable is that he can speak of starving, nearly
dying and catching malaria in Siberian POW camps with a voice that
is quietly humorous and genteel."--Japan Quarterly
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