ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Helena Pagano’s great-grandfather was the last Alaska Native chief of a remote island in the Bering Sea, closer to Russia than North America. He died starving as a prisoner of war after Japanese troops invaded during World War II, wresting the few dozen residents from their village, never to return.
Pagano has long believed Japan should pay more restitution for what its soldiers did to her great-grandfather and the other residents of Attu Island.
But her demand was sparked anew this summer by her first visit to the island. She went alongside Japanese officials who, as part of a redoubled effort to recover the remains of World War II soldiers killed abroad, unearthed the bones of two people from the tundra.