Idaho man returns captured Japanese flag

By BRANDON MACZ
The Lewiston Tribune
Saturday, October 24, 2009 11:01 PM PDT

In the photo taken Oct 13, in Lewiston, Steve Berntson holds the Japanese battle flag his uncle recovered during the Battle for Saipan.

LEWISTON (AP) — It was during the Battle of Saipan in 1944 that Laverne Coulthard came to possess the flag. His squad had orders to cross Japanese lines to establish an observation unit on Mount Tapotchau.

“We had a lot of firepower and we had a squad of 14 men,” recalled the 86-year-old former Marine of his experience during World War II. “We had our firefight. Suddenly there was no more firing. They had all either died or run off.”

Except for a lone sniper who began another exchange of bullets, saving one bullet for himself, Coulthard said. He followed a member of his squad to the boulder where the sniper was stationed.

“When I came around (the boulder), he was just standing up and he had this flag in his hand,” he said. “He says, ‘This is yours ‘cause I already got one.”

The Japanese soldier kept the flag tucked inside his helmet, which he lay on the ground before committing suicide, which was not uncommon during the war, Coulthard said.

ADVERTISEMENT

“Through the years I’ve thought about him,” he said of the soldier. “I was saddened when I looked down and saw him dead when he could have surrendered to us. It was an honor to die for the emperor (of Japan).” Coulthard’s nephew, Steve Berntson, a Vietnam War veteran and former Marine, was looking through his uncle’s war chest five years ago when Coulthard expressed an interest in returning the flag.

“He didn’t have any idea how you would go about doing that,” said Berntson, who turned to a friend from Vietnam and his wife, who had lived in Japan. She had a Japanese friend who worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Both of them looked it over and deciphered many of the names that had signed. It wasn’t dedicated to one person.”

Without knowing the name of the dead soldier and having no luck through other contacts in Japan, Berntson had one last option.

“There’s a ... Web site in Japan where people in the United States have offered up pictures that they may have brought back home,” he said. “That is where it sat for a couple of years.”

Until it was found by Yasuyuki Ambe, from Nippon Hoso Kyokai, a public television station in Japan.

The NHK program director from Kagoshima was researching for a project documenting the history of Japanese flags from World War II taken to the U.S.

Coulthard said he never imagined he would have a Japanese film crew in his home.