Durl Gibbs recently flew to Okinawa with his son Wes to return a wallet he took from a dead Japanese soldier. He hoped to return the wallet, which contained many photos, to the relatives of the soldier. (Matt Orr/Stars and Stripes)
Durl Gibbs recently flew to Okinawa with his son Wes to return a wallet he took from a dead Japanese soldier. He hoped to return the wallet, which contained many photos, to the relatives of the soldier. (Matt Orr/Stars and Stripes)
Some of the many photos in a wallet that Durl Gibbs took from a deceased Japanese soldier while fighting on Okinawa during World War II. Gibbs returned to Okinawa to return the wallet and photos to the soldier's relatives. (Matt Orr/Stars and Stripes)
Some of the many photos in a wallet that Durl Gibbs took from a deceased Japanese soldier while fighting on Okinawa during World War II. Gibbs returned to Okinawa to return the wallet and photos to the soldier's relatives. (Matt Orr/Stars and Stripes)
A bouquet of chrysanthemums was placed at the bottom of a mural bearing the name of Army Sgt. Keijiro Hojo (top name), who owned the wallet that Durl Gibbs flew halfway around the world to return. (Matt Orr/Stars and Stripes)
Durel Gibbs, left, places his finger next to the name of Japanese army Sgt. Keijiro Hojo. Gibbs and his son Wes, right, flew from Montana to return a wallet that Durl Gibbs took from Hojo's body during World War II. (Matt Orr/Stars and Stripes)
Durl Gibbs, left, places his finger next to the name of Japanese army Sgt. Keijiro Hojo. Gibbs and his son Wes both flew from Montana to return a wallet that Durl Gibbs took from Hojo's body while fighting on Okinawa during World War II. The wallet contained many photos as well as hair and fingernail clippings. (Matt Orr/Stars and Stripes)
The crew of an M1917A1 heavy water-cooled machine gun secures a defensive line on Okinawa. The gun, including tripod and water, weighed 92 pounds but could fire 125 rounds per minute. Eight such weapons were in each battalion's heavy weapons company. (Courtesy of Ryukyu America Historical Research Society)
Army Pvt. Durel Gibbs was in one of the foxholes seen in this photo when his buddy defeated a Japanese imperial soldier after a hand-to-hand combat. A wallet Gibbs took from a pocket of the solider contains a dozen of photographs and an envelope containing hair and clipped nails, which is believed to have served as identification of the bearer during wartime. The family of the slain solider is yet to be located while his hometown is believed to be in Iwate prefecture, in the northern part of Japan. (Courtesy of Ryukyu America Historical Research Society)
During the final stage of the Battle of Okinawa, the 31st Infantry Regiment engaged a fierce battle in Mount Yoza of Itoman, southern tip of Okinawa's main island. Durel Gibbs is seen with a walkie-talkie. Holding the radio device in the battlefield was a risky role because a long antenna attached to the device would make the holder an easy enemy target, Gibbs explained. (Courtesy of Ryukyu America Historical Research Society)
Two soldiers from E Company, 381st Infantry Regiment evacuate an injured Okinawa civilian to the rear on June 13, 1945. (Courtesy of Ryukyu America Historical Research Society)
A column of soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 382nd Regiment snake toward the first Japanese defensive line on April 20, 1945. They are using packboards to move ammunition, rations and water to attacking troops. (Courtesy of Ryukyu America Historical Research Society)
Vehicles mired in mud following the heavy rains of late May 1945 on Okinawa. The conditions made the movement of ammunition and rations forward and the evacuation of casualties to the rear very difficult. (Courtesy of Ryukyu America Historical Research Society)
ITOMAN, Okinawa – Durl Gibbs took the wallet from a Japanese soldier who was killed in front of him during the Battle of Okinawa.
It remained with Gibbs for the next 65-plus years. So did the war.
Now at age 85, he wants to return the wallet and its contents to the family of the slain soldier. He traveled to Okinawa this week from his Montana home with his son, Wes, in hope of locating the family.
“I don’t know why I picked up the wallet,” Gibbs said Friday at the Okinawa Peace Memorial Museum in Itoman, a few miles from where he fought on Mount Yoza.
In mid-June of 1945 during final stages of the 83-day battle, Gibbs, a private fresh out of high school, was in the thick of things with the 381st Infantry Regiment, 3rd Battalion, I company. About 110,000 Japanese troops and Okinawa conscripts and more than 150,000 Okinawa civilians died during the fight for the island. More than 14,000 Americans were killed in what would be the last major land battle of the Pacific war.
“We were in foxholes, two men in each hole,” Gibbs said, recalling how he and his partner would take turns standing watch so the other could rest during the night.
“We had just changed and I got to the bottom of the hole to rest when my buddy saw a Japanese soldier walking up toward us,” he said.
Gibbs said the last thing they wanted to do was give their position away by firing a shot.
“So my buddy and the enemy had hand-to-hand combat,” he said.
When Gibbs got to the top of the hole, the Japanese soldier was dead.
It was an event that occurred a lifetime ago, but his wet eyes tell that it never left him, even after being discharged from the Army and fulfilling his dream of becoming a rancher in Montana.
The next morning Gibbs saw the fallen enemy had a pistol.
“I got the pistol and, probably with a souvenir on my mind, I picked up the wallet,” he said.
“I couldn’t figure out why I did that,” he said of taking the brown leather wallet that contained a dozen photographs and a small white envelope containing hair and clipped finger nails.
The envelope said “Army Sgt. Keijiro Hojo, Akatsuki the 1674th Unit,” with his personal seal on it. One of the photographs had a name and home address on the back. Another photo had written on the back: “My younger brother, died in a battle in the Pacific, April 1, 1943.”
Gibbs said that when he started to raise his own family — he has two sons and a daughter — he realized how important those photos would be to the slain soldier’s family.
The pistol had been stolen when he returned stateside, but he never let go of wallet.
“They must be wondering what happened to him,” he said of the soldier, whom he called a hero. “He paid the ultimate sacrifice for his country.”
Shizuo “Alex” Kishaba of the Ryukyu American Historical Research Society, who is trying to help Gibbs locate the family, said the wallet is believed to belong to Hojo, whose hair and clipped nails was among the photographs. It was customary in those days for Japanese soldiers to carry samples of hair and nails as a form of identification in case of their deaths, Kishaba said. Kishaba sent a query to the Association for War-Bereaved Families in Iwate prefecture in northern Japan, where Hojo’s hometown is.
Gibbs was to depart the island Saturday, leaving the care of the wallet and its contents with the Ryukyu American Historical Research Society.
“It shouldn’t take more than one week before we can locate the family,” said Kishaba of the society, who is renowned for its efforts in recovering and restoring lost Ryukuan cultural artifacts taken from Okinawa in the aftermath of the battle.
“I hope this will [provide] closure for his family, as well as for me,” Gibbs said.
