IT is either a cruel hoax, or a near miracle. Yesterday, Japanese diplomats in the Philippines were struggling to confirm the identities of two men, said to be former soldiers of the Imperial Army left behind in 1945 who have been living in the jungle for sixty years.

Despite initial optimism, and intense excitement in the Japanese media, officials from the Japanese Embassy in Manila were not ruling out the possibility of a hoax. But if true, the discovery of the soldiers would be one of the most remarkable survivals of the war.

Four Japanese diplomats travelled yesterday to General Santos city in the southern Philippines island of Mindanao to meet the two men, said to be former First Lieutenant Tsuzuki Nakauchi, who would now be 86, and Corporal Yoshio Yamakawa, 87.

The meeting, arranged through a Filipino intermediary, failed to happen, reportedly because the men suffered an attack of nerves because of the large numbers of journalists assembled to see them.

Lieutenant Nakauchi and Corporal Yamakawa, along with Reiichi Sakurai, who is also reported to be alive at the age of 93, were members of the ill-fated 30th Division of the Japanese Imperial Army that fought a desperate defence against the invading US forces in the last months of the war. All three were listed as killed in action, along with four out of five of their comrades.

Lieutenant Nakauchi’s family were given a set of remains which were buried in Japan.

But, after years of rumours about wartime survivors in Mindanao, the southernmost of the main Philippine islands, the Japanese Government has received information which it regards as reliable enough to warrant further investigation.

However intriguing, the story remains vague and more than a little suspicious, and the possibility remains that it is a hoax intended to extract money from credulous Japanese willing to pay money to locals to guide them in search of the “missing” men. The information was passed on to the Government by an unnamed Japanese man with business interests in Mindanao, a lawless island racked by an Islamic insurgency and by an epidemic of kidnapping for ransom.

According to Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, which is responsible for veterans’ affairs, the Japanese informant has not met any of the former solders himself, but has communicated with them through a Filipino intermediary, also unnamed.

The soldiers are said to have been living in the mountains near General Santos. The story of their survival has convinced leaders of veterans’ associations in Japan.

Yesterday, Japanese television interviewed Mr Nakauchi’s surviving relative, the wife of his late brother, who pronounced herself delighted.

Goichi Ichikawa, 89, chairman of a group of survivors of the 30th Division, said: “In October or November, I heard local residents went into the mountains and met the man, who said, ‘My name is Sakurai. I am a Japanese’.

“The man apparently said he wanted to go home but was worried. I am glad they were able to survive for 60 years.”

Yoshihiko Terashima, 86, the head of a council of Japanese war veterans’ associations, claims to have spoken last year to a Filipina married to a Japanese man who reported meeting two former soldiers. “The men told the woman, ‘We may be court-martialled and executed by firing squad if we return to Japan’,” he said.

Junichiro Koizumi, the Japanese Prime Minister, said: “If it’s true, it is astonishing.”

After the cancellation of yesterday’s meeting, however, Shuhei Ogawa, press attaché at the Japanese Embassy in Manila, said: “We are now doubting the reports.” In the chaotic aftermath of Japan’s surrender in August 1945, many so-called “stragglers” were left behind on the thousands of Pacific and South-East Asian islands occupied by the Imperial Army. In a few cases they remained on duty for decades, unaware of Japan’s surrender and the end of the war.

Between the 1950s and 1975, 22 men emerged from Asian jungles. They included Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, an intelligence officer who for three decades resisted attempts to entice him from the jungle. His brothers came to to look for him and in vain pamphlets were dropped informing him of Japan’s defeat. He finally emerged in 1974, after the Japanese Government flew in his commanding officer to order his surrender.

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