Please help translating WW2 pictures!!

[camporeale]

Hello all !! i am new to this forum and need all of your help. I found some pictures of my grandfather in WW2 and two of these struck me as very interesting. They were taken from a japanese soilder that was captured. My grandfather was very nice to any prisoners and since he was not aloud to return the pictures during war time i believe he had them put their name and adress on the back of the picture. he has since passed away in 1994 but i would really like to return these pictures to the family of the soilder. the pictures were kept in perfect condition and please if anyone can help me i would really appreciate it .. thanks!!!

Pictures-

pictrans.jpg picture by mikecamp87 - Photobucket

i know they are a little hard to see, but the pictures are perfect

[furyu]

-Right Picture-

on the back of the picture, his address and name are written

Address: Uinoguchi (might be wrong, its hard to read), Wasa-mura, Kaiso-gun, Wakayama-ken
(means Uinoguchi, Wasa-Village, Kaiso-District, Wakayama-Prefecture)

*By the way, This(Wasa-mura) is where Kounosuke Matsushita was born.
Oh, you dont know who he is? He is the founder of Panasonic!

Name: I couldn't read his last name, but I'm quite sure his surname is "Matsushima".

If you want to know more about where he is from
visit - Kaisō District, Wakayama - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
or the official website of Wakayama city - English
(Kaiso-district is now a part of Wakayama city)

Oh, and here is what Google map says where it is
http://maps.google.co.jp/maps?hl=ja&...=0CAoQ8gEw AA

-Left Picture-

I'm sorry I couldn't understand what it is really written but the first two letters should be pronounced as "Kitagishi".
This is very likely to be their name.

[camporeale]

Thank you Furyu!!!! i really want to get these pictures back to the family and i hope i can!! i just emailed the town from the website you provided! thank you again so much!

[minminRW]

Right picture
和可山縣海草郡和佐村　宇井ノ口
（和歌山県海草郡和佐村宇井口）
Wakayama-ken Kaisou-gun Wasa-mura Ui-no-kuchi

松島 善済(？善清、喜済、喜清)
Matushima XX (Yoshinari , Yoshikiyo or so)

Left picture
北岸様のご主人様
Kitagishi sama no goshujin sama
(Husband of Mrs.Kitagishi / Master of kitagishi family)

[camporeale]

how can i go about trying to contact this family? also, are both pictures from the same family?

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by camporeale

how can i go about trying to contact this family? also, are both pictures from the same family?

They are not from the same family.

As far as locating the families, I'll defer to a native on this one. Someone who lives in Japan might not know.

However, I promise you that if a native does not have any suggestions for you, I will contact some of my closest friends in Japan and ask them how we could go about doing this. Japan tracks families a lot more closely than we do in the US. There are family registries and when you change cities, I think you have to re-register with the government of the new town.

This means it's probably easier to find this family than it would be in the US. I could do it in the US, but that's because I've got some expertise at this point in genealogy and stuff here.

There must be companies in Japan that do this, too, if worse comes to worst. I know some companies used to do family histories of applicants in order to discriminate against burakumin (basically "untouchables") and some still do (even though it's illegal) in secret.

[camporeale]

Hey guys, i emailed the city of where one of the pictures was located and this was the response i received.

We researched the Matsushima family and in particular, Mr. Yoshimitsu Matsushima, whose name appears on the back of the photograph. We think that it's wonderful that you thought of looking up the family to return the photographs.

However, as far as we can tell, Mr. Matsushima and his wife moved to Kumamoto Prefecture, in Southern Japan, shortly after the war. Sadly, Mr. Matsushima passed away about 10 years ago and his wife some time thereafter. They had no children, according to our investigation.

We apologize that we don't have any other leads on surviving family members or anyway to investigate further.


Sincerely,


Isidro de Prat
Coordinator for Int'l Relations
Wakayama City

-- that is for the one picture with the single guy in it, right?

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by camporeale

Hey guys, i emailed the city of where one of the pictures was located and this was the response i received.

We researched the Matsushima family and in particular, Mr. Yoshimitsu Matsushima, whose name appears on the back of the photograph. We think that it's wonderful that you thought of looking up the family to return the photographs.

However, as far as we can tell, Mr. Matsushima and his wife moved to Kumamoto Prefecture, in Southern Japan, shortly after the war. Sadly, Mr. Matsushima passed away about 10 years ago and his wife some time thereafter. They had no children, according to our investigation.

We apologize that we don't have any other leads on surviving family members or anyway to investigate further.


Sincerely,


Isidro de Prat
Coordinator for Int'l Relations
Wakayama City

-- that is for the one picture with the single guy in it, right?

How sad.

Yes, that is correct. Matsushima is the bottom pic of just the guy without the woman.

Also, if you can't get the picture to a family member, I wouldn't doubt a WWII museum would be happy to have it (assuming you don't want it for your own memories).

Heck, a lot of cities in Japan have their own historical museums (personally, I've been to one for Tokyo, Machida, and Sagamihara). I wouldn't be surprised if Wakayama had one as well.