Flag unites grandchildren of World War II enemies

By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
LOWELLVILLE -- Sixty-two years ago, the grandfathers of Ali Grapevine and Jasmine Lyon might have faced each other across some very hostile territory in the Philippines.
Today, the two sophomores at Lowellville High School worked side by side to decipher the mystery of an artifact from that World War II battle area.
Ali's grandfather, John B. Grapevine, was a sergeant with the U.S. Army's 24th Division and fought in the campaign to liberate the Philippines from Japanese control in 1944.
Jasmine's grandfather, Seiji Yamauchi, was a nurse on a Japanese ship off the coast of the Philippines that was torpedoed and sunk during that campaign.
Yamauchi was able to swim to shore and survived in the jungle for about a week before he was found by an American soldier and taken prisoner.
He spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp and was freed in August 1945.
Grapevine, who earned two Bronze Stars and a Liberation Ribbon while fighting in the South Pacific, brought home a Japanese battle flag he picked up from a dead Japanese soldier during combat in the Philippines.
War memorabilia
It was stored in his attic for decades until just a few weeks ago.
Ali's grandfather died in August 2005, and her family was helping to clean out her grandmother's attic when her father found the flag and learned of its history.
Ali brought it to school as part of a social studies class study of World War II.
Teacher Mike Moran said he encouraged pupils to bring in any war memorabilia they might have in their homes.
As it turned out, the class had a ready and able translator to tell them what was written on the flag.
Jasmine was born in Okinawa and speaks and writes Japanese.
She came to the United States in 2001, settling first in Youngstown, where she learned English.
"When I came here, I couldn't even spell my own name [in English]," she recalled.
She moved to Lowellville a year later.
She was able to translate most of the writing on the flag, finding that much of it was the names of individuals, including a soldier named Atushi Kiyosui, the dead soldier who had carried the flag.
Right next to his name, in smaller letters, was the name of a woman, believed to be the wife or sister of Kiyosui as they had the same last name, Jasmine said.
Japanese soldier
The flag, full of holes, also bore messages of encouragement for Kiyosui as he went off to war, she said.
"All these people rooting for this one soldier," she said, noting that he was seen as a hero by his people. He was a soldier who never made it home, she said.
Her grandfather survived the war and lives in Okinawa.
After the liberation of the Philippines, Ali's grandfather was sent to Nagasaki as part of the U.S. occupation forces in Japan five months after an atomic bomb was dropped on that city.
Both men went on to raise families, each with three children.
Ali said her father wants to get the flag framed.
"It's just really important to him," she said.
Jasmine, 16, is the daughter of Michael Lyon and Kiyomi Taylor.
Ali, 16, is the daughter of John and Nancy Grapevine.
gwin@vindy.com