The ending of this story is that Sam Dealey, Captain of the HARDER, sank this destroyer in April 1944. This Japanese officer in this story rescued men from DD-225. HARDER was sunk August 1944 by that vessel's sister ship DD-224 (captured as a prize and in service with the IJN as PB-102).
Sad irony.
And as someone who took the oral history of several former POW's held by the Japanese during WWII, this one act of mercy, or a thousand like it, do nothing to erase or minimize the inhuman manner in which the Japanese treated their prisoners.
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