Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 31, 2014

Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi (1911–1943) was a surgeon in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. A devout Seventh-day Adventist, Tatsuguchi studied medicine and was licensed as a physician in the United States. He returned to Japan to practice medicine at the Tokyo Adventist Sanitarium. In 1941, he was conscripted as an acting medical officer, and was later sent to Attu Island, Alaska, which had been occupied by Japanese forces in October 1942. The U.S. Army landed on the island in May 1943, and throughout the resulting battle, Tatsuguchi kept a diary recording the events of the battle and his struggle to care for the wounded in his field hospital. He was killed on the battle's final day. His diary was recovered and translated, and copies were widely disseminated in the US after the battle. The American public was intrigued by a Christian, American-trained doctor serving with Japanese forces and by his apparent participation in assisting with the deaths of wounded Japanese soldiers. Excerpts from the diary have been widely quoted in Western historical accounts of the battle, especially his final entry in which he recorded a farewell message to his family. (Full article...)

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