Quote:
American paratroopers in Normandy in June 1944 thought they had captured a Japanese soldier in German uniform, but he turned out to be Korean. His name was Yang Kyoungjong.
In 1938, at the age of 18, Yang had been forcibly conscripted by the Japanese into their army in Manchuria. A year later, he was captured by the Red Army after the Battle of Khalkhin-Gol and sent to a labour camp. The Soviet military authorities, at a moment of crisis in 1942, drafted him, along with thousands of other prisoners, into their forces.
Then, early in 1943 he was taken prisoner at the Battle of Kharkov in Ukraine by the German army.
In 1944, now in German uniform, he was sent to France to serve with one of the Wehrmacht’s eastern battalions made up of Soviet prisoners to defend Normandy at the base of the Cotentin peninsula. After time in a prison camp in Britain, he went to the United States. Yang settled there and died in Illinois in 1992.
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A quite interesting story. Yeah, it was published in the Daily Fail, but the author's name should ring some bells. It's pretty well written, as the author doesn't take the moral high ground and judges the guy, but tries to make the reader understand his situation. Later on, the article describes some other events in WW2 from the pov of the common people.