Kyodo News -- An entrance ceremony for the University of Tokyo was only eight days away in April 1961 when Takeshi Tsuji, excited about starting life as a student at the nation's most prestigious school, saw his lawmaker father off on a Southeast Asian "mission."
But April 4, 1961, turned out to be the last time Takeshi saw his father, Masanobu Tsuji, whose whereabouts remain unknown today. He would be 98 this Oct. 11, though he was legally declared dead in 1968.
The fate of Tsuji, a staff officer in Japan's Guangdong Army and at the Imperial General Headquarters who later became a colonel during World War II, has long been a source of curiosity in his homeland and in many parts of Asia.