INA, Ibaraki Pref. -- Before dawn on March 10, 1945, a U.S. B-29 bomber crashed into the woods outside a rural village some 45 km northeast of Tokyo.

Hidesaburo Kusama is joined by U.S. Air Force Col. Donald Weckhorst at the unveiling of a monument in Ina, Ibaraki Prefecture, for those who died in the crash of a U.S. bomber during World War II.

Hidesaburo Kusama, then 8 years old, had long wondered what happened to the three survivors of the crash he witnessed. Three years ago, he launched his own investigation into the case. He interviewed witnesses and examined government records, mainly from the United States.

Now, 56 years after the accident, Kusama has finally learned the fate of the survivors and has personally financed a monument here for the victims of the crash. The monument was unveiled Monday. The ceremony, conducted in Shinto style, was attended by local residents and U.S. Air Force officers stationed at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo.

Kusama's probe uncovered examples of the bizarre mixture of compassion and brutality visited upon U.S. soldiers captured in Japan during the war.

According to Kusama, now a professor of international policy and relations at Aichi Gakuin University, the aircraft was one of approximately 300 B-29 bombers that participated in the Great Tokyo Air Raid, which killed more than 80,000 people.

The bomber, presumably hit by antiaircraft artillery, managed to fly northeast until it eventually crashed in the woods near the village of Itabashi, now known as Ina.

Three of the 12-member crew survived the crash. U.S. soldiers were terrified of landing on Japanese soil because they believed that Japanese civilians would kill them rather than take them prisoner.

In fact, Kusama said all villagers, including schoolchildren, were trained to fight with bamboo spears in case they encountered enemy soldiers, adding that he believes there were cases in other parts of the country in which U.S. soldiers were treated brutally by civilians.

Although Kusama does not clearly remember what happened after the crash, he discovered that his fellow villagers acted in a quite humane manner.

According to witness accounts, more than 100 villagers gathered at the crash site and some began to exhibit hostility toward the three Americans when they emerged from the wreck. The view of the sky above Tokyo reflecting the blaze from the air raid was still fresh in the villagers' minds.

But Sakae Tomiyama, who was 35 and a community leader, desperately pleaded with the villagers not to hit the Americans after he learned the soldiers were unarmed and wounded.

"If you want to hit them, come and hit me," Tomiyama shouted at the excited villagers, who eventually listened, according to witness accounts.

They took the three -- 2nd Lt. Leland Fishback, Cpl. LaVerne Zehler and Cpl. Gren Hodak -- to a shelter and later turned them over to military police. Villagers also buried the nine members of the crew killed in the crash and placed a wooden cross atop the mound, though none of the villagers were Christians.

"I believe the villagers made the cross secretly, out of view of the authorities," Kusama said, adding that it was "the best thing they could do to express their sorrowful and sincere feelings for the dead U.S. soldiers."

In contrast to the humane actions of the villagers, the Japanese military police officers who took custody of the three men treated them harshly, Kusama said.

According to a U.S. report obtained by Kusama, the three were immediately taken to MP headquarters in Tokyo. Fishback, who was severely injured, was beheaded upon the order of an Eastern Area Army colonel. The colonel was sentenced to death as a war criminal after the war.

During postwar trials on the brutal treatment of POWs, many of the accused argued that captured enemy officers were executed by sword out of the "compassion of 'bushi' (samurai warrior)."

But Kusama challenges the argument, saying the execution "might have been revenge for the (Great Tokyo) air raid." The other two were held as POWs and died during another U.S. air raid on Tokyo in May that year.

"There was a huge difference between the responses of the government authorities and civilians to the crash and survivors," said Kusama. "I hope that U.S. citizens will learn a little bit about the humanitarian attitude shown by individual Japanese citizens, even during the war."

For Kusama, who studied in the U.S. after the war, setting up the monument was a way to show his gratitude to the people of the U.S. who have helped him in his life, he said.

With help from an American friend, he also succeeded in contacting four of the crew members' next of kin who had not been informed in detail of what actually happened to their loved ones. In return, the relatives sent Kusama pictures of the victims, which were placed on the monument at Monday's ceremony.

During the ceremony, Col. Donald Weckhorst, representing the U.S. Air Force stationed in Japan, expressed gratitude to Kusama and local villagers, saying that the monument would help heal the sorrow of the airmen's relatives and would remind people of the huge sacrifices that both Japan and the U.S. paid for today's peace.