Sixty-one years ago, Cosmo Vitale walked over the mountains dividing an island near Okinawa and ran into Japanese prisoners of war on the other side.

"The Japanese were holding shovels. Maybe they were building roads, maybe they were digging graves," the former U.S. Navy seaman recalled during a recent telephone interview with The Japan Times. There was a black American officer with a submachinegun in his hand nearby, watching over the prisoners, he said.

Although Vitale was not authorized to be in the area, he took out his camera, asked permission to take photos, and captured the Japanese prisoners on film.