Nobuteru Iwabuchi has visited New Guinea more than 200 times over the past 40 years -- not to relax on a tropical beach but to look for human remains.</PARAGRAPH> <PHOTO> <TABLE WIDTH='250' ALIGN='RIGHT' BORDER='0'> <TR> <TD><IMG ALT='News photo' BORDER='0' SRC='../images/photos2006/nn20061101f1a.jpg' WIDTH='250' HEIGHT='177'/></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE='1'><B> Soichiro Akimoto –

and Shoko Okuno talk about the September memorial service they held on New Guinea for their father, who died there amid fighting in 1944, during an Oct. 18 meeting in Yokohama of the nonprofit organization Pacific War History Museum. AKEMI NAKAMURA PHOTO

The divided East Indies island -- the west half Irian, Indonesia, and the east half Papua New Guinea -- saw heavy fighting between Japanese and Allied forces during World War II. Thousands of soldiers died there, and Iwabuchi's father, Keiji, was one of them.