Rumiko Endo's childhood odyssey is captured in a 1942 newspaper photograph showing her mother as a young woman and her as a baby.

They are surrounded by Imperial Japanese Army soldiers in New Guinea at a time when World War II had bound civilians across the region in suffering and hardship.

Published in the May 13, 1942, issue of The Japan Times, the photograph shows Endo and her mother, Katsumi Takahashi, upon their rescue from Dutch internment in the Dutch East Indies city of Manokwari months during the Pacific War.

"This is my mom and this is me," said Endo, brandishing a newspaper cutting treasured over the years. "I've been grateful for the life I've been given and wanted to preserve (this clipping) in good condition."

More than 70 years later, Endo was paying a visit to the editorial offices of The Japan Times in Tokyo on Friday to collect a copy of the archived newspaper from which her family's clipping originally came.

She was born amid the chaos of the war in Manokwari in New Guinea, which was then part of the Dutch East Indies. Her birth date was Dec. 9, 1941, the day after the Pearl Harbor attack. Endo turns 74 on Wednesday.

Her mother, Takahashi, was 19 when she moved to the Dutch East Indies in 1940 upon her marriage to Tarao Takahashi, 28.

Tarao worked for Nanyo Kohatsu, a company established to promote economic development and Japan's political interests in Micronesia and South East Asia. He was transferred to Saipan and then to northern New Guinea to support local sugar cane and cotton farmers with new technology.

"We heard the war broke out on Dec. 8 on the radio and gathered at (Tarao's company) office in the town of Waren," her mother told soldiers, according to several media outlets that reported on their liberation. Endo's father and his co-workers had escaped capture.

The Netherlands was an ally of the U.S., and the Dutch army transported most Japanese nationals to a farm in the town of Ransiki, 15 km from Waren, where they were kept in a warehouse before boarding a cargo ship the next morning, according to media reports at the time. It is thought that they ended up at an internment camp.

Among those who remained was the pregnant Takahashi.

"Everyone left that morning, but I had to stay (at a hospital) as my labor had just started," Takahashi was quoted as saying in the news reports.

According to Endo, her mother gave birth to a healthy child and a week later both were moved to the Dutch army's base in Manokwari, where they were confined.

Endo believes that as a young woman with a newborn child her mother was treated well by the Dutch soldiers. But she remembers her mother saying that as an enemy she feared they might try to poison her.

"My mother told me I'm small because she couldn't produce enough breast milk to feed me," Endo said with a chuckle.

As the war raged on, Japan advanced south in the Pacific. On April 12, 1942, Japanese troops landed on New Guinea, forcing the Dutch army to withdraw to inner New Guinea.

It was on that day the photo was taken — Japanese soldiers coming to the rescue, freeing the young mother with her newborn. The photo was taken by a Naval Press Corps photographer and censored by the Navy Ministry, according to the caption it carried.

By June that year, mother and child had made it back to Japan via Palau. Accompanying them on the voyage were other Japanese citizens from Australia, New Zealand, Borneo, and the Dutch East Indies.

Thousands of Japanese, military and civilians, lost their lives in the Dutch East Indies, largely through starvation and malaria.

Endo's father is thought to have returned home aboard the ship Kamakura Maru on Sept. 27, 1942. A commemorative photograph the family keeps in an album shows a reunion celebrated in October that year.

Her father died when Endo was about 20. He used to keep records of family events, collecting newspaper clippings and photographs of his family and relatives before and after the war. One of the photographs shows the family paying a visit to Yasukuni Shrine in November 1942.

The rest of the war created disruptions to their lives, but they were fortunate because they lived as farmers in Iwate Prefecture and therefore had food on the table.

"I can't remember much of the past, but I do know that my dad's death really saddened me," Endo said.

Her father was a diligent man, she recalls, documenting work at a local municipal government, daily life in New Guinea and various war experiences. He was a strong advocate for peace, she said.

Endo married, had two children and moved to Tokyo. Later, she moved back to Iwate Prefecture with her husband, where she witnessed the quake and tsunami that devastated the region in March 2011. Her husband died in 2013, and her mother died in January this year, at 93.

"A lot of things have happened in my life," she said.