A memorial dedicated to a Canadian naval pilot who died while leading an air raid against Japan in the waning days of World War II stands in the town of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture — one of the communities most severely damaged in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
There are, in fact, two memorials standing in the Pacific coast town — one commemorating the area's Japanese war dead and the other remembering Lt. Robert Hampton Gray, a recipient of the Victoria Cross, for whom a cenotaph was erected on the shores of Onagawa Bay.
Today, there is hope that a friendship forged between Japan and Canada, once enemies, will continue into future generations.