MISSION CONTINUES WITH NO REGRET

The alliance dissolved after the war as most members returned to Japan and only a few chose to stay in China.

Those who returned were unwelcome by the government. Being a "Red" meant it was usually hard for them to get a decent job, said Hu.

"When we visited Mitsushige Maeda -- the first Japanese soldier who joined China's Eighth Route Army -- in Japan five years ago, the 89-year-old veteran cleaned parks for a living," Hu said.

"He was a little reluctant to let us film in his home as he thought it was shabby," Hu added. "Luckily, he looked healthy."

After returning to Japan, Maeda had been followed and watched for a long time by military police.

Despite being discriminated against for years in their own country, the former alliance members never forgot the promise they had made -- to devote their lives to Sino-Japan friendship and maintaining world peace.

"They served as the bridges connecting Japan and China during the past decades", said a law professor in Japan's Surugadai University.

"Though life is hard in Japan, I still have a job that I can live on and I have to hold on to my beliefs", said Maeda, who has, in the past, been invited to China a dozen times for cultural exchanges.

Many former alliance members have established several new organizations in Japan to tell the true history and preach peace across Japan, where wartime history remains touchy and mysterious.

Japanese school textbooks frequently gloss over details of Japanese crimes in World War II, which has sparked the ire of China and other affected countries.

The group of war veterans who have publicly testified have been harassed by right-wing nationalist groups or accused of treason and slander by families of the war dead.

Nevertheless, many former alliance members have published books, held seminars and given lectures to tell their fellow countrymen what had really happened in China through their own experience.

"I never regret what I did. Instead, I'm rather proud because I was on the side of justice, "said Ichizo Yamamoto, a former alliance member.

Ties between China and Japan have improved in recent years, after souring due to former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasikuni Shrine, which honors some 2.5 million Japanese war dead including 14 leading war criminals, during his tenure from 2001 to 2006.

However, China's suffering during the aggressive war still has some influence upon many Chinese people.

"That's one of the major reasons why we did the research. We wanted to honor the Japanese who jumped out of the boundaries of nationality,believed in world peace and helped China through the tough resistance war," said Hu.

"Chinese citizens should bear in mind the anti-Japanese war episode without letting it poison their feelings toward Japan," he said.

Editor: Li Jing

Source: Xinhua