YO (AP) -- A former Japanese soldier last seen by his family when

he went off to fight in World War II has resurfaced in Ukraine and is

returning home to see his relatives after 60 years, the government

said Monday.

Ishinosuke Uwano, now 83, had been declared among Japan's war dead in 2000.

Suminori Arima, a health ministry official in charge of locating war

veterans lost overseas, declined to say where Uwano had been the past

six decades or why he had not been in touch with his family in Japan.

He said Uwano was expected to arrive Wednesday with his Ukrainian son

to spend 10 days with his surviving relatives in Iwate, about 290

miles northeast of Tokyo.

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"It's wonderful that Mr. Uwano can make a homecoming visit in good

health," Arima said.

Uwano was an Imperial Army soldier serving in a force occupying the

island of Sakhalin (in the Kurile Islands) in Russia's far east when

the war ended in August 1945. Arima said he was last reported seen

there in 1958.