In war, an act of kindness: Why? What comes of it?

Originally published in Current, Oct. 31, 2005
By Theodore Fischer

In 1944, as Americans advanced toward Japan, invading Hollandia in New Guinea, a GI named John Meixell found a diary beside the body of a Japanese soldier and made a silent pledge: “I don’t know who you are or where your family’s from, but if I get out of here alive, somehow I’ll return this to them someday.” In 1958, the Japanese War Ministry, with great ceremony, presented the diary to the soldier’s family. Last year, Meixell’s son, Steve, began work on Chasing Ogawa (working title), a documentary that tells the story of his father’s life, the diary and the benign ripple effect of a single act of kindness.

Steve Meixell originally intended only to record his father’s history as he neared the end of his life. “I began to interview him and take a great interest in his life and some of the things he had done,” says Meixell, a writer and photographer who has worked in the news and documentary division of CBS affiliate WCCO in Minneapolis, published short stories in literary magazines and written scripts for the Baretta TV series. “I knew vaguely that there was this story in the background, but it was never really talked about.”

Chasing Ogawa, a Meixell Productions film presented by WXXI in Rochester, N.Y., establishes a historical context—“why it was so unusual for him to try to return it,” says Meixell—and describes John Meixell’s 14-year search for the family of the soldier, Sohei Ogawa. John Meixell never met Ogawa’s family, but he did receive plaudits in the Japanese press and a warm personal note from Ogawa’s father, stating in part, “Your kindness beyond the border will live forever in our Japanese hearts.”

The film also documents Steve Meixell’s recent journey to Japan to meet members of the Ogawa clan, exchange photos and memories and view the old but pristine diary, which occupies an honored place atop a Buddhist ancestral altar in the family home. He found that the Ogawas, who lost every material connection to Sohei in the firebomb raids on Tokyo in 1945, had learned much from their eldest son’s diary, including the existence of a woman he hoped to marry after the war.

"One of Sohei’s sisters tracked down the woman, so they met and mourned Sohei’s passing together,” says Meixell. “And years later, one of Sohei’s brothers named his daughter after the girl.”

To tell the personal story of his father, who became a newspaper and AP reporter, a PR rep for GE and county government worker, Meixell interviews people from his father’s hometown of Bradford, Pa., and asks surviving members of his battalion about his father’s quest to return the diary. “The phrase that kept coming up was, ‘Of all the people I had ever met, John Meixell was the only one who would have done that,’” says Meixell.

Meixell brought the project to WXXI about three years ago, and while Meixell is raising all the money himself, the station is managing his finances and showing him the PBS ropes. “We give him guidance about the PBS system—PBS technologies, PBS specs, PBS guidelines, PBS content,” says Elissa Orlando, director of national programming at WXXI. “And of course we will present the program to the system and find him a distributor and get him as much carriage as we can.”

Aiming to reach air in the 2006-2007 season, Meixell has begun postproduction and is searching for additional foundation or corporate support—especially to promote the 60-minute program as a classroom vehicle in both the United States and Japan. Meixell: “We want to point out to kids the importance of good deeds, and how you can reach out to other cultures, and understandings can come about.”

Web page posted Nov. 3, 2005
Copyright 2005 by Current Publishing Committee

Theodore Fischer is a freelance writer in the Washington area.