Japan’s Emperor Akihito on first-ever visit to Vietnam

HANOI — Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko arrived in Vietnam on Tuesday for a visit to promote goodwill and soothe some of the wounds of World War II by meeting with the abandoned wives of former Japanese soldiers.

During their six-day visit, the imperial couple is scheduled to meet with a dozen surviving widows and families members of Japanese war veterans.

Japanese troops invaded Vietnam in 1940 and remained there until Japan surrendered to the allies in 1945, but some 700 Japanese soldiers, most of them married to Vietnamese women, stayed in Vietnam after revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh declared independence from French colonial rule shortly after that.

By the time the Viet Minh defeated the colonial forces in 1954, placing the North under Communist rule, about half of the Japanese soldiers died from fighting or illness and the first group of 71 had to leave without being able to bring their families in 1954.