Captain Orval Amdahl returned to his Minnesota home in 1945, bringing a Japanese sword that he’d been offered as a military souvenir of the war. The devastation he witnessed in Nagasaki just one month after the atomic explosion stayed with him when he rejoined his family, and he began a weekly ritual of polishing the sword and wondering about its origin. Years later in a conversation with a researcher about his experience in Nagasaki, Orval displayed the sword and shared his wish to return it to its owner. The researcher (this book’s author) contacted a Japanese friend who identified the sword’s owner’s family, leading to an exchange of letters between Orval and Tadahiro Motomura, the owner’s son. In 2013, 68 years after the end of World War II, Orval gave the sword to Tadahiro Motomura in a ceremony at a St. Paul auditorium, with the words “I return this sword to you in peace—peace with honor.” End notes provide additional background to the sword’s story and include a message from Mr. Motomura.

In 1945, just after the end of World War II, Captain Orval Amdahl brought home a Japanese sword as a souvenir of war. Sixty-eight years later, he gave it back.

Orval Amdahl grew up in rural Minnesota and enlisted in the Marines during World War II. In August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war. Soon after, Orval’s division was sent to keep the peace in Nagasaki, and the devastation he witnessed there haunted him. When he returned home, he tried to move on, but he couldn’t forget the war—or the sword. And many years later, at the age of ninety-three, he got a chance to do something incredible. He met with the family of the soldier who had owned the sword and returned it to them.

A powerful story of war, peace, and reconciliation from author Caren Stelson and illustrator Amanda Yoshida.