The literary giant who vanished without trace

During this period there were various versions about Yu's fate, especially in Hong Kong and Taipei. Apart from one that said Japanese soldiers had murdered him, some alleged he had been killed by Chinese or Indonesian communists.

Suzuki visited many Japanese officers and soldiers who served in Indonesia during World War II and others he felt might have information as the result of clues he had picked up while doing his research. In the early stages he was skeptical about Japanese involvement, he said, and as a Japanese he wanted to believe it was untrue.

However, he discovered that the Japanese gendarmerie chief was still alive, and with the help of relatives of Japanese soldiers who said they had executed Yu, Suzuki found him living in the countryside. He dreaded punishment for his crime, Suzuki said.

After the former gendarmerie chief received repeated visits and was promised that he would not be prosecuted for the killing, Suzuki said, he finally learned of what had befallen Yu, and disclosed it in September 1985 at a symposium on the 40th anniversary of Yu's death in Yu's hometown of Fuyang, Zhejiang province.

After Japanese military headquarters in Indonesia learned that Zhao Lian was Yu Dafu, Suzuki said, it tried unsuccessfully to entice him to Tokyo or Shanghai. As Japanese officers continued to consider how to deal with him, the country declared its unconditional surrender. However, before the local Japanese army began to withdraw, it was decided to kill Yu. So on the night of Aug 29 four Japanese gendarmes went to his house, and with the help of an Indonesian to entice him out, they took him to a wilderness area and strangled him.

Yu's fate echoed that of his brother Yu Hua, a judge whom Japanese agents killed in Shanghai in 1939 because he refused to work for the occupying forces.

"After my brother died for the nation, media friends in Shanghai and Hong Kong asked me to write something reminiscent to mourn the martyr," Yu Dafu wrote.

"It's strange that until now I have lacked the will to put pen to paper. I asked myself why, but was unable to express clearly my state of mind. I wonder if it was because I became lightheaded as a result of living in a tropical zone and was not up to writing a long, detailed article. In fact, the main reason is that so many people have been killed fighting the Japanese aggressors. It is inappropriate to exaggerate and focus on personal feelings. In other words, the individual and familial emotions of my heart are ceding space to patriotism."

When Yu died aged 48 he left behind copious writings covering wide aspects of society from a literary career that spanned no more than 20 years.

More than 40 years ago the revolutionary Hu Yuzhi said: "Yu Dafu is gone. His life was a magnificent yet tragic epic, an epic he can no longer write, and that is an immense loss for Chinese art and literature."

Japan has never apologised for, let alone acknowledged, the crime that snuffed out that great literary light.

The author of this article, which was translated from Chinese, died in 2007. When the ceremony to mark the end of the war is held in Tian'anmen Square in Beijing on Sept 3, Yu Dafu's daughter, Yu Meilan, will be among those present.