The searchers dug for days, ignoring blisters and sore muscles to look for remains of Japanese soldiers buried in mass graves on the Aleutian island of Attu following one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

But old bullets and bits of barbed wire were all that emerged from beneath the grassy tundra _ until the end of the two-week mission by U.S. and Japanese representatives who traveled to the remote resting place of nearly 2,500 soldiers.