A postcard sent by a Japanese soldier from Burma during World War II has finally been received, 64 years after it was sent.

The postcard traveled through Burma, Nagasaki, Arizona and Hawaii before reaching 80-year-old Shizuo Nagano in southern Kochi prefecture, according to Mukogawa Women's University. A student from the university was instrumental in the postcard reaching its final destination.

The postcard, dated February 16, 1943, was written by Nagano's friend Nobuchika Yamashita. Nagano and Yamashita worked together in a neighborhood store before Nagano was drafted.

The card failed to reach Nagano's address in Nagasaki when it was originally sent. An American soldier posted in Nagasaki as a member of the Allied Occupation forces found it and took it back with him to Arizona where he lived. He kept it with him untill his death 25 years ago, when it passed to his son. His son took the postcard with him when he moved to Hawaii and gave it to a Japanese exchange student he met through his wife.

The student, Yuko Kojima, took two years to locate Nagano through the government.

"I never would have guessed I could see (Yamashita) again this way ... I'm overwhelmed," Nagano said as he was handed the postcard by Kojima.

Yamashita died of an illness while stationed in Burma in 1944, at the age of 23.