Fifty years is a long time to keep a secret. But that’s what Roy Matsumoto was instructed to do, so that’s what he did.

For decades, he seldom said anything about World War II at all, said his daughter Karen Matsumoto of Bainbridge Island....

He didn’t talk about his time in “Merrill’s Marauders,” a U.S. Army unit that worked behind enemy lines in Burma in a high-risk campaign that suffered heavy casualties.

He didn’t talk about how he was credited with saving hundreds of his fellow American soldiers with actions as bold and resourceful as barking out orders in Japanese to mislead Japanese soldiers.