When he was 11 the family moved to Ota Ward in Tokyo and he worked in a factory by day while studying at a technical school by night.

[2] Nishimura was assigned to the 3rd platoon of the 5th company of the 144th Regiment of the South Seas Detachment (南海支隊, nankai shitai) under Major General Tomitarō Horii.

After six months of difficult training which included severe beatings from officers, he and his unit shipped out of Kochi on 22 September 1941 on the Yokohama Maru.

The Yokohama Maru was sunk by air attack, and Nishimura's unit took part in the thrust towards Port Moresby and fought on the Kokoda Track.

[4] After an extremely difficult retreat to the north coast of New Guinea, Nishimura was part of the besieged Japanese forces in Girua.

He was introduced to her on an omiai (arranged matchmaking date) organized by a classmate of his mother, on the condition that he would return to New Guinea to retrieve the bodies of his comrades.

[10] He was a member of the Kochi-New Guinea Association, a veterans group, which disapproved of his plans to recover bodies without going through official government channels.

Sadashige Imanishi, a senior member of the association and a friend of Nishimura, had been on a 1969 recovery operation with the Ministry of Health and stayed in Popondetta.

[15] A Japanese documentary about his work was aired in Japan, which resulted in some publicity and Yoshiki Miyagi of Shinko Trading providing and shipping earthmoving equipment to PNG free of charge, to be used to build roads.

Nishimura started searching for bodies in earnest and found 120 at Girua beach, and 60 around the Buna and Gona areas.

[16] Life in PNG was challenging, with his Popondetta house being burglarized a number of times, and he also had some issues with Hirozaku Yasuhara, a Japanese right wing group member who claimed to be from an organization called the "Remains Recovery Association" (Ikotsu-shu-shudan).

As the 50th anniversary of the end of the war approached the Japanese government wanted to collect the bones, and Nishimura was under the impression that they would have them tested and try to return them to their relatives.

Nishimura was incensed but the skull was accepted by Masaaki Izawa of the Japan War-Bereaved Families Association, who helped arrange and pay for a grave in Shōbara cemetery.

[23] A newspaper article about the search for the relatives of the skull caught the attention of Miyo Inoue, a Communist Party member of the House of Councillors, who outlined Nishimura's work in PNG both to recover remains, build memorials to the fallen, and help the local people.

This provided him with income and gave him the opportunity to travel many places with Narakobi, opening doors and helping him learn about the locations of more remains.

[25] In 2005, no longer able to continue his work due to ill health, Nishimura left PNG to return to Japan.

[26] He still suffered from malaria attacks, and estimated that he had spent around 400 million yen on his work recovering remains and tracking down relatives, which included building roads and bridges, as well as buying boats.

[27] Wayne Wetherall, a PNG campaign historian and the founder of the Kokoda Spirit trekking company, travelled to Japan in 2009 to meet Nishimura and ask him about Australian Army Captain Sam Templeton, who was missing in action, believed killed by the Japanese.

Nishimura returned to PNG in 2010 at 90 years of age, and showed Wetherall the place he believed Templeton was buried, but no body was found.