U.S. soldier who deserted to North Korea in 1965 dies aged 77

FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. Army sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins, who deserted to North Korea decades ago, faces reporters at a town hall of his Japanese wife Hitomi Soga's hometown Sado on the Japan Sea coast December 7, 2004. REUTERS/Eriko Sugita/File photo

TOKYO (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier who deserted to North Korea more than half a century ago, but who was eventually allowed to leave the secretive state, has died in Japan aged 77.

One of the Cold War's strangest dramas began in 1965 when Charles Robert Jenkins, then a 24-year-old army sergeant nicknamed "Scooter" from tiny Rich Square in North Carolina, disappeared one January night while on patrol near the demilitarised zone between the two Koreas.