Okinawa, Part 1 -Handing Down the War
Keeping the island's memories alive
June 23, the day the Battle of Okinawa ended, is approaching. The fighting on Okinawa toward the end of World War II was very fierce, dubbed a "storm of steel," and claimed the lives of about 94,000 local residents. Sixty-five years have passed since the battle ended, and the number of people who experienced the fighting is dwindling.
For this issue, we selected the theme "handing down the Battle of Okinawa" and we looked at members of the younger generation who are making efforts to pass on the memories of war to the next generation.
We came to know of several such activities, like a radio program delivering the real voices of young people who were mobilized to support the battle, an effort to collect remains from under the ground, and guides for students on school trips to view the remnants of war.
With the witnesses aging, time is growing short for us to listen to their stories and learn from them directly so the vital knowledge of what happened in Okinawa can be handed down. We who live in Hiroshima must also ask ourselves what we can do. Toward this end, we share some of the efforts now taking place in Okinawa.
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The Battle of Okinawa lasted for about three months from March 26, 1945, the day the U.S. Army landed on the Kerama Islands. The Cornerstone of Peace in Itoman City, Okinawa, bears the names of 240,931 people. Most of them were killed in the Battle of Okinawa. Many teenagers were sacrificed in the fighting. Boys were forced to deliver messages or carry ammunition, while the girls were put in charge of tending to wounded soldiers. About 1400 boys and 500 girls were mobilized; of these, 792 boys and 189 girls died. In Okinawa, the noncombatants gathered in limestone caves called "gama" to hide and avoid the fighting. American soldiers called for them to come out without putting up resistance, but the Japanese Imperial Army had forbidden them from surrendering. The American soldiers then attacked the caves with explosives and the people hiding inside were buried alive. People would also commit mass suicide when faced with such circumstances. (Masashi Muro, 17)
Commenting on the significance of the younger generation handing down memories of war, Shinichiro Isa, 25, a student of architecture and an assistant at the Institute for Ryukyuan and Okinawan Studies at Waseda University, said, "It's important for us to think about the lives of those who wanted to live but were unable to, when we consider how we should live." When Mr. Isa was a student at Okinawa International University, he took part in an activity in which high school students and university students interacted with former members of the Himeyuri nursing unit. Even today, when he returns to Okinawa, he serves as a guide to the relics of war for students on school trips. The interaction with the former members of the Himeyuri unit did not consist of one-way lectures; instead, the young people actively asked the women questions about the things they wanted to know. And they didn't only ask about the war, they sought information about the women's whole lives, from birth to the present. One of the members of this group of students, a high school girl, was invariably in tears while listening to the memories of war, but after speaking individually with the women of the Himeyuri unit for a year, she gradually became able to ask them questions and engage in conversation with them. She then discovered that the women, when they were students like herself 65 years before, had very similar thoughts to her own. "I think it's significant that she was able to grasp the war as real," said Mr. Isa, "not simply something that happened a long time ago." Mr. Isa is in favor of making use of the remnants of war as a means of conveying the Battle of Okinawa since there are fewer and fewer eyewitnesses to the fighting. There are many limestone caves in Okinawa where large numbers of people hid during the war. In some caves, where the Japanese army holed up, bullets and medicines can still be found. "The remnants of war can play a role as a teller of the wartime experience," said Mr. Isa. (Akane Murashige, 17) |
| Conveying accounts | High school students produce radio program |
| Testimonies of the battle on radio |
Ai Tomimura, 18, a student in the faculty of agriculture at Ryukyu University, produced a radio program on the Battle of Okinawa when she was a member of the broadcasting club in high school.
The title of the program was "White Plum Blossom" and focused on the nursing unit composed of students known as "White Plum Blossom." The program mainly consisted of stories of former members of this unit. They would only provide care to the wounded that had a chance of surviving their injuries. Thus, a boy whose arm was nearly cut off wasn't allowed to enter the cave which served as a field hospital. "I want people to know that the survivors of the battle still feel anxious about getting caught up in another war," said Ai.
The program was produced in a limited amount of time, so Ai felt it was difficult to select the content from so many impressive stories that she heard from the survivors.
Another radio program, "The Past is Buried in Okinawa," reported on the disposal of unexploded bombs and the exhumation of victims' remains. This program was produced in 2009, after an unexploded bomb detonated during some construction in Itoman City.
Ai says that the important things for handing down the war experience are learning about it and conveying it. She added that she would like to become a peace guide and get involved in other peace activities in the future. (Marina Ishimoto, 14)
| Development | Training for museum guides |
| Displays of the Himeyuri nursing unit |
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| Staff members of the Himeyuri Peace Museum listen to the account of a former member of the Himeyuri nursing unit on the Arasaki coast, the southernmost part of the Okinawa mainland, in November 2008. (Photo courtesy of the Himeyuri Peace Museum.) |
The survivors of the war are dwindling in number. The Himeyuri Peace Museum is training its staff to relate the war experience and making efforts to improve its displays in preparation for the time when all the witnesses to history will have passed away.
In 2004 the museum updated its displays. Films are now shown of survivors sharing their accounts at the places where they were wounded or captured by American soldiers. The museum also bought wartime films shot by the U.S. military and these films are shown to convey the reality of the fighting.
The museum is training staff members of the curatorial department to enable them to offer accounts of the war experience. These staff members have observed the survivors telling their stories for one year, visited the remnants of war that were part of each survivor's experience, and have heard their accounts from pre-war days to the post-war period. Currently, three staff members are serving as guides to provide explanations to visitors.
Inside the museum, belongings formerly owned by the students of the Himeyuri unit have been put on display. Among the items are a comb, a fountain pen, and a washbasin. They were collected from caves by former members of the Himeyuri unit. The things labeled with the owners' names are identified in the exhibits to serve as evidence of their lives. This helps visitors, particularly junior high and high school students, gain a more realistic grasp of the war.
During the fighting, the students could only pray that they would survive in the dark caves, where they had no access even to water. Yoshiko Shimabukuro, 82, the deputy director of the museum, told us, "There's nothing more precious than a human life. If you ever feel that you don't want to go on living, just remember these people who weren't able to live out their lives, despite desperately wanting to." (Chisa Nishida, 15)
| Feelings | Students serve as guides |
| Peace education for visitors |
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| A member of SmiLife offers explanation to students on a school trip at the former site of a camp on Kakazu Hill, where a fierce battle took place. (Photo courtesy of SmiLife) |
SmiLife, a students' group studying peace issues at Okinawa International University, provides guides to students on school trips.
A representative of the group, Tsubasa Gisuji, 21, said that the group was founded by two students in 2006. The aim of the group involves conveying to others what they learn about peace at the university.
Currently, the group has 35 members. Most are from Okinawa, but some students are also from Tokyo, Aichi, and Miyagi prefectures.
When they serve as guides, they try to devise ways to readily convey the war experience to the people on their tours. Through sight and through sensation, they want the participants to feel and to think. "They've come all the way to Okinawa so I want them to feel things with their whole body," Tsubasa said.
For instance, when they take people to the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station, they demonstrate the distance between the base and the local people's homes so the participants can grasp the size of the base. When they guide them to a cave where many people had sought refuge during the war, they turn out the lights so the visitors can feel what it might have been like for the people of that time, hiding in the cave in the dark.
"It's important for young people to know the facts to pass on the memories of war," said Tsubasa. His group hopes to communicate with groups in other prefectures that are engaged in similar activities. (Masaya Obayashi, 13)
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