Japan's Imperial family to visit Okinawa next month

NHK

07-05-2025

Japan's Emperor and Empress, along with their daughter, will visit the southern prefecture of Okinawa early next month to commemorate 80 years since a fierce battle there near the end of World War Two.
Many civilians were caught up in ground combat in Okinawa from March through June 1945. More than 200,000 people were killed.
The Imperial Household Agency says Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and Princess Aiko will begin their two-day trip to the prefecture on June 4.
It will be the couple's first visit in two years and seven months, and the princess's first.
The family will go to a national cemetery in the city of Itoman, the site of the last brutal fighting in the Battle of Okinawa.
They will lay flowers outside a structure that holds the remains of more than 180,000 people.
The family will also visit "the Cornerstone of Peace," where the names of those who died in the battle are engraved, and a peace museum. They will also speak with survivors of the battle.
The following day, the family will visit a memorial museum in Naha City displaying artifacts linked to the sinking of the Tsushima Maru.
The ship was carrying evacuees from Okinawa to Kyushu when it was attacked by US forces in 1944. Nearly 1,500 people, including 780 schoolchildren, were killed.
The family will then see an exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of Ocean Expo 1975, which was organized to mark Okinawa's handover to Japan from the United States in 1972.
They will also inspect reconstruction work at Shuri Castle, a prefectural landmark destroyed by a fire six years ago, before heading back to Tokyo.