Emperor, empresss, Princess Aiko honor war dead in Okinawa
Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and their daughter, Princess Aiko, pay their respects at the national cemetery for the war dead in Itoman, Okinawa, on Wednesday.
Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako paid their respects to the war dead in Okinawa on Wednesday ahead of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, accompanied by their daughter Princess Aiko on her first trip to the prefecture.
The imperial family visited the national cemetery in Itoman and laid flowers at the ossuary housing the remains of approximately 180,000 people who died in the battle.
They spoke with bereaved family members who had gathered there and visited the Cornerstone of Peace cenotaph, where the names of the war dead are inscribed.
The couple strongly encouraged their daughter to join them on the two-day trip, a move underscoring the imperial family's desire to remember and pass on the lessons of the war to the next generation.
The imperial family visited the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum later in the day, where a 91-year-old survivor said Princess Aiko told her she had "felt the importance of peace" through the visit.
The family also engaged with youth in their 20s and 30s who are helping to preserve and share wartime stories for future generations, asking what led them to become involved in such efforts.
The emperor and empress released a statement through the Imperial Agency after the trip, saying, "With the importance of peace engraved in our hearts, and with remembrance of all who died in the Battle of Okinawa or were forced to endure hardship because of the war, we renew our wish for peace."
The emperor has consistently expressed his strong desire for peace, echoing the sentiments of his father, former Emperor Akihito, who reflected at length on the war fought in the name of his father, Emperor Hirohito, posthumously known as Emperor Showa.
Okinawa fell into U.S. hands in the closing months of World War II in 1945 through the Battle of Okinawa, which began in March of that year with the landing of U.S. troops on the Kerama Islands near the main island of Okinawa.
Around 200,000 people -- both Japanese and American -- lost their lives in the ensuing ground battle.
In July 1975, former Emperor Akihito and former Empress Michiko, then crown prince and princess, became the first imperial family members to visit Okinawa after the war.
But with local sentiment toward the emperor remaining deeply conflicted at the time, the couple had a Molotov cocktail thrown at them by radicals during a visit to the Himeyuri Cenotaph, constructed in remembrance of student nurses and teachers killed in the war.
Still, the former emperor strived to connect with the locals, becoming, in April 1993, the first-ever reigning emperor to officially visit Okinawa. Together with his time as crown prince, he visited a total of 11 times by 2018 before abdicating the following year.
In May 2022, Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako remotely attended a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of Okinawa's reversion to Japan from U.S. rule and visited the island prefecture the following October for cultural events.
In April, the emperor and empress visited Iwoto Island, formerly known as Iwojima, the site of a fierce battle in the Pacific between Japan and the United States, to mourn the war dead. The couple is also scheduled to visit the atomic-bombed cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki later this month.
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