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Japan Times
a day ago
- General
- Japan Times
Emperor's family arrives in Okinawa
Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and their daughter, Princess Aiko, arrived in Okinawa Prefecture on Wednesday to mourn those killed in the Battle of Okinawa during World War II 80 years ago. It is Princess Aiko's first visit to the prefecture. The family arrived at Naha Airport in Okinawa after leaving Tokyo's Haneda Airport on a special airplane. They will travel to the city of Itoman later on Wednesday to offer flowers at the National War Dead Peace Mausoleum and visit the Cornerstone of Peace, on which the names of the roughly 240,000 war victims are engraved. They will then view a permanent exhibition at the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum and speak with war survivors and bereaved families. On Thursday, the family will offer flowers at a monument in Naha, the prefectural capital, for the victims of the Tsushima Maru evacuation ship. They will visit the Tsushima-maru Memorial Museum for the first time. The Tsushima Maru, which was carrying some 1,800 people, mostly evacuees including schoolchildren, sank off Akusekijima, an island in the Tokara archipelago of Kagoshima Prefecture, on Aug. 22, 1944, due to a torpedo attack from a U.S. submarine. At least 1,484 people were killed in the attack. The family will later inspect restoration efforts for the main hall of Shuri Castle, which was destroyed by a fire in 2019, before returning to Tokyo on a special aircraft that night. In Okinawa, more than 200,000 people were killed in ground battles in the final stages of the Pacific War, part of World War II. It is Emperor Naruhito's seventh visit to Okinawa, and the third with Empress Masako. Princess Aiko will accompany her parents based on the imperial couple's wish to pass on the memory of war to the next generation.
Japan Times
3 days ago
- General
- Japan Times
How the scars of war in Okinawa are being healed by a psychologist
The mother and baby in front of him quickly became covered in blood. By the time he realized what he had done, they were both dead. 'I pulled the trigger,' a former Japanese soldier who had fought in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa said. 'It appears in my dreams over and over. It's unbearable.' One day in the summer of 2010, the former soldier, then in his mid-90s, visited a cave on Okinawa's main island with a group of war survivors. 'This smell — it's unmistakable. It's the place where that mother and child were,' said the man, who used the pseudonym Teruya. Breaking down in tears, Teruya was barely able to speak. But he made repeated apologies in a trembling voice: 'Forgive me, please forgive me.' The visit was part of a session with a support group for Battle of Okinawa survivors. Maiko Yoshikawa, 49, a professor at Okinawa University and a clinical psychologist, began a series of such initiatives in 2005 by forming grief care groups for war survivors across Okinawa Prefecture to help try to heal their emotional scars. Yoshikawa's approach was to repeatedly ask survivors whether they wished to participate in group sessions. Teruya, who underwent 21 preliminary interviews before joining group sessions, confided in Yoshikawa alone about his past. 'I won't speak in front of everyone, but I'd like to attend sessions,' he told her. 'You don't have to force yourself,' Yoshikawa replied. 'You can speak at your own pace." The group Teruya joined had eight other members. They gathered once a month, visiting sites related to their experiences of war or meeting in local community centers. 'I was a soldier,' Teruya reportedly said when he first introduced himself to the group. But he barely said anything else and sat quietly in the corner of the room, his face expressionless, according to Yoshikawa. Even when members of the group discussed how they wanted to visit the battle sites of their memories, Teruya bluntly said, 'There's nowhere like that for me, so I'll leave it to you all.' Still, over time, Teruya's expression began to soften. During one session — about six years after he first met Yoshikawa — he told the group he had something to say. 'I'm sorry it's so late. But if everyone's OK with it, I'd like to pray at that cave.' Yoshikawa said she thought the time had finally come for Teruya to speak about his past. The day Teruya and other members of the group visited the cave he had mentioned was shortly after Okinawa Prefecture observed its Memorial Day on June 23, which marks the end of the fierce ground battle. Teruya approached the entrance of the cave, appearing to have made up his mind, then suddenly stopped. After a moment, he took another step — then stopped again. After several such pauses, one of the men in the group gently took Teruya's hand and led him inside. 'No doubt it's here,' Teruya murmured, kneeling on the jagged rocks, and he began to sob. After a bout of crying, Teruya began to speak: He recounted how the cave his unit was using had been discovered by U.S. forces and that the Japanese military decided to take over another cave where civilians had taken shelter. It was packed with residents, and his superior officer said to them, 'We're taking this place. You all get out.' A mother holding a frail, crying baby clung to Teruya's leg and shouted, 'Please, just let this child live.' And then Teruya shot them. After his confession, everyone in the group lit incense and offered prayers. When one member said to him, 'Thank you for sharing,' Teruya burst into tears, this time wailing. As the group left the site, Teruya bowed and said, 'I thought I could never go near that place again alone, but you all gave me the courage.' He added, 'What I did during the war can never be undone, but if this serves as a form of atonement ...' Teruya was born in 1915 in the central part of Okinawa's main island. He was raised by a strict father and a kind mother, and he was good at running. At 25, he married a woman five years his junior. The couple had a daughter and named her Tomi, which means "rich," hoping she would grow up with a heart full of goodness. Teruya was deployed to Southeast Asia during the Pacific War and was determined to give his life to protect his family. In 1944, as the war intensified, he was assigned to Okinawa. By that time, the Japanese military and Okinawa Prefecture were urging residents to leave the prefecture. Teruya's wife and daughter boarded an evacuation ship just as he arrived back in Okinawa. On Aug. 15, 1945, Teruya was in a detention camp when he heard the emperor's radio broadcast announcing Japan's surrender. Though he felt the war was finally over, he couldn't reach his wife and daughter as he had never learned where they had gone. It was several years later that he discovered his wife and daughter had evacuated to Nagasaki and were killed in the U.S. atomic bombing. With the feeling of guilt over the mother and child he had killed, and devastated by the loss of his own family — his emotional anchor — Teruya left Okinawa in despair. He felt he had no reason to live, but soon after, he returned to the islands for work. Even so, he avoided his home village. He always carried with him the only photo he had of his wife and daughter and lived quietly, avoiding contact with others. It took him 65 years to speak about his wartime experience, Yoshikawa said. 'I don't think he wanted to erase his guilt, or justify what he did by confessing,' she said. 'He needed that long to be able to feel this group was a safe enough place to speak,' Yoshikawa said. 'I just waited — and gave him breathing space until he felt the time was ripe — so I could quietly support him from behind.' This section features topics and issues from Okinawa covered by The Okinawa Times, a major newspaper in the prefecture. The original article was published April 17.
Japan Times
26-05-2025
- General
- Japan Times
How a remote island escaped mass suicide in Battle of Okinawa
It was a desperate plea from a boy that prevented a mass suicide on a remote island in Okinawa Prefecture when U.S. forces landed 80 years ago. On March 26, 1945, the Battle of Okinawa began with the U.S. landing on Aka Island, one of the small islands in the Kerama Islands chain. That day, 10-year-old Jinsei Nakamura was among nearly 400 islanders who fled to a valley so shadowed it stayed dim even during the day. Fearing that the valley offered little protection, about 15 members of Nakamura's family and relatives headed into the mountains that night in search of a safer place. But on an island with a circumference of just 12 kilometers, there were few places to hide. Cold rain fell as the group wandered through the night. When dawn broke, through the trees, they saw a vast fleet of U.S. battleships stretching across the sea. Then the shelling began — from the sea and the sky. Nakamura's group was physically and mentally exhausted, and adults began discussing what to do next. 'Let's die together with grenades,' one of the relatives said. Overhearing the conversation, Nakamura snapped and shouted, 'I'm not going to die, never!' Nakamura remembers thinking they had been fleeing through the mountains to survive, and he couldn't think of any good reason to die. More than anything, he was scared. Upon hearing the child's desperate resistance, the adults came to their senses. They realized that they had only two grenades that had been distributed by the Japanese military. 'These are not enough to kill all of us,' one of the adults said. Soon after, however, someone then suggested they should all jump off the cliffs in the southern part of the island. "You throw your own child," one of the relatives was telling Nakamura's mother as they began to walk toward the cliffs. As they made their way to a nearby stream to fetch water one last time before death, they unexpectedly ran into other islanders they had believed were killed in the shelling. That encounter showed there were still survivors — and Nakamura's family made it through as well. Jinsei Nakamura talks about his experience of war as a boy on Aka Island 80 years ago, during an interview in Naha in March. | Nishinippon Shimbun Over two days starting March 26, U.S. forces landed on the Kerama Islands — beginning with Aka Island — to establish a supply base ahead of their assault on Okinawa's main island. As American troops advanced, around 700 residents across four islands — Tokashiki, Zamami, Geruma and Yakabi — were driven to mass suicide. Residents had been told that if captured, women would be assaulted and men mutilated by U.S. soldiers. Masaie Ishihara, professor emeritus of peace studies at Okinawa International University, said that the residents were caught between fear of the U.S. forces that they believed were 'brutal' and the Japanese military that prohibited them from surrendering. 'The islanders were driven to a hopeless situation with nowhere to escape,' he said. On Aka Island, however, mass suicides did not occur because there were no Japanese soldiers or local leaders who forced residents to kill themselves. The U.S. military withdrew from the island on March 30, four days after landing. As a result, people on Aka Island have held less resentment toward the former Japanese military compared to residents on other islands, and Aka islanders have continued to accept memorial visits from former soldiers and their bereaved families after the war. Even today, a trace of the exchanges between a bereaved family and the islanders can be found at Aka Elementary and Junior High School. In one corner of the school library, about 1,300 children's books are crammed onto the shelves. The collection is called the "Hoashi Library," established with books sent by the bereaved family of Takao Hoashi from Fukuoka Prefecture, who died in the war after departing from Aka Island on an attack boat. Over half a century, the family has donated more than 5,000 books, including world literature and picture books. Yoshitaka Kakinohana recalls exchanges with the bereaved family of Takao Hoashi as he visits Aka Elementary and Junior High School's library, which has a collection of books donated by the family. | Nishinippon Shimbun Yoshitaka Kakinohana, 80, a former junior high school teacher on Aka Island who helped who once helped maintain the book collection, fondly looked around the library. "When I come here, I feel the strong wishes of the bereaved family," he said. Hoashi was born in 1922. After studying at Nippon Sport Science University, he worked as a physical education teacher in Fukuoka Prefecture. Around the autumn of 1944, Hoashi was stationed on Aka Island as a second lieutenant in the Japanese Imperial Army's maritime raiding unit. On his days off, he visited the then-national school on the island and played sports with the children. In late March 1945, Hoashi departed in a suicide attack boat loaded with bombs, which was known as a "Marure." He never returned. The Hoashi Library began when Hoashi's mother, Haya, who lived in the city of Fukuoka, started sending books in around 1970. A relief displayed on the wall above the book collection shows Haya holding her son's military cap and introduces her as the "Mother of Books." No one knows for sure why she began donating books, but it may be connected to Hoashi's background as a teacher, says Kakinohana, who now lives in Tomigusuku, Okinawa Prefecture. After Haya died in 1975, Hoashi's siblings continued her wishes — but due to aging, they made a final donation in 2018 along with a sum of money. Kakinohana, who was born one month before the Battle of Okinawa began, has no memories of Hoashi. However, since Kakinohana was a child, his mother often told him that Hoashi was his 'godfather." While stationed on Aka Island, Hoashi frequently visited the Kakinohana family and named the newborn by taking the kanji character "Taka' from his own name. After the war, Kakinohana's older brothers kept in touch with Hoashi's family and acted as a bridge for the book donations. Kakinohana himself became involved after he turned 30. In 1975, while traveling with his wife in Kyushu, Kakinohana came up with the idea of visiting the Hoashi family. To the surprise of the family, Haya had died the day before Kakinohana visited. "Mother's spirit must have called you here," one of Hoashi's siblings said. During Haya's wake, the family shared a story of how she would wake up in the middle of the night even with the sound of a door creaking at their house, saying, "Takao has come home." Since that trip, Kakinohana developed a family-like relationship with Hoashi's siblings beyond the book donations. "I walked the same path with Hoashi as a teacher, so they treated me like their younger brother," Kakinohana said. Even his eldest daughter, who was working in the city of Fukuoka, stayed for a while at the house of Hoashi's sister. While working and after retirement, Kakinohana devoted himself to peace education for children in the community, driven by the feelings of Hoashi and his bereaved family. "Hoashi's dream of being a teacher was cut short in his 20s, and his mother waited for her son's return forever,' Kakinohana said. 'We must never allow such a tragedy between parent and child again.' Aka Elementary and Junior High School continues to purchase about ¥50,000 worth of books annually with the donated funds. On the Hoashi Library's explanatory board, Kakinohana's handwriting is engraved with the words: "War must never be repeated." This section features topics and issues from the Kyushu region covered by the Nishinippon Shimbun, the largest daily newspaper in Kyushu. The original article was published March 25.
NHK
07-05-2025
- General
- NHK
Japan's Imperial family to visit Okinawa next month
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.
Japan Times
07-05-2025
- General
- Japan Times
Emperor's family to visit Okinawa in June
Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and Princess Aiko will visit Okinawa for two days from June 4, the Imperial Household Agency said Wednesday. During the trip, they will pray for the more than 200,000 people who lost their lives eight decades ago in the Battle of Okinawa, the largest ground battle in Japan during World War II. It will be the first time for Princess Aiko, the only child of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, to visit Okinawa. According to the Imperial Household Agency, the family will arrive in the prefecture on a special aircraft on June 4 and travel to former battle sites in the southern part of the Okinawa main island. In the city of Itoman, the three will offer flowers at the National War Dead Peace Mausoleum and visit the Cornerstone of Peace, on which the names of the victims are engraved. They will also speak with war survivors. On the following day, the family will offer flowers at a monument in Naha for some 1,500 victims, including schoolchildren, who were killed aboard an evacuation ship, the Tsushima Maru, sunk by a U.S. torpedo attack during the war. They will visit the Tsushima-maru Memorial Museum for the first time. They will also inspect the progress in restoring the fire-destroyed Shuri Castle, also in Naha, before returning to Tokyo on a special aircraft that night. In April, the imperial couple made a trip to Ioto, widely known as Iwo Jima, to pay tribute to those who died in battle on the Pacific island 80 years ago. They are currently considering traveling to the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which suffered U.S. atomic bombing in the closing days of the war. Emperor Naruhito has visited Okinawa Prefecture six times in the past, including twice with Empress Masako, in 1997 and 2022. The imperial couple participated online in a 2022 ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of Okinawa's return to Japanese rule from U.S. occupation after the war. In February this year, the emperor told a news conference that he wants Princess Aiko to "pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the war and those who suffered hardships."
