What did a militarist boy witness in the Okinawa Battle?

Staring at names curved on gravestones, bereaved families are praying for the repose of victims' souls in an Okinawan sunburst. More than 200,000 names are carved on the "Cornerstone of Peace" fanning out across Mabuni Hill in Itoman City, Okinawa Prefecture. They are those who fell victim in the battle of Okinawa.

On June 23 in 1945, combat on Okinawa came to an end. Fifty-seven years have passed since then. Akahata of June 23 carried a story of the tragic island of Okinawa.

"Military forces do not protect people," says 70-year-old Zukeran Choho who runs a cactus garden in Osato Village. He now feels alarmed by the contingency legislation which contains "obligatory cooperation" with Japan's Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. forces in the event of "emergency," including cooperation in build-up of encampments and supply storage.

Cooperation with Japanese Army

Zukeran dreamed of glory when he was 12 years old. He used to say, "I will be a colonel in the future." He helped build up a position of anti-aircraft guns and bomb shelters. His family provided rooms and meals for 17 Japanese soldiers.

It was May 23, 1945. A Japanese soldier came to the shelter where the Zukerans were hiding and demanded that they vacate their house for the Imperial Army. His mother implored the soldier on her knees, "Please, anything but this house, we have nowhere else to go." The soldier drew his sword to threaten the mother. At the risk of her own safety, she went on to ask the soldier, "Please allow us to stay tonight at least." From the next morning on, his family had to wander through the battlefield.

Running away from the fires of war, the Zukerans finally arrived at Mabuni Hill. The disaster the Zukerans witnessed there crushed the boy's view of the Japanese army.

On the morning of June 20, there were more than 10,000 local displaced people around the place where the "Cornerstone of Peace" stands today. U.S. forces were just about several hundred meters away, but they did not shoot at all that day.

Screaming 'Traitor!'

The disaster took place when a Japanese man with a white flag, naked from the waist up, came out of the U.S. forces' encampment and told the people, "U.S. soldiers won't hurt us. They will give us food. It is safe there."

Screaming "Spy!" or "Traitor!," three Japanese soldiers behind a rock jumped out and cut off the man's head with a Japanese sword. They also slashed local people who were going to follow the man.

Right after that the U.S. forces started shooting with machine guns, trench mortars, and flamethrowers. Thousands of Japanese soldiers and local people were killed or wounded by the indiscriminate attack.

The Zukerans escaped death by desperately going down a cliff behind the hill, but a week later they surrendered to the U.S. forces.

Zukeran said, "The Japanese army mobilized us for cooperating with them in building their camps, but left us in the battlefield in the end. As a result, nearly two hundred thousand Okinawan people were victimized. Telling us that "it is for our nation and the emperor," the Japanese Army wasted citizens' lives like spent objects. The wartime legislation will again give the military the nation's first priority. I strongly oppose it."

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What is the Okinawa Battle?

Facing defeat, the Japanese Imperial Army abandoned Okinawa to gain time for the battle on Japan's mainland. Ushijima Mitsuru, the commander in chief of the Okinawa Battle, said to Colonel Yahara Hiromichi of the Staff, "With all the strength of the army and the islanders, we must fight as long as the last enemy remains." This was certainly the emperor's determination giving priority to maintaining the national polity. Based on the National Mobilization Law, the wartime legislation drew all the residents into the battlefield and took the lives of more than 150,000 Okinawans. (end)