Keystone of the Pacific

Yesterday’s visit to Miyakojima on the Island of Miyako, which is part of the prefecture of Okinawa, could be viewed as a bit of a fizzer because although we have virtually got a full day to spend in the town, nothing much is open due to it being a public holiday for the Spring Solstice.

That aside, we did have a wander in town after clearing Japanese security and customs, which took an extraordinarily long time.

We decide to book the Battle of Okinawa tour for our second day in Japan, the day we land in Naha. Sadly, this is going to be a short day as we are sailing at 1:30 PM, so we have to be up bright and early, which is a shock to the system. We are also informed that our tour is not confirmed as it is technically booked out, but as standby passengers, we make sure arrive at the send-off point with fingers crossed that someone has pulled out of the tour.

They have and we are included.

Our first stop is at the tunnels that Japanese soldiers dug in the mountains with only picks and shovels. We are here to learn about the 82-day Battle of Okinawa between the Imperial Army of Japan and the United States Army and the US Marine Corps. According to both the museum on the site of the tunnels and the one in the Peace Memorial Park, the battle had been referred to as the ‘typhoon of steel’ due to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of the Japanese Kamikaze attacks, and the huge numbers of allied ships and vehicles that assaulted the island.

After an overview of the 82-day offensive, we descend into the tunnels. I expect to be virtually on hand and knee to navigate these tunnels, so I am surprised to see that all tunnels seem to be high enough for us to walk through comfortably. Only in a couple of places do we need to dip our heads to enter the doorways. I walk into a chamber, the walls of which are filled with what I think are bullet holes. They are not. The holes had been caused by Japanese soldiers taking their own lives with grenades. It is terribly sad. Further on, we see rooms divided by wooden panels where soldiers slept whilst standing upright as there was not enough space for them to lie down.

I am glad to emerge into the sunlight and to return to the bus. It’s a lot of information to absorb, but we have not finished our tour yet.

We travel from the hills behind Naha past vast agricultural land to the southern tip of the island, where the Okinawa Peace Memorial Park is situated. Within the park itself are many memorials and a museum. Due to our lunchtime departure, we have only enough time to visit the museum and a couple of the major memorials. We walk through fields of sunflowers then veer to the left where we find ourselves in the Cornerstone of Peace, which was established in 1975, some thirty years after the end of the war. This is a semi-circular avenue of stones engraved with the names of each of those who lost their lives in the Battle of Okinawa. They are arranged by nationality or ethnicity; Chinese, Taiwanese, Koreans, and Okinawans, lines of trees separate each line of stones. Further towards the ‘Cliffs of Suicide’ we come across the names of American, Canadian, Australian, British, and New Zealand allies who were killed in this bloody battle. The sheer loss of life, some 220,000 in total, including Japanese and allies, is overwhelming.

Just at the end of the memorial stones, an eternal flame burns.

We make our way to the museum, a huge building made up of several roofed towers, which somehow look like the waves of the Pacific Ocean just a short distance away. We view the timeline of the battle, with graphic videos and testimonials from survivors.

During the drive back to the ship, we are given a short synopsis on life under American occupation, which did not end until 15 May 1972. Despite this, there are approximately 30 US military bases still in existence in Japan, and whilst the Okinawans want the US to depart, they also concede that China is habitually sailing around the islands in a threatening manner. When Okinawa was returned to Japan, there was one huge change to make to the islands. On 30 July 1978, Okinawa changed back to driving on the left side of the road in line with the rest of Japan.

We return to the ship with plenty of time to spare before we move towards our final destination of Kobe on the island of Honshu.