Caught Between Empires
It has been particularly difficult reading and hearing more stories from Okinawans about the terrifying and violent place they were in during the Battle of Okinawa. It was bad enough that their islands became battlegrounds and there was bombs and bullets everywhere, Okinawans found shelter and safety with neither side. To the Americans they were sometimes civilians, sometimes the enemy. For the Japanese they were allies, fellow soldiers sometimes and other times, they were the enemy. After hearing from several Okinawan elders this week and their war experiences, I've begun to see the war as a real test of their status as being truly part of Japan. Prior to World War II Okinawans were forced in various ways to become more Japanese, to take away their indigeneity, their identity as being distinct where their lands and lives existed outside of the Japanese nation. With the threat of the United States and war, Okinawans pulled closer to Japan, but found out in so many ways that Japan considered them to be either a lesser form of Japanese or not Japanese at all. Stories abound of Okinawans feeling trapped between Japanese troops and American troops, with both sides threatening them for being associated with the other. The way the people were treated became something which activated a separatist nationalist consciousness in some elders, making them realize that who they were was something different, something more than what Japan could offer or control. This mistreatment became connected to the new bases that appeared, the refusal of mainland Japan to take seriously the protests of the Okinawan people and their desires for a more peaceful existence.
I came across this book titled Okinawa's Tragedy by William T. Randall, which featured a variety of stories about the victimization of the Okinawan people, including the one below.
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EXECUTED
From Okinawa’s
Tragedy: Sketches from the Last Battle of WWII
By William T. Randall
The Okinawans faced three great dangers during the Battle of
Okinawa. One was the danger from the Americans, another was death by suicide,
and the other was the danger from the Japanese soldiers. This is a story of two
boys on Tokashiki who faced all three of these dangers.
Takenori Komine and Kojiro Kinjo were both teenage boys.
Their families had been together at the time of the mass suicide. Their
families committed suicide in two groups. They had only two hand grenades, one
for each family. They made a small circle around each of the grenades and
exploded them. The only two people in the families who were not killed were
Takenori and Kojiro. But they were badly wounded. Some American troops came to
Nishi mountain the next day, found the two badly wounded boys at the mass
suicide site and took them to a hospital tent. They soon got better.
Every day the American soldiers kept telling Takenori and
Kojiro, “Go to the village and bring us some girls.” The boys did not want to
do that. They ran away from the Americans and hid in the hills.
Some Japanese soldiers captured Takenori and Kojiro and took
them to Lt. Akamatsu’s headquarters. Lt. Akamatsu said, “You were captured by
the Americans. You gave them Japanese military secrets!”
Lt. Akamatsu gave orders to the soldiers. “These boys are
spies. Execute them at once!” The soldiers immediately did as they were told
and killed the boys with swords.
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