The Cave of Virgins
While we are on the subject of talking about Okinawa’s troubled history and the Himeyuri girls, I found a nice piece of poetry on a website called Elite Skills and written by the author “oixi”. I’m not sure if the rhyming couplet idea works with something this serious, but maybe it will give you some idea of what the civilians experienced here. This is called The Cave of Virgins, and is about the girls who were picked from the elite schools in Naha and sent into caves to work as nurses for the Japanese troops. As the conditions worsened, these girls (14-15 years old, if I recall correctly) experienced horrors that you or I could never in their worst nightmares imagine. But they stuck to their jobs until, in the majority of cases, they themselves passed away in the caves. This particular blog entry is dedicated to those Himeyuri girls, the “princess lily girls”:
Cave of Virgins
Only fifty-one were left in our caves
When the enemy surrounded us.
As nurses, we schoolgirls worked like slaves
Amongst torn bodies spouting blood and pus.
Imperial soldiers once so proud,
Serving the Emperor in his glory.
Now in darkness waiting for death’s shroud,
The Rising Sun sets to end our story.
The army surrendered and abandoned us here
And in the darkness of our cave we weep.
Once honored as Princess Lilies without fear,
The sick and injured warriors we keep.
The Himeyuri girls, school of the elite,
Made nurses when Americans came.
Left in our cave with Japan’s shamed defeat,
So too we share in the shame.
We began at two hundred or more,
In the dark caves treating the dying.
Through damp dank death, we’ve crawled along the floors
To tend those screaming and crying.
All the soldiers have gone, retreated or dead
And fifty-one Princess Lilies remain.
Shouts for surrender echo from overhead
And our fear drives us near insane.
We will not surrender in fear of our fate,
As a gas bomb in our cave is sent.
For any hope to live seems much too late,
When the bomb explodes and lives are spent.
Only five survive from the blast and the gas,
Where hundreds lived as nurses and surgeons.
The horror of war at this spot would last,
Known forever as the Cave of Virgins.
The horrific story of the Himeyuri girls in the Battle of Okinawa
Welcome to part 2 of this blog entry on the Battle for Okinawa. While the first part centred around the battle itself and the Peace Prayer Park, this time I would just like to spend a few minutes talking about the Himeyuri girls (translated literally, “Princess Lily girls”). The museum and monuments to pay respects to these girls who played an important and horrific role as the Battle of Okinawa raged on. But what made these girls so special, and worthy of specific remembrance? Well read on and you’ll find out.
Just before the invasion of Okinawa, 222 girls and 18 of their teachers were recruited from the top 2 senior high schools in Naha to work as nurses. They initially went to the military hospital in Haebaru (about 15 minutes drive from myself). The hospital itself was a network of dark and unpleasant caves, not coducive for medical practices. These girls had been more sheltered in their upbringing; their schools adopting a strict policy of keeping the girls away from boys. Even the smallest conversation with a boy would have severe consequences. Yet, these 16-18 year old girls were suddenly thrust into the reality of a wartime hospital, with no training and no preparation.
As the fighting started, casualties began coming into the hospitals and conditions became worse and worse. The girls were asked and expected to live and work in circumstances that most of us couldn’t even start to imagine. Yet they did this with diligence, in the knowledge that when they died their souls would go to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo (where all the people who died for Japan during wartime are remembered). There is no way I can begin to describe the hardships that these girls faced - I just don’t have the words or complete understanding to do it. What I will do though is offer you an except from chapter 13 of a book called “Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb” by George Feifer. This is an excellent, but horrific in some parts, description of the Battle of Okinawa and its influenve in favouring the atomic bomb over a conventional invasion of mainland Japan. If you’re ready, then read this and try to put yourselves in their position:
Cosplay girl in Yoyogi Park
Just wanted to pass on a photo taken by Christian Henriquez and shown on the Japan Today website. The picture shows a girl photographed in Yoyogi Park in Tokyo. Apparently, she’s often seen in Yoyogi, Harajuku, Omotesando and similar places around the capital. For some reason I just love this photo and the makeup effect she’s created, from the slight rouge on the far side of her face to the blue tear drop mark going down from her right eye. I will echo someone else’s comment on this photo in that I would love to have seen the rest of her outfit, as it looks like it could be as eccentric and elaborate as the face.
In Japan, she may be described as a cosplay girl. This describes the girls that dress up as characters from anime (animated fantasy) movies or manga comic books. Some of the outfits are absolutely breathtaking and it’s mind-boggling to think how long they took to make. Just saw this photo and wanted to share it with you to show you yet another face of Japan. Let me know what you think.
Yakuza rivals reconcile - gang warfare is averted!!!
Just a quick follow-up to my recent article on the gang-war that was building up in Tokyo between the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Sumiyoshi-kai. On Thursday night it was reported that the 2 largest crime syndicates in Japan have declared a truce. Let joy and celebration reign - gang warfare on the streets of Tokyo has been averted! Both groups apparently reported to the Tokyo police separately that they had made peace with each other. Still, nobody has been arrested for the initial killing of Kabayashi-kai senior member, Ryoichi Sugiura, and I sincerely doubt anyone will be now.
So the streets are calm again… until the next time! The Yamaguchi -gumi are surely going to try to make more inroads into Tokyo, with Shibuya and Roppongi 2 places on their list of wanted territories. If there are any more attacks or reports of gang violence, I’ll be sure to let you know.
I got the information from this blog article from the NHK TV news and the Japan Times website. Incidentally, the Yamaguchi-gumi is prominent in 45 out of Japan’s 47 prefectures. The prefectures without their presence are Hiroshima and Okinawa.
The Battle of Okinawa
When I initially started to write this article, I elected to give you ladies and gents a full recount of the history of Okinawa. About its prehistoric times, when a land bridge existed between Okinawa, Yonaguni (probably the time when the underwater ruins were above the waves) and China… about it originally being a separate country called the Ryukyu Kingdom, whose king believed in not fighting because “Life itself is a treasure”… about its invasion in the 1600s by Satsuma (the feudal domain in Japan, not the type of orange!)… about the Japan’s constant classification of Okinawans as second-class citizens (a practice which still occurs today). But then I decided that the most influential time for Okinawa occurred in the first half of 1945, and the battle of Okinawa. This will be the focus of my blog entry today.
An excellent way to find out about this tragic battle and the aftermath here is to visit the Heiwa Kinen Kouen (the Peace Prayer Park) and the Himeyuri monument. Both are located in the south of the island, very close to one another, and their vicinity to “Suicide Cliffs” might give you an idea of the dark past this beautiful island once had. But before we talk about the Peace Prayer Park, let’s wind the clock back to the middle of March, 1945. Iwo Jima was about to fall to the Americans, and Japan had suffered huge losses. The Japanese defence force was 22,000 men, and the American army they battled against totalled 110,00. Out of this force of 22,000, 20,073 were killed and 216 were captured. (Incidentally, if you are interested in this battle then I can highly recommend seeing the film, Letters from Iwo Jima, starring the always-excellent Ken Watanabe). Japanese soil had fallen to the Americans, and the Japanese defensive line had been breached. Iwo Jima was fortified with the intention of fighting a war of attrition, and thereby giving more time for the defence of mainland Japan to be built up. Following the loss of Iwo Jima, Okinawa was made the new boundary of the Japanese defensive line, and given this new holding role. General Mitsuru Ushijima, the leader of the Japanese forces in Okinawa, knew that he could not fight off the American attack, but he was determined to make it as difficult for them as possible.
2 torpedoes used in the Battle of Okinawa