Unchike sabira ( “Do not worry, I will show you the way.”)
Ms. Yasuko Onaga
Birth year：1929
Birth place：Naha City
A complete change in daily life
On February 27th, 1945, the residents of Mawashi Village were ordered to move to Oshikawa in Ogimi Village. My father evacuated to Oshikawa with the people of Yorimiya Village. He told me to come with him, but I was opposed to evacuating and stayed home. My father told me that he would come to get me two weeks later and to make up my mind by then. Two weeks passed, but my father still hadn’t come to pick me up. On March 23rd, U.S. naval bombardment began. Students from the Prefectural Daiichi Girls’ High School left for the Haebaru Army Hospital as members of a student corps. Two days later, my best friend, Sada, was also ordered to go as a student corps member and I went to see her off on March 26th. I was left alone and wondering what to do. The Kinjo family, who were my neighbors, suggested that I stay with them, since it would be difficult for me to stay in an air-raid shelter alone. Then the Nagaoka Corps, 223rd Special Guard Company, recruited Nobuko of the Kinjo family to join the student corps. The Nagaoka Corps was a local unit and had no nurses or cooks.Nobuko, who was asked to help them, consulted her family. Captain Nagaoka was the priest of Ankokuji Temple, an instructor at the Prefectural Daiichi Junior High School, and also their brother’s mentor. Nobuko was told that the Nagaoka Corps was a unit led by such a respectable person, so she decided to join it. When I heard about it, I became worried that if Nobuko leaves, I would be left all alone. I asked Nobuko to take me with her, even though I knew I might be a burden.
Joining the Nagaoka Corps
I joined the Nagaoka Corps with Nobuko on March 31st. At the time, I was fifteen years and four months old. The place where I enlisted was a large natural cave in Shikina, Mawashi Village. We were immediately provided with military uniforms, iron helmets and canteens, and from that night on, I was made to help cook meals. I was a child with small hands, so it was difficult to make big rice balls. Still, I did my best to make them and help with the cooking. I received nursing training during the day in the cave. For about two weeks, a medic instructed me on how to use a triangular bandage and how to treat the wounded.
One evening, as I was fetching water and looked out across the ocean to the west, the ocean was packed with black U.S. naval vessels. At night, naval gunfire flew over us. Around the first week of April, Japanese kamikaze aircraft were flying toward American warships. A searchlight was lit, making things bright as day, and illuminating the aircrafts to shoot them down. They made sad sounds as they plunged into the sea. The Japanese aircraft were caught in a pincer movement before they could ram the U.S. warships, falling into the sea like bees caught in a spider web. When I saw that scene, even as I child, I wondered if we could win the war.
The Nagaoka Corps in Shuri
After seeing such a scene, on April 16th, the fighting began to intensify on the Shuri front so we were ordered to move. The Nagaoka Corps relocated to a hill called “Nachijina-mui.” There’s a hotel there now. There was a squad of grenadiers from the first platoon of the Nagaoka Corps there. The grenade launcher did not seem to fly very far, but it was one of the few weapons left. Other weapons included small rifles and grenades. That was the only kind of weapon the Japanese had. My job was to carry rice and water to an encampment where there were 12 to 13 soldiers. At one point, I jumped into a ditch with food in my arms to dodge U.S. machine gunfire. Gradually, I began to recognize the time of day when enemy artillery would fly. They didn’t fire at us early in the morning or in the evening, so I made it a habit to carry the food at a time when I would not be shot.
When the war intensified after that, the Nagaoka Corps carried out night attacks. They would carry bundles of grenades and attacked areas where American soldiers were sleeping. Five or six soldiers would go on these missions, and only one or two came back alive. Of the soldiers I had talked to the day before, only one or two had returned. The survivors from the platoons (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) of the Nagaoka Corps were ordered by Captain Nagaoka to gather at Ankokuji Temple near Shuri Castle. So on the evening of May 18th, we also moved with the captain to a cave shelter at Ankokuji.
On May 27th, we received an order to stay and fight until the very end since the Nagaoka Corps was made up of a local unit. By that time, we were not fighting anymore. We had no choice but to hide in our shelter and wait for the U.S. troops to invade. That’s how the day ended. The next morning, May 29th, a tank gun was fired into the shelter where we had been hiding. The tanks got closer, and we were attacked by flamethrowers. Then, as if in pursuit, yellow phosphorus bombs were thrown into the shelter. I almost suffocated from the smoke and nearly lost consciousness. Then, I noticed a strange sound around me. It was the sound of U.S. troops trying to drill a hole in the shelter. I heard the captain’s voice. “It’s an ‘umanori operation’ (horseback attack),” the captain said. Then the rocks came crashing down with a terrible noise. The shelves in the shelter supported the falling rocks and we were able to survive without taking a direct hit from the rocks. I don’t know how many hours passed after the attack, but we had to escape with the remaining survivors when the smoke and gas in the shelter subsided. “Come over here and grab this belt,” the captain said. He removed his large Japanese sword from his belt and placed it there. “Yes sir,” I said and grabbed the captain’s belt and started walking. When I went out behind the shelter under the light of the flares, I witnessed a sight so horrifying that I shivered. On the walls of the shelter were blown-off heads and limbs were hanging from the walls. When I looked down at my feet, I saw internal organs of corpses, and the whole area was covered in blood. It was raining, and I couldn’t tell if the liquid pooled on the ground was blood or water. What appeared to be a rock was in fact a corpse. I happened to put my foot on the corpse and fell over, let go of the captain’s belt that I was holding onto, and I fell down a cliff. After I passed out, I woke up in a pile of corpses. I looked to my right and left, and there were corpses everywhere, even on my feet. “I don’t want to die here,” I thought. I crawled out of the spot and headed for a brightly lit area illuminated by flares. Then an American soldier approached me, so I had no choice but to lie down next to the corpses and pretend to be dead.
On the way south, as I reached Ichinichibashi, two Japanese soldiers jumped out from the sugarcane field and suddenly grabbed me. They said, “Stand up,” and tried to get me to stand. “Where are you coming from,” they asked.“Shuri,” I replied.“Shuri has already been taken by the U.S. forces. You must be a spy,” they said. They asked me once again where I had come from. I told them that I was with the Nagaoka Corps at Ankokuji Temple and I was attacked there. I replied that I was the only one who was separated from the others and came here alone. The Japanese soldier told me to say my leader’s name, so I answered, “Captain Nagaoka.” When they heard “Captain,” they said“Captain passed through here four hours ago,” showing me the way.
Heading south to look for the Nagaoka Corps
After that, I continued walking for days to join up with the Nagaoka Corps from Tsukayama to the south. On the way, I learned that Captain Nagaoka’s group had arrived at the Todoroki cave in Itoman. I got to Todoroki cave on the 4th or 5th of June. When I went to the back of the cave, the Okinawa prefectural police and employees of the Shuri police station and the prefectural office were there. Many soldiers and civilians had evacuated to the cave. Some members of the corps were wounded, but about 40 people were alive and had made it out of Shuri. Then, the Tama Corps issued an order for the surviving members of the Nagaoka Corps to support the front lines in Kuniyoshi and Maesato. So, about 20 people from the Nagaoka Corps went to the front lines in Kuniyoshi and Maesato and most of them never returned. We moved to a cave shelter called Maya-gama in Itoman and stayed there until June 22nd. There was no food or anything there. I’ve heard that about 200 local residents of the surrounding Yamashiro and Kamisato areas had taken refuge in the cave, but the Japanese troops chased out the residents and used it. We used the dishes the previous evacuees had left behind to collect water that dripped from the stalactites and shared the water with one another, one sip per person. Water alone was not enough, so the medics devised a way to obtain salt. The walls of the limestone cave contained a substance called “ishi no anda,” which contains rock salt. We were told that by breaking these into small stones and putting them in our mouths, it would make us salivate, which would prevent our brain from dying. That’s how we stayed alive.
Farewell to the Nagaoka Corps
By June 22nd, I couldn’t hear any naval artillery or bombs. Then I heard a broadcast coming from the ocean. “Civilians, we will not kill those who do not resist. Raise your hands and come outside.” I kept hearing broadcasts like this in the dark from the early morning. Captain Nagaoka came to us when it was still dark outside and said the following:“The final order was to carry out an all out assault today, so women and children must surrender. That was the order so that’s what you must do. Thank you for all your efforts throughout this long, hard struggle.” He shook each member’s hand one by one in the dim light. Then he said, “You all are young. Live. Live and tell everyone the story of this battle. Don’t die.”
Reuniting with family in the camps
We then left the shelter and were taken prisoner. When I was living in an internment camp in Ishikawa, there were so many people who helped me. The US forces took care of me at a military hospital when I came down with a high fever. They cut my hair and removed all the lice, made me change my clothes, which was covered in lice after being worn for so long. I was grateful to look human again. The US forces immediately opened schools in the occupied territories. While we were on the battle field in Shimajiri, school had already started in Ishikawa.
One day, a male relative, who I thought had gone to join the kamikaze squad after living in Manchuria, came to the Ishikawa camp riding an American jeep. Apparently, his plane crashed off the coast of Ie Island, and he washed ashore. He was rescued by the residents and treated for his wounds in the shelter. He used to work for the Manchurian Railway, so he spoke English very well. His fluency in both English and Japanese came in handy when making deliveries to ration stations, and he went to work for the US military’s QM ration station. “I’ll bring in a pencil and sheet of paper tomorrow. I want you to write down the names of your family members,” he told me. “I’ll look for them at all eleven civilian camps.” I wrote them down just as he told me to and he come to receive it in a few days. After that, I received a reply from my mother in less than a month. At the time, my mother and two younger sisters had no food and nowhere to live, so they left their evacuation site, crossed the mountains and the Okawa River and moved to Sedake in Kushi Village. When we found that out, the relative asked an American soldier to put me on a truck, obtained an approval form of visitation outside the district. I went on a food delivery truck. At the time, my desire to see my parents was greater than my fear of the US soldiers. The soldier who was unloading supplies at the ration station in Sedake saw me and my mother hugging and crying and he was crying as well. We didn’t speak each other’s language, but he was crying along with us. I thought that the joy felt when parents and children reunite is the same, regardless of country. When I returned to the camp, he put a lot of gum and other items in a bag and gave it to me, then helped me out of the truck. This is how I reunited with my family.
From internment camp to Komesu, Itoman
On January 25, the people of Mawashi village were to move to the south. The truck stopped at the location of present-day Konpaku Memorial Tower in Komesu, Itoman. When I looked around my feet and the surrounding area, remains were scattered everywhere. I was wondering what they were going to do with us gathered in a place like this and how we were going to live. We had to go to the tent hut we were assigned. Not only that, six families were crammed into a single tent. The next day, people from Mawashi Village were gathered in an open area. There, the new village chief spoke to us and said the following:
I’m Kazunobu Kaneshiro, your new village mayor. We are here because we can’t enter Mawashi Village since the US military is stationed there. As you all know, in this area are bones of the many who lost their lives. We cannot live our lives as humans while stepping on these bones. Let’s restart our lives by collecting these bones. For families with two adults, one should gather food while the other gathers remains. That’s how I think we should proceed.
Collecting remains
Once permission was granted by the U.S. military, members were recruited for a bone collection team. There were about 100 volunteers at first, but everyone was afraid of what the American soldiers would do to them if they got involved in the collection. There were some who chose not to participate in the bone collection efforts, because there were still many unexploded bombs in the ground and it was difficult to identify them. But even so, about 100 volunteers gathered, so we were all split up into three groups and the collection efforts began.
We began by collecting the remains of our own relatives. We collected the bones of family members and relatives whom we knew where they were buried. We were then divided into three groups, and each group of the bone collection team was in charge of a certain area. That’s how the work began.
Start of school life
During our first week after moving to Komesu, we students had to go through the procedures for transferring to Itoman High School. Those who attended girls’ schools and junior high schools before the war were transferred to Itoman High School. The bone collection team went to collect the bones, and we students went to school. At that time, there were about 40 students from the area, including about 12 girls.
Lieutenant General Buckner of the US Army died in Maesato which was near the road on the way to school, so many soldiers of all races would visit the site. Soldiers would come to pay their respects at Lieutenant General’s cenotaph on their off-duty days. One day during the first week after we started attending Itoman High School, on our way home, we ran into a crowd of American soldiers who had come to visit the cenotaph. Two of the schoolgirls were chased by about five American soldiers and were almost caught. Then, a male student picked up a stone from a farm field and threw it at the soldiers. It appeared that the stone hit a soldier in the head, and they ran away. Meanwhile, the male student took the female student by the hand and brought her back to safety. We told our parents what happened. They said that people should not have to risk their lives for the sake of learning, despite having survived the war. They decided that girls should not go to school, and only males were allowed to attend school from then.
For about the next two weeks, the girls handled various tasks. Back then, orphans had nothing to wear. They couldn’t make it through the cold of January naked, some would sit around every day bundled in whatever they could find. We were told to get US military HBT (herringbone twill) clothing, take apart the fabric, and sew them into clothes that would fit the children. So female students sewed clothing for the orphans. In the meantime, the Mawashi branch of Itoman High School was established and school began with a principal and three teachers— a math teacher, Japanese teacher, and English teacher. I went to school at night and collected remains during the day.
How the Konpaku Memorial Tower came to be
On the day the branch school opened, the village mayor set aside two days for the entire village to collect remains. Not only the collection team, but all the villagers were to pick up the remains around them. The remains were collected in an open area where the Konpaku Memorial Tower is located now. The Konpaku Memorial Tower was not originally on flat land. Since it was a hollow area, we packed the remains in “kamasu” (jute bags) and lifted them up. “Place the skull here and the limbs there,” we were instructed. The places where we lay them were not flat, but caved in. At the time, there were no tools for digging and no machinery, but we buried the bones of roughly 350,000 people. We initially collected the bones of more than 2,000 bodies. We worked under the direction of the collection team. “What you see here inside the bones are fragments of shells. It won’t explode, so you can pick up the bones.” That’s the type of instruction we received. Before picking up remains, we would put our palms together and say “Guburi sabira (excuse me),”as even living people would feel uneasy if they didn’t know where they were being taken. Then, we would say “Unchike sabira (Do not worry, I will show you the way).” We were told to always put our palms together and say “Guburi sabira.” We were taught to pick up the bones of the limbs first, then the skull at last, and to place the skull on top when putting it in the bag. The bones of two bodies would fill up a single bag. At that time, it was very difficult for skinny children like us to carry the bags full of remains. We did not eat enough and lacked physical strength and could not carry it alone. It took two of us to pull the bags, one holding each side.
One day I found a place where there were many small tomatoes and the grass was growing thick. When I brushed the grass away, I found three skull bones. The mother’s bones were large, and her back was bent over in a sitting position. It looked as if she was holding small children. When I picked up their bones, I wondered why these little children had to be killed, how this mother felt when she died in front of her two children. Being a woman like them, the sight made me so angry that my hands began to shake, and I could not pick up the bones right away. My friend and I put the remains of this family of three into a bag and I couldn’t even drag the bag when it came time to carry it. The two of us worked hard to lift the bag and carry it to the Konpaku Memorial Tower. It made me think deeply about why people had to go through such horrible experiences and what the war was for. And anger began to build up inside me. I wondered why my country, not necessarily the Japanese military, let its people die in such a horrible way. We the Mawashi villagers continued collecting remains thereafter, in the place where “Himeyuri Memorial Tower” and “Kenji Memorial Tower” would be built. The mayor and his wife were very dedicated about the work.
I attended a girls’ school for two years and the war began in the middle of my third year. After the war, I attended Itoman High School and later Mawashi High School, and finally graduated from Shuri High School. So I don’t really remember what I studied. I began attending Shuri High School in September 1946. I studied at Shuri High School for half a year. We used mimeographed textbooks.
A message for young people
What I want to tell young people is that while it is important to hear my war experiences, I want them to gain a solid understanding of history. Why did the war happen? I don’t think we can create a peaceful society if we neglect to learn about history.
Ms. Yasuko Onaga became an elementary school teacher, and she devoted herself to peace education. After her retirement, she has been active as a storyteller speaking to groups about the reality of the Battle of Okinawa. As a survivor of the war, she has a strong sense of mission and has devoted herself to conveying the story of the Battle of Okinawa to the younger generation, both in and outside of Okinawa Prefecture.
A complete change in daily life
On February 27th, 1945, the residents of Mawashi Village were ordered to move to Oshikawa in Ogimi Village. My father evacuated to Oshikawa with the people of Yorimiya Village. He told me to come with him, but I was opposed to evacuating and stayed home. My father told me that he would come to get me two weeks later and to make up my mind by then. Two weeks passed, but my father still hadn’t come to pick me up. On March 23rd, U.S. naval bombardment began. Students from the Prefectural Daiichi Girls’ High School left for the Haebaru Army Hospital as members of a student corps. Two days later, my best friend, Sada, was also ordered to go as a student corps member and I went to see her off on March 26th. I was left alone and wondering what to do. The Kinjo family, who were my neighbors, suggested that I stay with them, since it would be difficult for me to stay in an air-raid shelter alone. Then the Nagaoka Corps, 223rd Special Guard Company, recruited Nobuko of the Kinjo family to join the student corps. The Nagaoka Corps was a local unit and had no nurses or cooks.Nobuko, who was asked to help them, consulted her family. Captain Nagaoka was the priest of Ankokuji Temple, an instructor at the Prefectural Daiichi Junior High School, and also their brother’s mentor. Nobuko was told that the Nagaoka Corps was a unit led by such a respectable person, so she decided to join it. When I heard about it, I became worried that if Nobuko leaves, I would be left all alone. I asked Nobuko to take me with her, even though I knew I might be a burden.
Joining the Nagaoka Corps
I joined the Nagaoka Corps with Nobuko on March 31st. At the time, I was fifteen years and four months old. The place where I enlisted was a large natural cave in Shikina, Mawashi Village. We were immediately provided with military uniforms, iron helmets and canteens, and from that night on, I was made to help cook meals. I was a child with small hands, so it was difficult to make big rice balls. Still, I did my best to make them and help with the cooking. I received nursing training during the day in the cave. For about two weeks, a medic instructed me on how to use a triangular bandage and how to treat the wounded.
One evening, as I was fetching water and looked out across the ocean to the west, the ocean was packed with black U.S. naval vessels. At night, naval gunfire flew over us. Around the first week of April, Japanese kamikaze aircraft were flying toward American warships. A searchlight was lit, making things bright as day, and illuminating the aircrafts to shoot them down. They made sad sounds as they plunged into the sea. The Japanese aircraft were caught in a pincer movement before they could ram the U.S. warships, falling into the sea like bees caught in a spider web. When I saw that scene, even as I child, I wondered if we could win the war.
The Nagaoka Corps in Shuri
After seeing such a scene, on April 16th, the fighting began to intensify on the Shuri front so we were ordered to move. The Nagaoka Corps relocated to a hill called “Nachijina-mui.” There’s a hotel there now. There was a squad of grenadiers from the first platoon of the Nagaoka Corps there. The grenade launcher did not seem to fly very far, but it was one of the few weapons left. Other weapons included small rifles and grenades. That was the only kind of weapon the Japanese had. My job was to carry rice and water to an encampment where there were 12 to 13 soldiers. At one point, I jumped into a ditch with food in my arms to dodge U.S. machine gunfire. Gradually, I began to recognize the time of day when enemy artillery would fly. They didn’t fire at us early in the morning or in the evening, so I made it a habit to carry the food at a time when I would not be shot.
When the war intensified after that, the Nagaoka Corps carried out night attacks. They would carry bundles of grenades and attacked areas where American soldiers were sleeping. Five or six soldiers would go on these missions, and only one or two came back alive. Of the soldiers I had talked to the day before, only one or two had returned. The survivors from the platoons (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) of the Nagaoka Corps were ordered by Captain Nagaoka to gather at Ankokuji Temple near Shuri Castle. So on the evening of May 18th, we also moved with the captain to a cave shelter at Ankokuji.
On May 27th, we received an order to stay and fight until the very end since the Nagaoka Corps was made up of a local unit. By that time, we were not fighting anymore. We had no choice but to hide in our shelter and wait for the U.S. troops to invade. That’s how the day ended. The next morning, May 29th, a tank gun was fired into the shelter where we had been hiding. The tanks got closer, and we were attacked by flamethrowers. Then, as if in pursuit, yellow phosphorus bombs were thrown into the shelter. I almost suffocated from the smoke and nearly lost consciousness. Then, I noticed a strange sound around me. It was the sound of U.S. troops trying to drill a hole in the shelter. I heard the captain’s voice. “It’s an ‘umanori operation’ (horseback attack),” the captain said. Then the rocks came crashing down with a terrible noise. The shelves in the shelter supported the falling rocks and we were able to survive without taking a direct hit from the rocks. I don’t know how many hours passed after the attack, but we had to escape with the remaining survivors when the smoke and gas in the shelter subsided. “Come over here and grab this belt,” the captain said. He removed his large Japanese sword from his belt and placed it there. “Yes sir,” I said and grabbed the captain’s belt and started walking. When I went out behind the shelter under the light of the flares, I witnessed a sight so horrifying that I shivered. On the walls of the shelter were blown-off heads and limbs were hanging from the walls. When I looked down at my feet, I saw internal organs of corpses, and the whole area was covered in blood. It was raining, and I couldn’t tell if the liquid pooled on the ground was blood or water. What appeared to be a rock was in fact a corpse. I happened to put my foot on the corpse and fell over, let go of the captain’s belt that I was holding onto, and I fell down a cliff. After I passed out, I woke up in a pile of corpses. I looked to my right and left, and there were corpses everywhere, even on my feet. “I don’t want to die here,” I thought. I crawled out of the spot and headed for a brightly lit area illuminated by flares. Then an American soldier approached me, so I had no choice but to lie down next to the corpses and pretend to be dead.
On the way south, as I reached Ichinichibashi, two Japanese soldiers jumped out from the sugarcane field and suddenly grabbed me. They said, “Stand up,” and tried to get me to stand. “Where are you coming from,” they asked.“Shuri,” I replied.“Shuri has already been taken by the U.S. forces. You must be a spy,” they said. They asked me once again where I had come from. I told them that I was with the Nagaoka Corps at Ankokuji Temple and I was attacked there. I replied that I was the only one who was separated from the others and came here alone. The Japanese soldier told me to say my leader’s name, so I answered, “Captain Nagaoka.” When they heard “Captain,” they said“Captain passed through here four hours ago,” showing me the way.
Heading south to look for the Nagaoka Corps
After that, I continued walking for days to join up with the Nagaoka Corps from Tsukayama to the south. On the way, I learned that Captain Nagaoka’s group had arrived at the Todoroki cave in Itoman. I got to Todoroki cave on the 4th or 5th of June. When I went to the back of the cave, the Okinawa prefectural police and employees of the Shuri police station and the prefectural office were there. Many soldiers and civilians had evacuated to the cave. Some members of the corps were wounded, but about 40 people were alive and had made it out of Shuri. Then, the Tama Corps issued an order for the surviving members of the Nagaoka Corps to support the front lines in Kuniyoshi and Maesato. So, about 20 people from the Nagaoka Corps went to the front lines in Kuniyoshi and Maesato and most of them never returned. We moved to a cave shelter called Maya-gama in Itoman and stayed there until June 22nd. There was no food or anything there. I’ve heard that about 200 local residents of the surrounding Yamashiro and Kamisato areas had taken refuge in the cave, but the Japanese troops chased out the residents and used it. We used the dishes the previous evacuees had left behind to collect water that dripped from the stalactites and shared the water with one another, one sip per person. Water alone was not enough, so the medics devised a way to obtain salt. The walls of the limestone cave contained a substance called “ishi no anda,” which contains rock salt. We were told that by breaking these into small stones and putting them in our mouths, it would make us salivate, which would prevent our brain from dying. That’s how we stayed alive.
Farewell to the Nagaoka Corps
By June 22nd, I couldn’t hear any naval artillery or bombs. Then I heard a broadcast coming from the ocean. “Civilians, we will not kill those who do not resist. Raise your hands and come outside.” I kept hearing broadcasts like this in the dark from the early morning. Captain Nagaoka came to us when it was still dark outside and said the following:“The final order was to carry out an all out assault today, so women and children must surrender. That was the order so that’s what you must do. Thank you for all your efforts throughout this long, hard struggle.” He shook each member’s hand one by one in the dim light. Then he said, “You all are young. Live. Live and tell everyone the story of this battle. Don’t die.”
Reuniting with family in the camps
We then left the shelter and were taken prisoner. When I was living in an internment camp in Ishikawa, there were so many people who helped me. The US forces took care of me at a military hospital when I came down with a high fever. They cut my hair and removed all the lice, made me change my clothes, which was covered in lice after being worn for so long. I was grateful to look human again. The US forces immediately opened schools in the occupied territories. While we were on the battle field in Shimajiri, school had already started in Ishikawa.
One day, a male relative, who I thought had gone to join the kamikaze squad after living in Manchuria, came to the Ishikawa camp riding an American jeep. Apparently, his plane crashed off the coast of Ie Island, and he washed ashore. He was rescued by the residents and treated for his wounds in the shelter. He used to work for the Manchurian Railway, so he spoke English very well. His fluency in both English and Japanese came in handy when making deliveries to ration stations, and he went to work for the US military’s QM ration station. “I’ll bring in a pencil and sheet of paper tomorrow. I want you to write down the names of your family members,” he told me. “I’ll look for them at all eleven civilian camps.” I wrote them down just as he told me to and he come to receive it in a few days. After that, I received a reply from my mother in less than a month. At the time, my mother and two younger sisters had no food and nowhere to live, so they left their evacuation site, crossed the mountains and the Okawa River and moved to Sedake in Kushi Village. When we found that out, the relative asked an American soldier to put me on a truck, obtained an approval form of visitation outside the district. I went on a food delivery truck. At the time, my desire to see my parents was greater than my fear of the US soldiers. The soldier who was unloading supplies at the ration station in Sedake saw me and my mother hugging and crying and he was crying as well. We didn’t speak each other’s language, but he was crying along with us. I thought that the joy felt when parents and children reunite is the same, regardless of country. When I returned to the camp, he put a lot of gum and other items in a bag and gave it to me, then helped me out of the truck. This is how I reunited with my family.
From internment camp to Komesu, Itoman
On January 25, the people of Mawashi village were to move to the south. The truck stopped at the location of present-day Konpaku Memorial Tower in Komesu, Itoman. When I looked around my feet and the surrounding area, remains were scattered everywhere. I was wondering what they were going to do with us gathered in a place like this and how we were going to live. We had to go to the tent hut we were assigned. Not only that, six families were crammed into a single tent. The next day, people from Mawashi Village were gathered in an open area. There, the new village chief spoke to us and said the following:
I’m Kazunobu Kaneshiro, your new village mayor. We are here because we can’t enter Mawashi Village since the US military is stationed there. As you all know, in this area are bones of the many who lost their lives. We cannot live our lives as humans while stepping on these bones. Let’s restart our lives by collecting these bones. For families with two adults, one should gather food while the other gathers remains. That’s how I think we should proceed.
Collecting remains
Once permission was granted by the U.S. military, members were recruited for a bone collection team. There were about 100 volunteers at first, but everyone was afraid of what the American soldiers would do to them if they got involved in the collection. There were some who chose not to participate in the bone collection efforts, because there were still many unexploded bombs in the ground and it was difficult to identify them. But even so, about 100 volunteers gathered, so we were all split up into three groups and the collection efforts began.
We began by collecting the remains of our own relatives. We collected the bones of family members and relatives whom we knew where they were buried. We were then divided into three groups, and each group of the bone collection team was in charge of a certain area. That’s how the work began.
Start of school life
During our first week after moving to Komesu, we students had to go through the procedures for transferring to Itoman High School. Those who attended girls’ schools and junior high schools before the war were transferred to Itoman High School. The bone collection team went to collect the bones, and we students went to school. At that time, there were about 40 students from the area, including about 12 girls.
Lieutenant General Buckner of the US Army died in Maesato which was near the road on the way to school, so many soldiers of all races would visit the site. Soldiers would come to pay their respects at Lieutenant General’s cenotaph on their off-duty days. One day during the first week after we started attending Itoman High School, on our way home, we ran into a crowd of American soldiers who had come to visit the cenotaph. Two of the schoolgirls were chased by about five American soldiers and were almost caught. Then, a male student picked up a stone from a farm field and threw it at the soldiers. It appeared that the stone hit a soldier in the head, and they ran away. Meanwhile, the male student took the female student by the hand and brought her back to safety. We told our parents what happened. They said that people should not have to risk their lives for the sake of learning, despite having survived the war. They decided that girls should not go to school, and only males were allowed to attend school from then.
For about the next two weeks, the girls handled various tasks. Back then, orphans had nothing to wear. They couldn’t make it through the cold of January naked, some would sit around every day bundled in whatever they could find. We were told to get US military HBT (herringbone twill) clothing, take apart the fabric, and sew them into clothes that would fit the children. So female students sewed clothing for the orphans. In the meantime, the Mawashi branch of Itoman High School was established and school began with a principal and three teachers— a math teacher, Japanese teacher, and English teacher. I went to school at night and collected remains during the day.
How the Konpaku Memorial Tower came to be
On the day the branch school opened, the village mayor set aside two days for the entire village to collect remains. Not only the collection team, but all the villagers were to pick up the remains around them. The remains were collected in an open area where the Konpaku Memorial Tower is located now. The Konpaku Memorial Tower was not originally on flat land. Since it was a hollow area, we packed the remains in “kamasu” (jute bags) and lifted them up. “Place the skull here and the limbs there,” we were instructed. The places where we lay them were not flat, but caved in. At the time, there were no tools for digging and no machinery, but we buried the bones of roughly 350,000 people. We initially collected the bones of more than 2,000 bodies. We worked under the direction of the collection team. “What you see here inside the bones are fragments of shells. It won’t explode, so you can pick up the bones.” That’s the type of instruction we received. Before picking up remains, we would put our palms together and say “Guburi sabira (excuse me),”as even living people would feel uneasy if they didn’t know where they were being taken. Then, we would say “Unchike sabira (Do not worry, I will show you the way).” We were told to always put our palms together and say “Guburi sabira.” We were taught to pick up the bones of the limbs first, then the skull at last, and to place the skull on top when putting it in the bag. The bones of two bodies would fill up a single bag. At that time, it was very difficult for skinny children like us to carry the bags full of remains. We did not eat enough and lacked physical strength and could not carry it alone. It took two of us to pull the bags, one holding each side.
One day I found a place where there were many small tomatoes and the grass was growing thick. When I brushed the grass away, I found three skull bones. The mother’s bones were large, and her back was bent over in a sitting position. It looked as if she was holding small children. When I picked up their bones, I wondered why these little children had to be killed, how this mother felt when she died in front of her two children. Being a woman like them, the sight made me so angry that my hands began to shake, and I could not pick up the bones right away. My friend and I put the remains of this family of three into a bag and I couldn’t even drag the bag when it came time to carry it. The two of us worked hard to lift the bag and carry it to the Konpaku Memorial Tower. It made me think deeply about why people had to go through such horrible experiences and what the war was for. And anger began to build up inside me. I wondered why my country, not necessarily the Japanese military, let its people die in such a horrible way. We the Mawashi villagers continued collecting remains thereafter, in the place where “Himeyuri Memorial Tower” and “Kenji Memorial Tower” would be built. The mayor and his wife were very dedicated about the work.
I attended a girls’ school for two years and the war began in the middle of my third year. After the war, I attended Itoman High School and later Mawashi High School, and finally graduated from Shuri High School. So I don’t really remember what I studied. I began attending Shuri High School in September 1946. I studied at Shuri High School for half a year. We used mimeographed textbooks.
A message for young people
What I want to tell young people is that while it is important to hear my war experiences, I want them to gain a solid understanding of history. Why did the war happen? I don’t think we can create a peaceful society if we neglect to learn about history.
Ms. Yasuko Onaga became an elementary school teacher, and she devoted herself to peace education. After her retirement, she has been active as a storyteller speaking to groups about the reality of the Battle of Okinawa. As a survivor of the war, she has a strong sense of mission and has devoted herself to conveying the story of the Battle of Okinawa to the younger generation, both in and outside of Okinawa Prefecture.