American Internment and My Post-War Life
Mr. Shotoku Asato
Birth year：1930
Birth place：Peru
Before the war
I was born in Lima, Peru. I attended a Japanese elementary school in Peru for half a year when I was still in the first grade. I then transferred to Kishaba Ordinary Elementary School of Nakagusuku Village. Halfway through third grade, I transferred to Shuri’s current-day Josei Elementary School, then known as Shuri Second Ordinary Elementary School. Then in 1943, I enrolled into the First Junior High School of Okinawa Prefecture (current-day Shuri High School). At First Junior High, it had already been decided, as early as when the students were first years, that they would eventually become soldiers.
Assigned to school corps unit
On March 28, 1945, I headed for the headquarters of the Signal Corps at Hantagawa River near Shuri Castle with a friend. After arriving I was told that I was assigned to a squad in the Fifth Company which I joined. I was issued a military uniform when I joined. I wrapped my personal clothes in cloth and stored it away. I put on my uniform and army boots, and placed my rank insignia of army private on my collar. Our position was inside a natural cave. Our squadron consisted of eight or nine soldiers and about four of us were students. We were split into two groups, and carried out our duties in shifts around the clock. To explain our duties, the primary role for our group was communicating with a unit on Ie Island. The primary responsibilities of student soldiers were turning the crank handle on the generator used for communication purposes, preparing, transporting, serving meals, washing dishes after meals, and taking communications (written messages) to headquarters. Things of that sort.
In the latter part of April, when the unit on Ie Island fell to the American forces, we withdrew to company headquarters, and performed duties from there. Primary responsibilities of student soldiers at company headquarters were preparing, transporting, and serving meals going back to the village to draw water. There was also “sentry” duty with 4-hour shifts. There was a plateau 20 to 30 meters above the cave, and sentry duty involved going up to the plateau and looking out for the enemy from there. It was not like the enemy soldiers were nearby about to attack us, but it was essential that we kept watch for defense.
Retreat from Shuri to Shimajiri
After that, we retreated back to Shimajiri because the American forces were advancing rapidly and we heard some people say that they saw American troops near Shuri Kannondo Temple. On May 27, we retreated to Mabuni in Shimajiri. Me and another student soldier, along with two regular soldiers, the four of us carried wounded soldiers. We carried the wounded and our civilian clothing on our backs. Around the time we began to retreat, it began to rain hard continuously. May 27 was in the rainy season and once we left the cave, the heavy rain turned the ground into mud. Asphalt didn’t exist then, so everything was mud. We traveled on the road that led to Haebaru and once we entered Kochinda, hundreds and thousands of civilians in huge crowds were on the move to the south, trying to evacuate to Shimajiri. When daybreak came, we looked around us and realized that corpses were scattered all over the road. There were some survivors, crawling to the south on all fours. The scene of those people crawling like that was truly a miserable sight. Some of them shouted,“I am still alive! Don’t step on me!” When we arrived at Mabuni in Itoman, there was a large cave, where the advance party had secured a position for the Fifth Company, so we went there.
Life in the Mabuni cave
According to student soldiers who arrived first at the cave, there were civilians already in the shelter who had evacuated there, but they were all forced out by military order. They told us the civilians looked very sad as they left the cave, carrying their pots and pans they brought with them from their houses. I thought what they did, having chased out the civilians, was terrible. The Fifth Company I was in consisted of 35 people, of which 11 died. This resulted because my company chased out the civilians from the cave. On the other hand, another company called the “Sixth Company” did not rob residents of their cave shelters. They fought until the end using large boulders as cover. Of the 34 people in the Sixth Company, 28 died in battle. Because they did not enter a cave, 28 died and only six survived. Of these six, four were wounded and only two survived in one piece. Just that one difference of seizing or not seizing a cave led to a difference in danger and being exposed to enemy fire.
Disbandment of the student corps
On June 20, we were told that the enemy had advanced to the settlement of Mabuni, all of us fstudent soldiers were assembled and were told the following:
The arrival of our enemy is imminent. Any more effort to defend the position is futile. Accordingly, the company is hereby disbanded. We thank you for your efforts. We hear that the Udo unit is still going strong at Kunigami, so we want you to break through the front line. We have information that suggests a submarine will be arriving at Mabuni for rescue, so you may wait here as well. The decision is yours to make.
And with that, the Student Corps disbanded.
As we were talking about getting some food to eat and then to break through the front line once the sun set, a non-commissioned officer from another unit came and suggested that we become prisoners of war. American force aircrafts were dropping propaganda leaflets everywhere, which stated in Japanese that Japanese soldiers should hold their hands up and become prisoners of war. The non-commissioned officer told us that the leaflets were telling the truth, and that the mistreatment of POWs was forbidden under the Hague Conventions. He continued and said the following:
The Americans are bound by the Hague Conventions. You will not be mistreated, so do not be afraid and surrender. Japan will fall with this battle. This is the sad truth. I’m not saying that’s okay. But once it falls, a new Japan must be rebuilt. Youths like you must stand up to take on that challenge. You all have much to do so rather than dying, you should become prisoners of war.
So the three of us raised both our hands in the middle of the day on the next day, and climbed up the hilly area of Mabuni. As we climbed up the hill near the Mabuni public well, there were about ten American soldiers and we became prisoners of war there.
Taken to Yaka prisoner of war camp
They checked all our pockets to make sure we carried no weapons and then we were loaded on a truck and brought somewhere in the direction of Chinen. Our truck stopped there and seven to eight more people were loaded, and we were taken to Yaka prisoner of war camp. The camp was divided into three separate areas. One for Japanese troops, one for Okinawan troops and conscripted laborers, and one for Koreans. They had what they called the “K rations” in the prison camp, which was a field ration wrapped in oiled paper. We ate biscuits and small cans of food that were distributed and I was surprised to find that the American forces fought and were well fed. We were constantly hungry. I felt the “gap” in war preparations.
Loaded on a boat to Hawaii
Prisoners from Okinawa were assembled one day in July and a second generation Japanese American soldier from Hawaii called our names and told us to get on the truck when called. I got on the truck and we were taken to the sea coast at Chatan, where later we were put on a ship. I thought to myself, “Where are they taking us? The Americans are probably taking us somewhere as slaves.” Hawaii or the Continental United States being potential destinations never crossed my mind at the time. “We might be taken to some island in the southern ocean where we will be made to do hard labor like slaves.” Such thoughts crossed my mind. As the ship left the port, some people were crying as they watched the main island of Okinawa grow smaller from the deck.
The portions of food provided on the ship were very small. We were given half of a small rice bowl’s worth of flour with potatoes and carrots flavored with ketchup. We were fed twice a day. The ship was a military personnel transport vessel. For sleeping, there were bunkbeds with four levels of canvas beds, partitioned by posts. So that’s where we slept. We spent the whole time on the ship wearing a pair of underwear and one T-shirt, and we had to wash them when they got dirty. We had to be completely naked until they dried.
Life in the Hawaii prison camp
In terms of meals, the treatment was extremely good at the prison camp in Hawaii. There was a group of prisoners who had been captured on Ie Island and brought to Hawaii before us and they were assigned kitchen duties. They would fill large dishes that were for American soldier use. When we said, “We would like more,” they would give us more. We ate as much as we wanted. And it was white rice. We had not eaten white rice since the Battle of Okinawa started. It was so good to eat white rice. The prisoners who arrived in Hawaii were all surprised. We never thought that we would be able to eat such tasty white rice.
Life in the San Francisco prison camp
The beginning of August in San Francisco on the west coast of America was cold. Probably due to the cold currents. We slept with the heat on at night. The place was nice with fresh air. I was with prisoners of war from the Japanese Imperial Navy who were taken prisoner in Saipan, but they were then moved to Texas. The US Government at the time perhaps had the idea of separating Okinawa from Japan. Prisoners from Okinawa were sent to San Francisco’s prison camp from the prison camps in Wisconsin and Texas. We were to be sent back to Okinawa from there. About 14 to 15 prisoners who came from Texas were all wearing really worn out clothing and their shoes were slightly ripped. Their skin was dark and when I asked them why, they said they were forced to do really hard labor. They had to cut down large trees and haul the lumber after cutting them into round slices. That’s what they told me about their experience there. The prisoners who were brought from Wisconsin were dressed nicely like the second generation Japanese American forces and their shoes were shiny matching their tidy appearances. They even had hair oil in their hair. When I asked them, they told me meals were tasty in Wisconsin and they were given wages of 25 cents per day and could even buy things with their wages. That was what Wisconsin’s camp was like.
Treatment of individuals varied from person to person even aboard the ship that took us to the prisoner of war camp in Hawaii and our treatment at the prisoner of war camps in the United States also varied. My impression was that America as a country did not have a standard national government, and that the handling of each space like the ships and camps was left up to the authority in charge.
Return to Okinawa
I returned to Okinawa around November of 1945. My family was detained in Shioya in Gushikawa Village, which is where Uruma City is today, but I had no idea where they went. I was told at the prisoner of war camp that my home village of Nakagusuku Village was now part of Koza District under the newly established administrative district system and that I should go to Koza. Since I had no clear knowledge about where my family was, I was living with three other people at Ageda in Okinawa City. One had become a prisoner of war in the Philippines, and the other became a prisoner of war in Saipan. The three of us lived together.
I don’t know who told my mother where I was, but she found out that I was in Ageda, and she came to find me. My mother told me that our family was currently detained in Gushikawa so I walked to Gushikawa to see them. On my way there, by coincidence, I ran into my classmate who invited me to join the military service. He told me that he was not taken prisoner as he disguised himself as an ordinary civilian in Mabuni and went back to Gushikawa in four to five days. He told me a lot of things. He was attending what they called “Maehara High School” in Gushikawa and told me that I should also seek admittance there. So I worked towards getting admitted.
School life after war
Everyone referred to high schools as “high school” in English instead of “koko” (high school in Japanese). Maehara High School was established in the schoolyard of Takaesu Elementary School. I was told to attend there. But the classrooms were made of tents and we studied sitting on the ground using shoddy desks and seats, and there was no black board. When I began attending the school, it had only been ten days since the school opened. There were no textbooks, the classes involved listening to the teachers talk. There was an educational facility for U.S. military personnel. They called it “university” and I went to the garbage dump there and found a lot of books and paper scattered everywhere. Since typewriting paper had blank sides, I took a bunch home, thinking that I could use the paper to take notes. I looked around to see if there was anything that I could use, such as a book, and found a university level book on algebra. I had some prior knowledge on what was written inside such as linear and quadratic equations, and factorization, so I figured that maybe I could use it for studying, and took it home and used it for my studies. There were no textbooks throughout my entire time at Maehara High School. Maehara High School eventually moved to where present-day Katsuren Junior High School is. We lived in a dormitory. We were always hungry because we only got about half a bowl of rice. It was difficult to concentrate on our studies.
Learning English and going to America
After graduating high school, I worked the fields in the morning. At the time, there wasn’t much food, so I needed to work in the fields. I copied an English book I borrowed from my brother-in-law in the afternoon, and learned English to some extent. At a place called post engineer, where my brother-in-law worked, there was an opening for a clerical position at a dormitory for Okinawans, and my brother-in-law invited me to work there, suggesting that the English spoken by the director there is easy to understand and I might learn by working there. I began working there, and tried to speak to the director as much as possible. I finished copying the entirety of the English exercise book I borrowed and through that I gained proficiency in English to some extent.
Okinawa Foreign Language School was located in Taba in Gushikawa at the time. I took the entrance exam and passed. I attended Okinawa Foreign Language School for about half a year, then I attended the University of the Ryukyus thereafter. Prior to attending the University of the Ryukyus there was an opening for an English teacher at Kitanakagusuku Junior High School and I was asked to work there as an English teacher. I was 20 or 21 years old at the time and I worked there for one year. I knew I didn’t want to remain substitute teacher forever. While I hadn’t studied at all for the university entrance exam, I thought I could pass the entrance exam for the elementary school teacher training program, which I did pass. Since I wasn’t very good at drawing and painting, I didn’t think I would be a good elementary school teacher. I decided to change course and take the university entrance exam again. At the end of the first academic term, I submitted a request for leave and started to study for the entrance exam for the first time. I then managed to gain admission to the regular four-year university program. While I graduated from the University of the Ryukyus’ English department, I felt that if I wanted to learn real, practical English, I had to go to the United States. So I went abroad to the United States to study and majored in accounting.
A message for young people
We engaged in a terrible war. I wondered why we could not find a way to prevent it. However, we had no power to prevent the Battle of Okinawa from occurring. Due to the influence of the militarism of Japan at the time, 115 of my classmates joined the military service and 65 died in the war. In addition, 140,000 Okinawan civilians lost their lives, and that combined with troops and native conscripted laborers made the death toll 240,000. Their names are inscribed on the Cornerstone of Peace at Mabuni. I strongly believe that war brings about tremendous tragedy and must not ever happen again.
Shoutoku Asato worked at the manufacturing and wholesale company for Bireley’s, an American soft drink company, and established Bireley’s Okinawa K.K. upon the reversion of Okinawa to Japan. He has 44 years of experience in management. In 2018, he received Ryukyu Shimpo’s Award for Economic and Trade Achievement award. He is also active as a storyteller and continues to tell the real story of the Battle of Okinawa and the experience of the Student Corps.
Before the war
I was born in Lima, Peru. I attended a Japanese elementary school in Peru for half a year when I was still in the first grade. I then transferred to Kishaba Ordinary Elementary School of Nakagusuku Village. Halfway through third grade, I transferred to Shuri’s current-day Josei Elementary School, then known as Shuri Second Ordinary Elementary School. Then in 1943, I enrolled into the First Junior High School of Okinawa Prefecture (current-day Shuri High School). At First Junior High, it had already been decided, as early as when the students were first years, that they would eventually become soldiers.
Assigned to school corps unit
On March 28, 1945, I headed for the headquarters of the Signal Corps at Hantagawa River near Shuri Castle with a friend. After arriving I was told that I was assigned to a squad in the Fifth Company which I joined. I was issued a military uniform when I joined. I wrapped my personal clothes in cloth and stored it away. I put on my uniform and army boots, and placed my rank insignia of army private on my collar. Our position was inside a natural cave. Our squadron consisted of eight or nine soldiers and about four of us were students. We were split into two groups, and carried out our duties in shifts around the clock. To explain our duties, the primary role for our group was communicating with a unit on Ie Island. The primary responsibilities of student soldiers were turning the crank handle on the generator used for communication purposes, preparing, transporting, serving meals, washing dishes after meals, and taking communications (written messages) to headquarters. Things of that sort.
In the latter part of April, when the unit on Ie Island fell to the American forces, we withdrew to company headquarters, and performed duties from there. Primary responsibilities of student soldiers at company headquarters were preparing, transporting, and serving meals going back to the village to draw water. There was also “sentry” duty with 4-hour shifts. There was a plateau 20 to 30 meters above the cave, and sentry duty involved going up to the plateau and looking out for the enemy from there. It was not like the enemy soldiers were nearby about to attack us, but it was essential that we kept watch for defense.
Retreat from Shuri to Shimajiri
After that, we retreated back to Shimajiri because the American forces were advancing rapidly and we heard some people say that they saw American troops near Shuri Kannondo Temple. On May 27, we retreated to Mabuni in Shimajiri. Me and another student soldier, along with two regular soldiers, the four of us carried wounded soldiers. We carried the wounded and our civilian clothing on our backs. Around the time we began to retreat, it began to rain hard continuously. May 27 was in the rainy season and once we left the cave, the heavy rain turned the ground into mud. Asphalt didn’t exist then, so everything was mud. We traveled on the road that led to Haebaru and once we entered Kochinda, hundreds and thousands of civilians in huge crowds were on the move to the south, trying to evacuate to Shimajiri. When daybreak came, we looked around us and realized that corpses were scattered all over the road. There were some survivors, crawling to the south on all fours. The scene of those people crawling like that was truly a miserable sight. Some of them shouted,“I am still alive! Don’t step on me!” When we arrived at Mabuni in Itoman, there was a large cave, where the advance party had secured a position for the Fifth Company, so we went there.
Life in the Mabuni cave
According to student soldiers who arrived first at the cave, there were civilians already in the shelter who had evacuated there, but they were all forced out by military order. They told us the civilians looked very sad as they left the cave, carrying their pots and pans they brought with them from their houses. I thought what they did, having chased out the civilians, was terrible. The Fifth Company I was in consisted of 35 people, of which 11 died. This resulted because my company chased out the civilians from the cave. On the other hand, another company called the “Sixth Company” did not rob residents of their cave shelters. They fought until the end using large boulders as cover. Of the 34 people in the Sixth Company, 28 died in battle. Because they did not enter a cave, 28 died and only six survived. Of these six, four were wounded and only two survived in one piece. Just that one difference of seizing or not seizing a cave led to a difference in danger and being exposed to enemy fire.
Disbandment of the student corps
On June 20, we were told that the enemy had advanced to the settlement of Mabuni, all of us fstudent soldiers were assembled and were told the following:
The arrival of our enemy is imminent. Any more effort to defend the position is futile. Accordingly, the company is hereby disbanded. We thank you for your efforts. We hear that the Udo unit is still going strong at Kunigami, so we want you to break through the front line. We have information that suggests a submarine will be arriving at Mabuni for rescue, so you may wait here as well. The decision is yours to make.
And with that, the Student Corps disbanded.
As we were talking about getting some food to eat and then to break through the front line once the sun set, a non-commissioned officer from another unit came and suggested that we become prisoners of war. American force aircrafts were dropping propaganda leaflets everywhere, which stated in Japanese that Japanese soldiers should hold their hands up and become prisoners of war. The non-commissioned officer told us that the leaflets were telling the truth, and that the mistreatment of POWs was forbidden under the Hague Conventions. He continued and said the following:
The Americans are bound by the Hague Conventions. You will not be mistreated, so do not be afraid and surrender. Japan will fall with this battle. This is the sad truth. I’m not saying that’s okay. But once it falls, a new Japan must be rebuilt. Youths like you must stand up to take on that challenge. You all have much to do so rather than dying, you should become prisoners of war.
So the three of us raised both our hands in the middle of the day on the next day, and climbed up the hilly area of Mabuni. As we climbed up the hill near the Mabuni public well, there were about ten American soldiers and we became prisoners of war there.
Taken to Yaka prisoner of war camp
They checked all our pockets to make sure we carried no weapons and then we were loaded on a truck and brought somewhere in the direction of Chinen. Our truck stopped there and seven to eight more people were loaded, and we were taken to Yaka prisoner of war camp. The camp was divided into three separate areas. One for Japanese troops, one for Okinawan troops and conscripted laborers, and one for Koreans. They had what they called the “K rations” in the prison camp, which was a field ration wrapped in oiled paper. We ate biscuits and small cans of food that were distributed and I was surprised to find that the American forces fought and were well fed. We were constantly hungry. I felt the “gap” in war preparations.
Loaded on a boat to Hawaii
Prisoners from Okinawa were assembled one day in July and a second generation Japanese American soldier from Hawaii called our names and told us to get on the truck when called. I got on the truck and we were taken to the sea coast at Chatan, where later we were put on a ship. I thought to myself, “Where are they taking us? The Americans are probably taking us somewhere as slaves.” Hawaii or the Continental United States being potential destinations never crossed my mind at the time. “We might be taken to some island in the southern ocean where we will be made to do hard labor like slaves.” Such thoughts crossed my mind. As the ship left the port, some people were crying as they watched the main island of Okinawa grow smaller from the deck.
The portions of food provided on the ship were very small. We were given half of a small rice bowl’s worth of flour with potatoes and carrots flavored with ketchup. We were fed twice a day. The ship was a military personnel transport vessel. For sleeping, there were bunkbeds with four levels of canvas beds, partitioned by posts. So that’s where we slept. We spent the whole time on the ship wearing a pair of underwear and one T-shirt, and we had to wash them when they got dirty. We had to be completely naked until they dried.
Life in the Hawaii prison camp
In terms of meals, the treatment was extremely good at the prison camp in Hawaii. There was a group of prisoners who had been captured on Ie Island and brought to Hawaii before us and they were assigned kitchen duties. They would fill large dishes that were for American soldier use. When we said, “We would like more,” they would give us more. We ate as much as we wanted. And it was white rice. We had not eaten white rice since the Battle of Okinawa started. It was so good to eat white rice. The prisoners who arrived in Hawaii were all surprised. We never thought that we would be able to eat such tasty white rice.
Life in the San Francisco prison camp
The beginning of August in San Francisco on the west coast of America was cold. Probably due to the cold currents. We slept with the heat on at night. The place was nice with fresh air. I was with prisoners of war from the Japanese Imperial Navy who were taken prisoner in Saipan, but they were then moved to Texas. The US Government at the time perhaps had the idea of separating Okinawa from Japan. Prisoners from Okinawa were sent to San Francisco’s prison camp from the prison camps in Wisconsin and Texas. We were to be sent back to Okinawa from there. About 14 to 15 prisoners who came from Texas were all wearing really worn out clothing and their shoes were slightly ripped. Their skin was dark and when I asked them why, they said they were forced to do really hard labor. They had to cut down large trees and haul the lumber after cutting them into round slices. That’s what they told me about their experience there. The prisoners who were brought from Wisconsin were dressed nicely like the second generation Japanese American forces and their shoes were shiny matching their tidy appearances. They even had hair oil in their hair. When I asked them, they told me meals were tasty in Wisconsin and they were given wages of 25 cents per day and could even buy things with their wages. That was what Wisconsin’s camp was like.
Treatment of individuals varied from person to person even aboard the ship that took us to the prisoner of war camp in Hawaii and our treatment at the prisoner of war camps in the United States also varied. My impression was that America as a country did not have a standard national government, and that the handling of each space like the ships and camps was left up to the authority in charge.
Return to Okinawa
I returned to Okinawa around November of 1945. My family was detained in Shioya in Gushikawa Village, which is where Uruma City is today, but I had no idea where they went. I was told at the prisoner of war camp that my home village of Nakagusuku Village was now part of Koza District under the newly established administrative district system and that I should go to Koza. Since I had no clear knowledge about where my family was, I was living with three other people at Ageda in Okinawa City. One had become a prisoner of war in the Philippines, and the other became a prisoner of war in Saipan. The three of us lived together.
I don’t know who told my mother where I was, but she found out that I was in Ageda, and she came to find me. My mother told me that our family was currently detained in Gushikawa so I walked to Gushikawa to see them. On my way there, by coincidence, I ran into my classmate who invited me to join the military service. He told me that he was not taken prisoner as he disguised himself as an ordinary civilian in Mabuni and went back to Gushikawa in four to five days. He told me a lot of things. He was attending what they called “Maehara High School” in Gushikawa and told me that I should also seek admittance there. So I worked towards getting admitted.
School life after war
Everyone referred to high schools as “high school” in English instead of “koko” (high school in Japanese). Maehara High School was established in the schoolyard of Takaesu Elementary School. I was told to attend there. But the classrooms were made of tents and we studied sitting on the ground using shoddy desks and seats, and there was no black board. When I began attending the school, it had only been ten days since the school opened. There were no textbooks, the classes involved listening to the teachers talk. There was an educational facility for U.S. military personnel. They called it “university” and I went to the garbage dump there and found a lot of books and paper scattered everywhere. Since typewriting paper had blank sides, I took a bunch home, thinking that I could use the paper to take notes. I looked around to see if there was anything that I could use, such as a book, and found a university level book on algebra. I had some prior knowledge on what was written inside such as linear and quadratic equations, and factorization, so I figured that maybe I could use it for studying, and took it home and used it for my studies. There were no textbooks throughout my entire time at Maehara High School. Maehara High School eventually moved to where present-day Katsuren Junior High School is. We lived in a dormitory. We were always hungry because we only got about half a bowl of rice. It was difficult to concentrate on our studies.
Learning English and going to America
After graduating high school, I worked the fields in the morning. At the time, there wasn’t much food, so I needed to work in the fields. I copied an English book I borrowed from my brother-in-law in the afternoon, and learned English to some extent. At a place called post engineer, where my brother-in-law worked, there was an opening for a clerical position at a dormitory for Okinawans, and my brother-in-law invited me to work there, suggesting that the English spoken by the director there is easy to understand and I might learn by working there. I began working there, and tried to speak to the director as much as possible. I finished copying the entirety of the English exercise book I borrowed and through that I gained proficiency in English to some extent.
Okinawa Foreign Language School was located in Taba in Gushikawa at the time. I took the entrance exam and passed. I attended Okinawa Foreign Language School for about half a year, then I attended the University of the Ryukyus thereafter. Prior to attending the University of the Ryukyus there was an opening for an English teacher at Kitanakagusuku Junior High School and I was asked to work there as an English teacher. I was 20 or 21 years old at the time and I worked there for one year. I knew I didn’t want to remain substitute teacher forever. While I hadn’t studied at all for the university entrance exam, I thought I could pass the entrance exam for the elementary school teacher training program, which I did pass. Since I wasn’t very good at drawing and painting, I didn’t think I would be a good elementary school teacher. I decided to change course and take the university entrance exam again. At the end of the first academic term, I submitted a request for leave and started to study for the entrance exam for the first time. I then managed to gain admission to the regular four-year university program. While I graduated from the University of the Ryukyus’ English department, I felt that if I wanted to learn real, practical English, I had to go to the United States. So I went abroad to the United States to study and majored in accounting.
A message for young people
We engaged in a terrible war. I wondered why we could not find a way to prevent it. However, we had no power to prevent the Battle of Okinawa from occurring. Due to the influence of the militarism of Japan at the time, 115 of my classmates joined the military service and 65 died in the war. In addition, 140,000 Okinawan civilians lost their lives, and that combined with troops and native conscripted laborers made the death toll 240,000. Their names are inscribed on the Cornerstone of Peace at Mabuni. I strongly believe that war brings about tremendous tragedy and must not ever happen again.
Shoutoku Asato worked at the manufacturing and wholesale company for Bireley’s, an American soft drink company, and established Bireley’s Okinawa K.K. upon the reversion of Okinawa to Japan. He has 44 years of experience in management. In 2018, he received Ryukyu Shimpo’s Award for Economic and Trade Achievement award. He is also active as a storyteller and continues to tell the real story of the Battle of Okinawa and the experience of the Student Corps.