My Post-War Life in Taira
Mr. Tokujiro Shimabukuro
Birth year：1936
Birth place：Nago City
Leaving for my father’s birthplace Okinawa
In the latter half of 1943, I traveled from Tokunoshima in Kagoshima to Motobu Port on a boat called “Kotobukimaru.” The trip took a full day. We decided to move to Oyakawa in Haneji village, my father’s birthplace in Okinawa, because Oyakawa was a good area and produced delicious rice. There were five of us traveling to Okinawa, my parents, my older and younger sister, and me.
Life in Haneji and the Battle of Okinawa
We needed to plant rice to live. Our field was about 3,310 square meters and we planted rice on about 662 square meters of that land. We planted the rice at night. During the day, we had to dig an air-raid shelter. After that, we moved from Oyakawa to Taira village. Since we didn’t have a house, we rented one in a place called “Kinjo Shoten” (Kinjo Shop). We helped out in the store making kamaboko (boiled fish paste) and selling fish. To dig the air-raid shelters, the village split into small groups. There were many air-raid shelters in Taira. There were six air-raid shelters within 1 km of this area. Even so, it wasn’t easy to enter a shelter. If you didn’t evacuate quickly, they would be filled up. So we needed more shelters and worked hard to dig them. There was an air-raid shelter next to the house where we lived. If a little child started crying in the shelter, some people would heartlessly say to cover their mouth. It hadn’t been a year since we moved from Tokunoshima, so the evacuees didn’t know very much about us.
So our family, all five of us, evacuated to a charcoal-making shack in the mountains. We stayed there for a full day, but since the US military had advanced into the mountain, we kept climbing further up and evacuated to several different locations. We thought moving as a group was safer so about five households evacuated together. Some families had as many as ten people. The US army had constantly broadcasted over a loudspeaker, so danger was looming. We all talked it over, and decided to move as one and share our food and supplies with one another. We luckily managed to find a good evacuation site. It was a building that supplied building materials for ships, and it was a fine house with a shed. We were able to work in the shed and were provided food, like rice and sweet potatoes. My father helped tend to the fields and carry tires. We somehow managed to make a living there, and thought there was no place that could be better.
My father is taken away by US soldiers
One time, after a U.S. attack of Mt. Tanodake, a number of U.S. troops passed in front of our evacuation site and three of them made my father stand, searched him, and then took him away. I think this happened in June, 1945.
Refugee life in Okawa, Haneji Village was not easy, so three families joined together once again as refugees living in the mountains. There was no food there, and we ate fermented Sago palms. Japanese silver leaf plants were great and we were accustomed to eating them. We only had a little pork lard, and had no rice or anything else. We salvaged the skin and hooves from a horse and ate it after having the other members of the group cook it. Since the evacuation shelters were simply built, the roof would leak when it rained and we constantly repaired them. One time, some of our older group members who went looking for food were killed by U.S. soldiers scouting the area. We buried their bodies, hiding them under leaves.
My father, who was known to be strong and healthy, was stripped naked and taken prisoner by the US soldiers after a physical check. Both the hardships in continuing to take refuge in the mountains and wanting to know if my father was safe made me decide to head to a village at the foot of the mountain. There, I had some goods stolen.
Meeting my father and labor camp
There were two ladies who were clerks at the labor camp. They told me about a new refugee site and information about my father. A place to live in Mr. Niijima’s house in Kawakami Village was prepared, so they said to leave the mountains. However, others were saying not to leave the mountains because Japanese soldiers would suspect us as spies and kill us. But since we had heard that my father was alive and well inside the camp, we decided to leave the mountain. I ended up living in a nice house that never leaked in the rain. Our family of four, except for my father, lived there. The ladies invited me to go with them to see my father every Saturday, so I went to the labor camp where he was being detained every week.
My father worked as a cook and gave me food when we met. There were so many rice balls at the camp that they had extra, and he also shared sun dried miso, sugar, and salt with us. He also gave me ice cream powder and snacks as well. Compared to life in the mountains, it was like night and day. A barbed wire fence surrounded the camp and surveillance was tight, so I had to be accompanied by two lady clerks when visiting my father. One time, I saw someone who had been killed while holding onto cigarettes and sweets. I felt sorry for him, and when I tried to remove the cloth covering him, I was stopped and told that US soldiers were watching from the watch towers. People who snuck into the camp were often shot dead by US soldiers.
I looked forward to seeing my father working at the labor camp. Compared with evacuating in the mountains, I felt, even as a child, that things were much better now. Those days continued from June to January of the following year. But then my father got malaria. At the time, people died of malaria every day, and bodies were carried away in carts and buried. The bodies of refugees from central and southern Okinawa were buried as well. Since my father had malaria, he was taken out of the camp and into the village. To lower his temperature, we poked a small hole in a well bucket and dripped cold water on his forehead. His fever kept going up, so high that it couldn’t be measured with a thermometer. My father’s body then began to shake violently. Even when two men held him down, he would still bounce them off. In the end, my father died of high fever. After his death, we ended up returning to Taira.
After my father’s death and return to Taira
Life was rough after returning to Taira. We built a simple tent hut. It was especially rough during storms. Our family set up a tent at the entrance of horse stable and lived there. Refugees from Naha and Chatan lived inside the stable. Many refugees were in Taira, and every house had more than one family. All I could think about was food. There was no time to grieve over the loss of my father.
My mother, using her past experience, worked hard to earn money, making boiled fish paste with the fish that she bought, or selling fish. She made every effort to keep her children from starving. When we received an order for tofu, I helped her out. When making boiled fish paste, I turned the fish mashing machine. We lived in the tent hut for two years, after which we rented a house near today’s Haneji Elementary School, where I continued to help my mother. Many orders would come in around the time of traditional events and was a busy time. We would buy fish from fishermen in Higashi even if that meant losing money. We helped her out with making tofu and boiled fish paste. Firewood was also necessary, so we would go to the top of a mountain, where Haneji Dam is today, to gather wood. We did this on days we didn’t have school, once on Saturdays and twice on Sundays. Back then, children in every family had to do this kind of work. Making tofu required good seawater. Gathering seawater was called “shio kumi,” which was the job of us children.
We couldn’t stay in a rented house forever, so we exchanged our first-class land, which was 331 square meters, for third-class 993 square meters of land. The exchange was approved because both plots were rice fields. There we built a thatched-roof house. In order to earn a little more money, we began raising pigs, feeding them the leftovers from our tofu and boiled fish paste. I asked my seniors and they gave me five pigs to raise.
Someone who did laundry work for the U.S. military once brought back some white powder. The container was labeled “baking powder”but the contents were different. We used the powder to bake sata andagi (sweet deep-fried buns), locally called “sato tempura.” For some reason, the sata andagi wouldn’t rise with one serving of the powder, so we added two or three servings, and then something terrible happened. Those who ate the buns with one serving are still alive now. Those who ate the buns with two servings experienced hair loss. Those who ate the buns with three servings died immediately. Their graves are lined up together. They had died from “tempura poisoning.” The same person took some of the sata andagi to the U.S. base, where they worked. The U.S. soldiers who ate the sata andagi also died. His cause of death was “tempura poisoning.” I think the container that was believed to have baking powder in it actually had insecticide or flea powder in it and someone mistakenly used that powder for baking.
The birth of Taira City
Immediately after the war, a personnel supervisory office was set up in Taira. Once an order was issued by the U.S. military with the necessary number of military workers, the office would assign laborers with work. Additionally, the US appointed civilian police, called“CP,”and they confiscated goods from people evacuating to the mountains in order to stop people from leaving for the mountains. Once people stopped leaving for the mountains, leaving Taira at night was prohibited. When we tried to go to a relative’s house, we were told we couldn’t go because it was evening.
The police station and personnel office were in Taira village and city hall was in Oyakawa village. A total of 60,000 people were interned at Taira District, including those in the surrounding villages. totaling about 60,000 people. The population was mostly concentrated in Taira, Haneji village. Since there were rice fields and food, refugees from the south evacuated here. People made thatched-roof houses and began living there after being moved from a civilian camp. Refugees from the south moved into vacant homes, so homeowners could not move back into their own homes. Instead, they had to stay in barns or other vacant locations in other villages. It was a situation where people couldn’t enter their own homes. The refugees said that the food and housing had been provided by the U.S. military, and when the owners of the homes said they wanted their homes and food back, the refugees said they would report it to the CPs or labor office. Some even told the refugees to return at least the Buddhist altar room, or else they would destroy their entire home. In response, the occupants agreed to open up the ichibanza (main room). The buildings in Naha and southern Okinawa had been destroyed from the war, so when the refugees returned home to the south, they took floors and doors with them, causing Taira to be filled with empty houses.
A Message for young people
Never go to war under any circumstances. There are many problems nowadays, and never-ending wars overseas. Children who have nothing to do with these wars continue to die. You must never go to war.
Mr. Tokujiro Shimabukuro served for about 33 years in the Okinawa Prefectural Agricultural Association Union. Since retiring, he served as traffic safety advisor in the community for many years. He received an award from the Okinawa Traffic Safety Association in 2017, and has contributed to the community, serving as deputy editor-in-chief for “Taira Shi,” a written record of the history of the Taira community.
Leaving for my father’s birthplace Okinawa
In the latter half of 1943, I traveled from Tokunoshima in Kagoshima to Motobu Port on a boat called “Kotobukimaru.” The trip took a full day. We decided to move to Oyakawa in Haneji village, my father’s birthplace in Okinawa, because Oyakawa was a good area and produced delicious rice. There were five of us traveling to Okinawa, my parents, my older and younger sister, and me.
Life in Haneji and the Battle of Okinawa
We needed to plant rice to live. Our field was about 3,310 square meters and we planted rice on about 662 square meters of that land. We planted the rice at night. During the day, we had to dig an air-raid shelter. After that, we moved from Oyakawa to Taira village. Since we didn’t have a house, we rented one in a place called “Kinjo Shoten” (Kinjo Shop). We helped out in the store making kamaboko (boiled fish paste) and selling fish. To dig the air-raid shelters, the village split into small groups. There were many air-raid shelters in Taira. There were six air-raid shelters within 1 km of this area. Even so, it wasn’t easy to enter a shelter. If you didn’t evacuate quickly, they would be filled up. So we needed more shelters and worked hard to dig them. There was an air-raid shelter next to the house where we lived. If a little child started crying in the shelter, some people would heartlessly say to cover their mouth. It hadn’t been a year since we moved from Tokunoshima, so the evacuees didn’t know very much about us.
So our family, all five of us, evacuated to a charcoal-making shack in the mountains. We stayed there for a full day, but since the US military had advanced into the mountain, we kept climbing further up and evacuated to several different locations. We thought moving as a group was safer so about five households evacuated together. Some families had as many as ten people. The US army had constantly broadcasted over a loudspeaker, so danger was looming. We all talked it over, and decided to move as one and share our food and supplies with one another. We luckily managed to find a good evacuation site. It was a building that supplied building materials for ships, and it was a fine house with a shed. We were able to work in the shed and were provided food, like rice and sweet potatoes. My father helped tend to the fields and carry tires. We somehow managed to make a living there, and thought there was no place that could be better.
My father is taken away by US soldiers
One time, after a U.S. attack of Mt. Tanodake, a number of U.S. troops passed in front of our evacuation site and three of them made my father stand, searched him, and then took him away. I think this happened in June, 1945.
Refugee life in Okawa, Haneji Village was not easy, so three families joined together once again as refugees living in the mountains. There was no food there, and we ate fermented Sago palms. Japanese silver leaf plants were great and we were accustomed to eating them. We only had a little pork lard, and had no rice or anything else. We salvaged the skin and hooves from a horse and ate it after having the other members of the group cook it. Since the evacuation shelters were simply built, the roof would leak when it rained and we constantly repaired them. One time, some of our older group members who went looking for food were killed by U.S. soldiers scouting the area. We buried their bodies, hiding them under leaves.
My father, who was known to be strong and healthy, was stripped naked and taken prisoner by the US soldiers after a physical check. Both the hardships in continuing to take refuge in the mountains and wanting to know if my father was safe made me decide to head to a village at the foot of the mountain. There, I had some goods stolen.
Meeting my father and labor camp
There were two ladies who were clerks at the labor camp. They told me about a new refugee site and information about my father. A place to live in Mr. Niijima’s house in Kawakami Village was prepared, so they said to leave the mountains. However, others were saying not to leave the mountains because Japanese soldiers would suspect us as spies and kill us. But since we had heard that my father was alive and well inside the camp, we decided to leave the mountain. I ended up living in a nice house that never leaked in the rain. Our family of four, except for my father, lived there. The ladies invited me to go with them to see my father every Saturday, so I went to the labor camp where he was being detained every week.
My father worked as a cook and gave me food when we met. There were so many rice balls at the camp that they had extra, and he also shared sun dried miso, sugar, and salt with us. He also gave me ice cream powder and snacks as well. Compared to life in the mountains, it was like night and day. A barbed wire fence surrounded the camp and surveillance was tight, so I had to be accompanied by two lady clerks when visiting my father. One time, I saw someone who had been killed while holding onto cigarettes and sweets. I felt sorry for him, and when I tried to remove the cloth covering him, I was stopped and told that US soldiers were watching from the watch towers. People who snuck into the camp were often shot dead by US soldiers.
I looked forward to seeing my father working at the labor camp. Compared with evacuating in the mountains, I felt, even as a child, that things were much better now. Those days continued from June to January of the following year. But then my father got malaria. At the time, people died of malaria every day, and bodies were carried away in carts and buried. The bodies of refugees from central and southern Okinawa were buried as well. Since my father had malaria, he was taken out of the camp and into the village. To lower his temperature, we poked a small hole in a well bucket and dripped cold water on his forehead. His fever kept going up, so high that it couldn’t be measured with a thermometer. My father’s body then began to shake violently. Even when two men held him down, he would still bounce them off. In the end, my father died of high fever. After his death, we ended up returning to Taira.
After my father’s death and return to Taira
Life was rough after returning to Taira. We built a simple tent hut. It was especially rough during storms. Our family set up a tent at the entrance of horse stable and lived there. Refugees from Naha and Chatan lived inside the stable. Many refugees were in Taira, and every house had more than one family. All I could think about was food. There was no time to grieve over the loss of my father.
My mother, using her past experience, worked hard to earn money, making boiled fish paste with the fish that she bought, or selling fish. She made every effort to keep her children from starving. When we received an order for tofu, I helped her out. When making boiled fish paste, I turned the fish mashing machine. We lived in the tent hut for two years, after which we rented a house near today’s Haneji Elementary School, where I continued to help my mother. Many orders would come in around the time of traditional events and was a busy time. We would buy fish from fishermen in Higashi even if that meant losing money. We helped her out with making tofu and boiled fish paste. Firewood was also necessary, so we would go to the top of a mountain, where Haneji Dam is today, to gather wood. We did this on days we didn’t have school, once on Saturdays and twice on Sundays. Back then, children in every family had to do this kind of work. Making tofu required good seawater. Gathering seawater was called “shio kumi,” which was the job of us children.
We couldn’t stay in a rented house forever, so we exchanged our first-class land, which was 331 square meters, for third-class 993 square meters of land. The exchange was approved because both plots were rice fields. There we built a thatched-roof house. In order to earn a little more money, we began raising pigs, feeding them the leftovers from our tofu and boiled fish paste. I asked my seniors and they gave me five pigs to raise.
Someone who did laundry work for the U.S. military once brought back some white powder. The container was labeled “baking powder”but the contents were different. We used the powder to bake sata andagi (sweet deep-fried buns), locally called “sato tempura.” For some reason, the sata andagi wouldn’t rise with one serving of the powder, so we added two or three servings, and then something terrible happened. Those who ate the buns with one serving are still alive now. Those who ate the buns with two servings experienced hair loss. Those who ate the buns with three servings died immediately. Their graves are lined up together. They had died from “tempura poisoning.” The same person took some of the sata andagi to the U.S. base, where they worked. The U.S. soldiers who ate the sata andagi also died. His cause of death was “tempura poisoning.” I think the container that was believed to have baking powder in it actually had insecticide or flea powder in it and someone mistakenly used that powder for baking.
The birth of Taira City
Immediately after the war, a personnel supervisory office was set up in Taira. Once an order was issued by the U.S. military with the necessary number of military workers, the office would assign laborers with work. Additionally, the US appointed civilian police, called“CP,”and they confiscated goods from people evacuating to the mountains in order to stop people from leaving for the mountains. Once people stopped leaving for the mountains, leaving Taira at night was prohibited. When we tried to go to a relative’s house, we were told we couldn’t go because it was evening.
The police station and personnel office were in Taira village and city hall was in Oyakawa village. A total of 60,000 people were interned at Taira District, including those in the surrounding villages. totaling about 60,000 people. The population was mostly concentrated in Taira, Haneji village. Since there were rice fields and food, refugees from the south evacuated here. People made thatched-roof houses and began living there after being moved from a civilian camp. Refugees from the south moved into vacant homes, so homeowners could not move back into their own homes. Instead, they had to stay in barns or other vacant locations in other villages. It was a situation where people couldn’t enter their own homes. The refugees said that the food and housing had been provided by the U.S. military, and when the owners of the homes said they wanted their homes and food back, the refugees said they would report it to the CPs or labor office. Some even told the refugees to return at least the Buddhist altar room, or else they would destroy their entire home. In response, the occupants agreed to open up the ichibanza (main room). The buildings in Naha and southern Okinawa had been destroyed from the war, so when the refugees returned home to the south, they took floors and doors with them, causing Taira to be filled with empty houses.
A Message for young people
Never go to war under any circumstances. There are many problems nowadays, and never-ending wars overseas. Children who have nothing to do with these wars continue to die. You must never go to war.
Mr. Tokujiro Shimabukuro served for about 33 years in the Okinawa Prefectural Agricultural Association Union. Since retiring, he served as traffic safety advisor in the community for many years. He received an award from the Okinawa Traffic Safety Association in 2017, and has contributed to the community, serving as deputy editor-in-chief for “Taira Shi,” a written record of the history of the Taira community.