By Shun Yoshioka,
The story of a group of young women who were drafted from high school to the front lines of the Battle of Okinawa as Imperial Japanese Army nurses is being told through a traveling exhibition, with the many who tragically died serving as a lesson on the horrors suffered by Japanese civilians in the conflict.
The Himeyuri student corps, or Lily Corps, were a group of 222 students and 18 teachers from the Okinawa First Girls' High School and the Okinawa Female Normal School who were ordered by the Japanese army to serve on the front lines of what is widely considered the bloodiest battle in World War II's Pacific theater.
The Himeyuri Peace Museum in Itoman, a city in Japan's southernmost prefecture, is dedicated to the Himeyuri students. It is currently holding the exhibition until the end of June in the U.S. state of Hawaii, which has close ties with the prefecture that date back to before the war.
Mobilized on March 23, 1945, just a week ahead of the full invasion of American forces, the young women were assigned to a military hospital located inside some 40 caves used as bunkers in the southern part of Okinawa's main island. They were forced to nurse sick and wounded soldiers while under constant bombardment from U.S. forces.
The women, aged 15 to 19, assisted military doctors, surgeons, medics and nurses while also being given perilous tasks such as transporting ammunition, supplies, food and water to the front lines while artillery shells rained down around them. Part of their detail included burying the dead.
As Japan's losses mounted and defeat was clear, the schoolgirl corps was given an abrupt order to disband on June 18, 1945, just five days before the battle ended. The girls suffered mass casualties as they attempted to escape the battlefield.
Of the group, 123 girls and 13 teachers lost their lives, dozens of them even after the dissolution order. Many committed suicide using hand grenades, cyanide or by jumping from cliffs above the ocean.
The total death toll for both Japan and the U.S. in the Battle of Okinawa was over 200,000, including an estimated 94,000 civilians.
Many of the survivors gathered with supporters to open the Himeyuri Peace Museum on June 23, 1989, as a dedication to the student corps and to share their commitment to promoting peace. Panels explain the circumstances in which many of the girls died, and there are testimonials and memoirs from survivors.
As time passes and survivor numbers dwindle, the museum is seeking new ways to keep their stories alive, such as through involvement with local high school students.
One person involved said addressing the Battle of Okinawa is especially crucial now that military tensions in the region ramp up.
There were many comments from locals who visited another "Himeyuri and Hawaii" exhibition held at the University of Hawaii on the island of Oahu in September last year.
Some expressed shock that tiny Okinawa was the location of such a fierce battle. The event was held in a section of the venue hosted by the Hawaii United Okinawa Association and was visited by some 700 people over two days.
A similar event displaying panels about the schoolgirls started in February at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and will continue until the end of this month.
In addition to the history of the student corps, the exhibit details Okinawa's connection with Hawaii, where about 20,000 Okinawans are said to have emigrated before the war.
The panels shed light on Chiyoko Oyadomari, the only Hawaii-born teacher in the student corps who died in the Ihara Third Surgical Cave where the Himeyuri cenotaph now stands, as well as the alumni of student corps members who settled in Hawaii after the war.
Chokei Futenma, 64, director of the museum, said, "It is very significant to hold the exhibition at the site of the attack on Pearl Harbor," adding that he is considering bringing the exhibition to Asian countries such as South Korea and Taiwan, in the future.
The Himeyuri Peace Research Center, which is affiliated with the museum, wanted to further promote the events abroad and chose Hawaii as its first location. The exhibitions were scheduled to begin during the 2021 fiscal year but were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The traveling exhibition will continue to tour University of Hawaii campuses with workshops also held, and in January, 14 local students, teachers, veterans and residents gathered to look at photos of the battle.
June 23 this year will mark the 35th anniversary of the museum's opening and is also Okinawa Memorial Day, the annual holiday observed in Okinawa Prefecture remembering the war dead from the Battle of Okinawa.
In recent years, fewer and fewer people have visited the museum. At its peak in fiscal 1999, the visitors exceeded 1 million, but it plummeted to the 60,000 range during the COVID-19 pandemic. The museum saw a recovery with 370,000 visitors last fiscal year, but it is still far from returning to the previous numbers.
Noriko Koga, 53, curator of the museum, said, "It is important that we know how to convey our message to the generations who have little to do with the war today."
In recent years, interest in the Battle of Okinawa has waned even within the prefecture, prompting the museum to hold its first mobile exhibition in the prefecture in fiscal 2022 in the village of Nakijin and other locations. This year, they chose the remote island of Kumejima as the site for the event, which is being held from the end of May to the end of June.
Working on a trial-and-error basis, the museum renewed the exhibition in 2021, and began holding workshops in 2023 for high school students to pass on lessons about the battle to their peers.
Recently, Japan has been reinforcing the defense capabilities of remote islands in the southwest amid tensions over the Senkaku Islands, a group of Tokyo-controlled uninhabited islets in the East China Sea that China claims and calls Diaoyu.
A conflict over Taiwan, which China views as its own, is also concerning for Japan, given the self-ruled island's proximity to Japan's southwestern islands including those in Okinawa Prefecture.
"Amid the growing concern over a Taiwan contingency, we would like to connect the feelings of the people who experienced the Battle of Okinawa to the people of today," Futenma, the museum director, said.
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