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“The World is beginning to know Okinawa”: Ota Masahide Reflects on his Life from the Battle of Okinawa to the Struggle for Okinawa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Norimatsu Satoko Oka  and
Masahide Ota
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“Ota-san is the ‘Conscience of Okinawa’,” the manager of a small museum in Shuri said, when I told her I was going to interview former Governor of Okinawa Ota Masahide after leaving the museum. The museum, run by the alumni association of Okinawa Prefectural First Junior High School (now Shuri High School), commemorates their students who perished in the Battle of Okinawa. At the time of the U.S. invasion of Okinawa in late March of 1945, at least 1,787 junior high school boys across the island, mostly from age 14 to 18, were drafted by the Japanese Imperial Army as members of the “Tekketsu Kinnoutai (Blood and Iron Student Corps).” At least 921, more than half of those students, died in the Battle, the bloodiest of the Pacific War, which took over 200,000 lives, half of them local civilians.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 38 , September 2010 , e4
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2010

References

Notes

1 Ota Peace Research Institute, Okinawa kanren shiryo – Okinawa sen oyobi kichi mondai, 2010, p.2

2 ibid.

3 ibid.

4 The morning edition of Ryukyu Shimpo on July 19, 1969 reported that The Wall Street Journal reported the incident in its July 18, 1969 edition. “11 Beigun no dokugasu haibi hakkaku 1969 nen 7 gatsu 19 nichi chokan,” Ryukyu Shimpo, July 24, 2009. Link.

5 Some details of “Operation Red Hat” are available at “Dokugasu iso hajimaru,” January 13, 2009 entry of the blog of Okinawa Prefectural Archives. Link.

6 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, The SACO (Special Action Committee on Okinawa) Final Report, December 2, 1996. Link.

7 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Security Consultative Committee Document, U.S.-Japan Alliance: Transformation and Realignment for the Future, October 29, 2005. Link.

8 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, United States – Japan Roadmap for Realignment Implementation, May 1, 2006. Link.

9 Department of Defense, Operational Requirements and Concept of Operations for MCAS Futenma Relocation, Okinawa, Japan, Final Draft, September 29,1997

10 United States General Accounting Office, Overseas Presence, Issues Involved In Reducing the Impact of U.S. Military Presence on Okinawa, March 2, 1998. Link.

11 “Marines' move to Guam to cost more,” The Japan Times, July 4, 2010. Link.

12 Photo courtesy Ginowan City website. Accessed September 24, 2010. Link.

13 NHK News, broadcast on April 10, 1998

14 Douglas Bandow, “Okinawa: Liberating Washington's East Asian Military Colony.” September 1, 1998. Link.

15 U.S. Pacific Command, Guam Integrated Military Development Plan, July 11, 2006 (The document is downloadable here).

16 U.S. Department of the Navy, Guam and CNMI Military Relocation – Environmental Impact Statement, November 2009. Link.