Himeuri War Memorial

Near the end of the war Japan had already lost Okinawa prepared for invasion. Girls as young as 15 were conscripted to train fight and nurse. The Japanese army retreated to a series of caves in the southern part of the island. Hollowed out through the limestone by millenia of dripping water they honeyconbed the limestone coral. Out of slightly more than 200 girls only ten survived. One out of every four inhabitants of Okinawa died: 60,000 Japanese, a few thousand Allies; mostly innocent Okinawan civilians. Herded into an ever decreasing and ever shelled area they were indiscriminantly slaughtered by naval artillery and ground forces shells including the use of flame throwers to roast the cowering wounded and their nurses. So many wasted deaths for a war that already lost. Something that needs to be remembered by the old men who decide that war is the only option. P.