Surviving families pray for dead at pre-Memorial Day service

Japan Policy & Politics, June 26, 2000

NAHA, Japan, June 22 Kyodo

Some 300 Okinawa people attended a service Thursday evening to pray for family members who died in ground battles between Japanese and U.S. forces in Okinawa during World War II.

The service at the Peace Prayer and Memorial Hall in Itoman in Japan's southernmost island prefecture was held on the eve of Memorial Day, which marks the 55th anniversary of the end of the ground battles. The fighting claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people on the island, mostly civilians.

The participants offered silent prayers and flowers while relatives of the dead chimed the Bell of Peace.

Masato Kodama, president of the Okinawa Association, established by the Okinawa Development Agency, one of the groups hosting the service, said in his speech, "We should never forget that the current, peaceful Okinawa was established upon the great sacrifice of those who died."

On Memorial Day, the Okinawa prefectural government will hold a memorial service at Peace Memorial Park in Itoman, on the southern coast of the island, with Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine and some 5,000 people, including relatives of the war dead, attending, prefectural officials said.

Mori will be the third Japanese prime minister to attend the service, following former prime ministers Toshiki Kaifu and Tomiichi Murayama.

Also scheduled to attend Friday's service, at the invitation of the prefectural government, is Lt. Gen. Earl Hailston, Okinawa Area Coordinator for the U.S. military. He will be the first U.S. military official to attend the annual event.

Machika Kawamitsu, an 18-year-old student at prefectural Miyako High School, will recite a poem she wrote on peace after a silent prayer by participants at noon, and Inamine will then read out a declaration of peace, the prefectural officials said.

June 23 commemorates the end of the main fighting in Okinawa, which came with the defeat of Japanese forces following the April 1945 invasion.

Okinawa was the only part of Japan where land battles occurred during World War II. About one-third of Okinawa's population of 450,000 died during the fighting.

After the war, Okinawa came under the control of the United States and was returned to Japan in 1972.

Okinawa Prefecture, with less than 1% of Japan's total land area, is home to about 75% of the land used by the U.S. military in Japan.

Okinawa will host the summit of the Group of Eight major nations scheduled for July 21-23 in the resort city of Nago. It will be the first summit of major nations hosted by Japan to be held outside Tokyo.