WWII’s volunteer search The dead in Japanese caves remains hundreds of people

Takamatsu Gushiken turns on the header and enters the cave buried in Okinawa’s jungle. Gently gently runs his fingers through gravel until two pieces of bones appear. These are from the skull, says, a newborn and possibly adult.

He carefully places them in a ceramic rice bowl and takes a moment to imagine people die 80 years ago as they hid in this cave during one of the world’s fervil. His hope is that dead can be reunited with their families.

The remains of about 1,400 people found the Okinawa set in the warehouse for possible identification with DNA testing. So far, only six were identified and returned to their families. Hunters on volunteer and families looking for their loved ones say the government should do more to help.

Gushiken says bones are silent witnesses Okinawa’s war tragedyLoading the Warning to the current generation as Japan, shave its defense consumption in the face of tensions with China over territorial disputes and the claim of Beijing on the nearby self-governing Islands Taiwan.

“The best way to respect the dead war never allowed another war,” Gushiken says. “Now I’m worried about Okinawa’s situation. … I’m afraid there is a growing risk that Okinawa can become a battlefield again.”

The island was persecuted by one of the deadliest struggles for the World Rate

1. April 1945, American troops landed on Okinawa During their push towards the mainland Japan, the battle starts by the end of June and killed about 12,000 Americans and more than 188,000 Japanese, half of them. Who included students and victims of mass suicides, which ordered the Japanese army, say historians.

The fighting ended in Iton, where Gushiken and other volunteer caves were “gammahuya” in his native language Okinawan – found the remains of what people are probably hundreds.

Gushiken is trying to imagine her in the cave during the fight. Where would you hide? What would you feel? They are guessed about the age of the victims, whether they died with weapons or explosion, and the bone details put in a small red notebook.

After the war, Okinawa remained under US occupation until 1972, 20 years longer than most Japan, and remains hosted by Major American military presence to date. As Japan enjoyed the post-war economic growth, economic, educational and social development of Okinawa lag behind.

Gushiken says when he was a child grew up in the capital of Okinawa, Naha, would come out hunting mistakes and found the skull and still wearing helmets.

Slow search for remains

Almost 80 years after the end of the Second World War, 1.2 million Japanese War of the dead is still inactal. It is about half of 2.4 million Japanese, mostly soldiers, who died during the Japanese early 20th. Century.

Thousands of unidentified bones are sitting in a warehouse for years waiting for testing that could help them suit them with survivors.

Gushiken says that the efforts of the Government of DNA were too small and too slow.

Estimated by 188,140 Japanese killed in the battle in Okinawa, most of their remains were collected and located on the national cemetery on the island, says the Ministry of Health. About 1,400 residues were found in the last decades sitting in the warehouse. The identification process was painful slow.

It was only in 2003. that the Japanese government began a DNA match after the demands of the dead, but the tests were limited to the remains found with teeth and manmese artifacts that can give hints to their identities.

In 2016, Japan issued a law initiative for remains for the promotion of several DNA matching and cooperation with the US Defense Ministry. Naša, the government has expanded the work of civilians and authorized testing on the bones of the limb.

All in all directions, 1,280 remains of the Japanese war, including six on Okinawa, identified DNA tests since 2003. year, the Ministry of Health announced. The remains about 14,000 people are stored in the Ministry of the Emergency for future testing.

Hundreds of US soldiers remain unwise. Their remains, like those of the Koreans who were mobilating the Japanese during the war, maybe they can still be found, says Gushiken.

Locating and identification of other other others became increasingly difficult as families and relatives, memories faded, artifacts and documents are lost, and the remains are worsening, says Tezuk, Officer Ministry of Health.

“Progress is slow everywhere,” Tezuk said. “Ideally hopefully we won’t just collect the remains, but return them to their families.”

The burden of history

Japan performs the acceleration of the military accumulated, sending more hulls and weapons in Okinawa and its outer islands. Many are here who have bitter memories of the brutality of the Japanese army, see the current military accumulation with caution.

Washington and Tokyo saw a strong American military presence as a key bulwark v. China and northern Korea, but many Okinawans have long been regretted in noise, pollution, accident and crime in connection with American troops.

Today, Okinawa is home to more than half of 50,000 American troops stationed in Japan, and mostly American military facilities on the small southern island. Tokyo promised that the US Sea Corps will be a plane station sitting in a crowded city after years of friction, but Okinawans remains angry to a plan that would only move it to the east coast of the island and can use the ground that could use construction residues.

Gushiken says the ITMAN caves should be protected from development so that younger generations can find out about the history of war, and so as to seek it as if it can complete its work.

Like he, some Okinawans say they are afraid that the suffering on war stories forget.

Half Michiko was killed half of the sister Tomoyuki Kobashigawa soon after she married. He wants to apply for DNA to help find her. “It’s so sad … to live, we could be so good brothers and sisters.”

The remains of the missing show the government “lack of remorse over her responsibility in the war,” says Kobashigawa. “I’m afraid the Okinawan people will be intruding into war.”