Last Souvenir

The last great battle of the Second World War was fought on the island of Okinawa; situated about three-hundred miles south-west of the Japanese mainland it is bordered by the China Sea on the west and the vast Pacific Ocean to the east. On a map, the island resembles a large pod full of irregular peas, lying at an angle pointing north-east. The Allied forces had been battling the Japanese Empire in the Pacific War since 1941, flattening island after island for three and a half years. Now, it was Okinawa''s turn. The Japanese engineers had scarred the paradise by building three major airfields, affording a tempting morsel for the American juggernaut and a strategic entry point to Japan itself. On 1 April 1945, ironically April Fool''s Day and Easter Sunday, the invasion of Okinawa began. Thousands of warships and aircraft appeared, dumping tons of high explosives on the pristine little island. Tens of thousands of American infantrymen stormed their beaches. Within the flick of an eyelash the quaint little villages were reduced to rubble. The beautiful fields of rice and sugar cane looked as though a giant heavenly shotgun had blasted them into a quagmire of mud and broken debris. Many of the riflemen who survived the flames of combat in the south were sent north and allowed to mingle with these gracious people, This story belongs to them.