COMMUNICATIONS

In June of last year, my English language research paper about a 2016 visit to Hawaii by two men for a commemoration ceremony was published. The two men had been captured by the American military during the Battle of Okinawa and transported to Hawaii. 72 years after their confinement there, the two men returned to Hawaii. During their stay, they visited the site of the Honouliuli POW camp on the island of Oahu where they had been interned in 1945. The commemoration ceremony was held for 12 POWs from Okinawa who passed away during their confinement in 1945. It was supported by the Okinawan relatives of the deceased and other supporters as well as people of Okinawan ancestry residing in Hawaii (Photo 1).

（Photo 1）
Former POWs Saneyoshi Furugen (second from left) and Hikoshin Toguchi (center) listen to an Okinawan folksong performed by 4th generation Okinawan-American Brandon Ing during a visit to the Honouliuli National Historic Site.
Courtesy of Ryukyu Shimpo (7 June 2017)

I was asked by the editors of War Memory and East Asian Conflicts, 1930–1945 to write about my experience of attending the commemoration ceremony as a participant observer. The editors and their colleagues managed to publish the book despite experiencing the full disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the paper, I included a description of the inhumane treatment experienced by some of the detainees, and related what they said about this treatment. It is known that some of the more than 3,000 detainees who were sent from Okinawa to Hawaii were confined completely naked in the hold of a U. S. warship in dark, hot and humid conditions for around two weeks as they were transported to Hawaii. Their detainee comrades referred to these detainees as “the naked group.”

Despite the experiences of these detainees, the commemoration ceremony itself was an uplifting social gathering that included music and dance and was also attended by those of Okinawan descent living in Hawaii today. The former detainees expressed their gratitude to the descendants of Okinawans in Hawaii, who had provided gifts of food and supplies as well as emotional support to the detainees during their confinement so many years ago.

How were these two former detainees able to visit Hawaii after 72 years? One reason is obviously that they were mobilized to fight in the Battle of Okinawa when they were young, aged 16 and 18. In addition, the location of the former POW camp site had been confirmed around 20 years earlier, and development of the site following its designation as a National Historic Site in 2015 had just begun (Photo 2 and Photo 3).The plans for the commemoration ceremony were widely reported by the media in Okinawa and attracted a great deal of interest as “a little-known story of the Battle of Okinawa.” However, it was difficult for the detainees to recall and talk about their wartime experiences after the passage of so much time, and particularly when they were back in the place where those experiences occurred. Our task is to try to understand and be sensitive to their feelings.

(Photo 2)
Honouliuli overview
（photographed by Harry R. Lodge. Courtesy of Hawaii’s Plantation Village）

(Photo 3)
Archaeological field research conducted in preparation for site maintenance.
(Photo by the author, 5 July 2014)