The Thirty-Second Army was stationed in Okinawa and charged with fighting a war of attrition to delay the expected invasion of Japan as long as possible. Under the cover of a naval bombardment of ...

Aragaki was 2 at the time of the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. His father was killed in the war, and his mother died from undernourishment soon after the war ended. “The names of my parents being ...

Okinawa Memorial Day, observed on June 23, is a day for mourning the victims of the savage ground warfare in the final months of World War II and praying for permanent peace. One in four Okinawans ...

The Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest and costliest of World War II in the Pacific. The United States needed a base to stage an invasion of mainland Japan. The island of Okinawa was the ...

After World War II, when Okinawa was under control of the United States, the local yakuza prospered. But when Okinawa is returned to Japan, the mainland yakuza tries to take over; the local yakuza ...

Okinawa became the bulwark to protect the Japanese mainland toward the end of World War II. After the Americans landed, a violent battle ensued resulting in the loss of over 200,000 lives – many ...

After the war, Okinawa remained under U.S. occupation until 1972, 20 years longer than most of Japan, and it remains host to a major U.S. military presence to this day.

"The best way to honor the war dead is never to allow another war," Gushiken says. "I'm worried about Okinawa's situation now. ... I'm afraid there is a growing risk that Okinawa may become a ...

He carefully places them in a ceramic rice bowl and takes a moment to imagine people dying 80 years ago as they hid in this cave during one of the fiercest battles of World War II. His hope is that ...