Amidst War's Devastation

Months before the U.S. invasion of Okinawa in April. 1945, thousands of civilians evacuated Okinawa with their families to rural areas of mainland Japan. Tamaki Rieko's father, a physician, decided to stay as his duty in the war effort. Among his family of ten only Rieko survived the battle. She writes, "even as the onslaught worsened, Okinawans believed that, if they could just endure a little longer, a huge force of support troops from mainland Japan would be coming to their rescue." Later the family decides to leave the cave-shelter where they'd evacuated and move farther south to avoid advancing U.S. forces. "We heard from the adults speaking in low whispers about what the enemy did to prisoners of war. The 'devil-beast Americans' would slice them up into little pieces, they said. We firmly believed this, which was ... why we had to leave the shelter." Of the battle's end she writes, "How could the war be over, I wondered again, never imagining that it could end with Japan's defeat. After all, we'd been taught that Japan was 'the land of the gods,' and no matter how desperate the situation might be, the kamikaze winds would blow and bring the nation victory

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