This is the fifth and final entry in a series on the Himeyuri Student Corps and related war sites on Okinawa.

My trip through southern Okinawa to visit the Himeyuri-related caves and tunnels ended not in a dark hole in the ground, but on sunny cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean and a small memorial for the place where the Himeyuri fell like flowers.¹

It’s at a point well past the paved roads down a deeply rutted dirt path surrounded by bare fields. Driving until I was worried that my care would bottom out I pulled off onto a patch of dirt at the tree line and walked the rest of the way to the bus stop that acts as a marker heading toward the memorial. A thickly grown wall of trees with a small trail running through it led to a tiny gap teasing a glimpse of sparking blue. Breaking through that hole in foliage the roar of the ocean and the sight of endless blue sky and sea opened up before me as I stood at a broad cliff of Ryukyuan limestone. The uneven grey-beige expanse was lightly carpeted with green scruff and small white flowers.

Other southern beach views are from the waterline or at the Peace Park’s well-delineated hand-railed paths. Here I could walk freely on the natural cliffs themselves dozens of meters over the sea with a commanding view of the jagged shoreline with its craggy faces, numerous pits, caves and overhangs. A straight line as if a knife had lanced side-long through them, thinly cuts through the cliffs. Moving along I kept stopping to observe the coastline and how shifting perspective gave different ways to appreciate the same pieces of land and sea.

Waves crashed hard into the more distant cliffs toward Cape Arasaki but here they seemed to lap pleasantly against the coast. The water itself, like everywhere else in Okinawa was clear on top, yet beneath it was a blue-green filter over the tan sand beneath. Listening to the ocean and watching it shimmer for a little bit was rather soothing.

Except for a resting bird, I was alone.

The memorial wasn’t far; I could see the reflection of the placard mounted to the rock. There was a slight trace path of bare limestone leading to a set of man-made steps and the occasional patch of cement to keep walkers going the right way and giving them some degree of sure footing. The limestone is basically made of dull razor blades, so not something you want to fall on and there’s not enough green to cushion any fall.

In the distance is Mabubi Hill, where the battle came to an end.

The memorial is a simple set of placards and an altar set at an outcropping of rocks. Like with other memorials you can leave coin money and often you’ll find a water bottle. I’d used my last water bottle at the First Surgical Cave, so left a pack of Morinaga milk caramels. I’ve seen beer and cigarettes left at navy memorials in Sasebo, so milk caramels seemed appropriate for a group of girls.

After the Himeyuri students were turned loose with the Jun. 18 disbandment many fled south along with civilian refugees and soldiers trying to outrun the encircling Americans which were moving in on the last organized Japanese defenses.

16-year old Kaneshiro Kikuko was among a group of students and teachers that had escaped from the Ihara First Surgical Cave. They’d lost classmates and teachers along the way to a tank attack, had been attacked by aircraft and were slowly making their way to the beach ahead of advancing American armor and flamethrowers.

There were already many people along the shore, all within sight of the American armada which didn’t fire upon them. Earlier in their journey south they’d once tried getting it over with quickly by standing up and moving openly within sight of American troops, but like the big ships now they held their fire as well.

A small American motor boat came close to the shore and through a loudspeaker the American urged the Japanese on the shoreline to swim out to them, promising to save them. If they couldn’t swim, then walk to Minatogawa only during the daylight. They ignored it because the devils were lying. Every Japanese knew that the Americans were merciless, that they would kill all the men, shame the women (I’m sure you can figure out what that means), run them over with tanks and possibly eat them.

The Himeyuri climbed up the rough limestone cliffs, but had to stop midway because flamethrowers were being used at the top. Clinging to the side of the cliffs halfway between a fiery death above or a watery one below, even the already wounded managed to hold on until night fell and they could safely pull themselves over the top.

It was the night of Jun. 20. They had been at war, under constant attack or threat of attack since Apr. 1, malnourished, sick, infested with bugs, wounded and now where out of places to run. They had two hand grenades to commit suicide with and here seemed to be the place to do it, several girls implored one of their teachers to let them so they could all die together.

The moon was nearly full² and under its light a few of them began singing Furusato, their favorite folk song whose nostalgic lyrics about an idyllic life in a peaceful country town had girls sobbing. Finally one of them said something they’d all kept bottled up for months.

“I want to see my mother.”

It set off cries of the same from the rest of the group and momentarily ignoring the war they all began to weep.

As morning came the students holed up in and around a small cave atop the cliff. Kikuko and one of the teachers each held onto a grenade, if attacked they would throw themselves into the group of classmates and blow everyone up together.

The Americans still hadn’t attacked, neither by air nor sea and the morning was eerily quiet.

A small boat just offshore again implored the Japanese huddled along the cliffs to swim out to them. A Japanese soldier on the shore decided he’d had enough and waded into the water, only to be shot in the back by another Japanese soldier for his treasonous action.

Suddenly a Japanese soldier jumped down beside the girls, he’d just attacked the Americans and was being pursued. A voice called “come out, come out” in strangely accented Japanese, and then the Americans came in guns blazing at point blank range, killing the soldier and hitting several students. Three of her classmates were killed and their bodies fell on Kikuko, shielding her from being shot herself. They stopped when they realized they were shooting girls. That’s when the teacher set off his grenade, blowing up himself and the group of students in the cave, just like he said they would the night before.

A surviving teacher carrying a wounded student gave up and another Himeyuri told Kikuko to put her grenade down. She moved to do so, unsure if she should pull the pin (Japanese grenades are set off by smacking the fuse on the ground and pulling the safety pin) or not when an American soldier reached out and took the grenade, and the decision, from her.

In total 13 Himeyuri student nurses and teacher, and a Shiraume student nurse³ died at this spot to gunfire and grenade suicide.

Outside the cave she saw another incomprehensible sight; three of the wounded girls were being tended by American medics. One of them was having trouble finding a vein in an emaciated girl’s thin arm until he was assisted by a senior Himeyuri student nurse doing what she’d been trained to do. They weren’t devils like she’d believed they were and those men in the boats begging them to swim to safety hadn’t been lying.

For the last Himeyuri students standing at Arasaki Beach their war was finally over. It was the morning of Jun. 21; the battle officially ended the following day.⁴⁵

At the beginning of the battle 222 students and 18 teachers had been brought in to serve the Okinawa Army Hospital, 136 of them died during the battle.

As the girls on Arasaki Beach cliffs spent what would be their last night together crying and singing one of them had said that she just wanted to walk freely under a blue sky without bombs dropping around. So it felt appropriate that my trip to see where she and her classmates had lived and died would also end on those cliffs but under a peaceful clear blue sky.

ADDRESS
Himeyuri Arasaki Beach Memorial (ひめゆり学徒隊散華の跡)
The bus stop nearest the trail is at: 26.077608, 127.681300 or 26°04’39.4″N 127°40’52.7″E

¹ This isn’t hyperbole. The memorial’s name translates to something like “ruins of a place where the Himeyuri fell like flowers.”

² https://www.moongiant.com/phase/6/20/1945

³On the memorial stone it lists one of the deceased as having come from the Okinawa Second Girls’ High School, who’s students were the Shiraume Gakutotai.  It also lists two more teachers as having died “nearby.” It’s also worth noting two “students” were actually graduates that had come back to the school and voluntarily joined the group as nurses.

⁴ This story is a paraphrased and condensed version of the testimony of Kaneshiro Kikuko (now Miyagi Kikuko), as recounted in the both guidebook and more thoroughly in Japan at War: An Oral History by Haruko Taya Cook & Theodore F. Cook. If you’re interested in this story you should really read her full account in Japan at War, this simplified version is practically sanitized compared to it. The book account also differs slightly from the version in the guidebook but I think it comes down to differences in translation and retelling the same story at different times. She made a biography using her wartime diary Himeyuri no Shojo: Ju Roku-Sai no Senjo (Himeyuri Girl: 16 Year Old’s Battlefield), though sadly it is only in Japanese. Thank you to my wife and friends for helping me understand this story in that book.

⁵ This is when Gen. Ushijima committed seppuku and organized fighting ended with the annihilation of Japanese forces on Mabuni Hill, though pockets of resistance continued fighting until war’s end.