War-time / Post-war civilian detention Camps
During my brief stay in Okinawa, I became interested in the post-war detention camps established by the US military for the local population. Working with Ramy Habeeb, we interviewed a number of survivors from the camps and recorded their stories.
What makes these stories interesting is the human condition in post-war Okinawa and how traditional culture sustained many of the civilians through their adverse times. Music and song were important features for people re-asserting their identity, and their self-confidence in everyday life. One in four Okinawans perished in the 82-day Battle of Okinawa, along with virtually the entire island's infrastructure and utilities. Many homes were destroyed, most civilians were displaced, starving and suffering malaria. Very few Okinawans survived the war without suffering personal loss of one form or another. In the Keramas, some 700 civilians committed suicide, prompted by the Japanese military who were prepared to sacrifice all in the defense of the islands. Whole families on the islands of Zamami and Tokashiki were wiped out, and that event fifty-eight years ago is still deeply felt by the small local population. Under such conditions it is difficult to keep up a brave face and look to the future; music, song, dance and story-telling played an integral role in helping people through the difficult realities of post-war Okinawa.
With the landing of 173,000 US soldiers, civilians were rounded up and placed into detention camps, both for their own safety and to prevent them from supplying and informing Japanese troops who stubbornly fought to the finish.
A snapshot from October 10, 1945, nearly two months after the end of the war, of the main island of Okinawa shows the twelve main camps that were established to house civilians. Most of the island's population was rounded up and placed into these camps in the months after the war. There were prisoner of war camps also, Yaka, perhaps the best known of these camps was located close to Ishikawa City. From Yaka camp comes the famous Yakabushi, a song about the bitterness of war, its melancholy lyrics coloured with the local Okinawan dialect.
Perhaps the best-known cultural artefact produced in the camps was the Kan kara Shan shin. A banjo type instrument that was made from empty cans of spam, a bedpost and parachute strings. This instrument, called a sanshin, is an integral component of traditional Okinawan song. Other artefacts included the manufacture of drinking glasses from empty coke bottles, and making ashtrays and a range of other articles from shell cartridges and military waste.
Musicians and performing troupes were established to lift people's spirits from the daily grind of their lives in the camps.
The best known of these musicians was Buten Onaha, a dentist by profession, however, after the battle of Okinawa he took to performing and entertaining. His style has been described as satirical, as many of his songs are parodies of the ironies that confronted many Okinawan civilians after the war. Both Ramy and I were very fortunate to interview Buten's pupil, Teruya Rinsuke about Onaha's music and performance style. Some of his more famous songs include;
Mike neko-the three haired cat (refers to a Japanese native cat)- the lyrics sing about cats eating and sleeping all day, while at night they chase females and fight with other males, parodying the daily lives of the many US Marines stationed in the Koza area of Okinawa City. The Hitora (Hitler is pronounced similarly in Japanese/Okinawa) song. Hitora in the local dialect means 'to take' and the song is about taking Belgium, France and Western Europe, again a satire to make people laugh about the calamities of World War Two. It seems through laughter people were able to put the grief of war in the past, and commit themselves to the future. His music was very potent, and his popularity continued through till his death in the 1960's. He was also an avid storyteller, and is often referred to as the 'Charlie Chaplain of Okinawa'.
Working in the camps
"A week before being sent to Ishikawa, males aged between 16 and 45 were rounded up and put in a separate labour camp. We were put into trucks and sent to work, mainly to clean up the debris left from the battle of Okinawa. We were sent into the mountains to collected unused and unexploded shells and ammunition, which we carried down to boats and then dumped out at sea. We did this everyday. The Japanese military had also horded and hidden food in various limestone caves, and we went to these places and collected these rations and bought them back to the camp. We did all of the labour under the armed supervision of US soldiers. It was very dangerous sometimes and people were killed or injured. We also helped get civilians out of the limestone caves, who were still hiding from Americans. There was also the danger of landmines, and when they were spotted, US soldiers would go first firing into the ground, in an effort to detonate the mines.
The food supplies stockpiled by the Japanese military before the US invasion was taken back to Ishikawa camp and distributed among the civilians.
Many old Okinawan homes had survived the battle of Okinawa, and even though most had no rooves, their outer walls remained. The Americans wanted to use the timber in these houses so they sent labour gangs to demolish these old Okinawan houses.
This is very interesting because the Americans didn't know how to demolish these houses. They started by using bulldozers and then afterwards tried to sort through the debris for usable timber.
Okinawan houses are built in a certain manner and many of these labour gangs knew that if they pulled out certain wedges, they could pull the timbers apart very easily. All of the timbers were then transported back to the detention camps and re-cut into two by fours from which new houses were constructed. Many people thought it was a waste of timber, there was an easier way, but this was the way the Americans wanted things done. So houses were built with these two by fours and gradually a city was built. Until then people had been living in tents.
Onaha Buten had worked with these construction crews, putting up new houses in Ishikawa. The US Military asked him to play and teach younger people music and performance. He was given the choice of continuing as a labourer building houses or he could play and entertain people in Ishikawa and also visit other camps and villages nearby. At that time the spirits of many people were very low, having survived the war and now experiencing poverty and hardships. Elders in the community believed there was a need to lift people's spirits through song and music. The elders could see the hardship experienced by people had made them weak. So people began to gather together and play the sanshin, to dance, and this all had a positive impact on people's spirits and made them stronger. And with this recreation people began to show more signs of happiness and were thus able to work at their normal duties a lot better. The US military established a system of civil administration in the camps and a mayor was elected and a director of recreation and entertainment appointed. This would have never occurred under a Japanese administration, who considered recreation and entertainment as non-essential, especially when confronted with the task of rebuilding a community. Buten Onaha was commissioned with the task of providing entertainment in the camp at Ishikawa. And he directed many plays and performances".
military debris. Here a cooking pot is made from an artillery cartridge/shellcase.
Motor Oil Tempura Balls
Okinawans eat a tempura style dough, mixed with sugar. This is deep fried in a similar manner to tempura. Post-war, there was no vegetable oil, only motor oil that black marketers got from the US military. These merchants went around and sold the purple coloured oil per the ladle to eager civilians who really wanted cooking oil. Many civilians deep fried tempura balls in motor oil and ate them. Those who mentioned having eaten these balls had said they were delicious, however, the next day they had chronic diarrhea.
City of Toilets
"Before the US invasion, Ishikawa city was more of a town with a local population of about 1,500 people. After the war, US authorities moved 23,000 civilians into the town, stretching its resources. Virtually the entire city lived in dirt floor tents, and was commonly called tent city. Going to the toilet was very difficult. There were no real facilities, people would just dig a shallow hole, cover it and then place a small twig or a leaf on the sand as a marker for other people not to step there. Soon, you couldn't step anywhere without treading on where someone had dug a hole. In order to address this, the Americans decided to build gigantic toilet facilities. They collected thousands of 50-gallon drums and cut the tops off them, laying them in one long line as far as the eye could see. They would come and clean out the drums every now and again with bulldozers, what they did with the waste...who knows. Sometimes, when I think of Ishikawa City, I think of those long lines of drums, thousands of them, a city of toilets amongst a city of tents".
Finding out about loved ones
As many civilians were impounded in barbed wire camps, and ventured out only during the day to work, it was difficult for people to find out about loved ones outside of their camp. Furthermore, people were relocated to camps far away from their home towns, ensuring that they could not use their knowledge of the local environment to escape or assist in any resistance against the Americans.
One story from an internee at Ishikawa related to how they managed to find out who was still alive amongst the captured prisoners of war.
"We could always tell the Okinawan prisoners of war from the Japanese prisoners of war (POW)….There was a section of the camp that came close to the roadway, which carried truckloads of prisoners of war to Yaka camp. Trucks carrying Japanese prisoners of war were always silent, but you could hear the chattering and talking of Okinawan POWs a long way off before they came close to the boundary of the Ishikawa camp. The Okinawan soldiers wrapped up parcels of tobacco in white paper and threw them over the Ishikawa camp fences when the trucks came close. People would run over and unfold the packages, and on the paper there was usually a name written, and where the person was from. For example, Oshiro Nobu from Ogimi town. The person who had found the package would then tell someone from Ogimi town that this Oshiro was still alive. This is how we found out who was still alive amongst the POWs".
During my brief stay in Okinawa, I became interested in the post-war detention camps established by the US military for the local population. Working with Ramy Habeeb, we interviewed a number of survivors from the camps and recorded their stories.
What makes these stories interesting is the human condition in post-war Okinawa and how traditional culture sustained many of the civilians through their adverse times. Music and song were important features for people re-asserting their identity, and their self-confidence in everyday life. One in four Okinawans perished in the 82-day Battle of Okinawa, along with virtually the entire island's infrastructure and utilities. Many homes were destroyed, most civilians were displaced, starving and suffering malaria. Very few Okinawans survived the war without suffering personal loss of one form or another. In the Keramas, some 700 civilians committed suicide, prompted by the Japanese military who were prepared to sacrifice all in the defense of the islands. Whole families on the islands of Zamami and Tokashiki were wiped out, and that event fifty-eight years ago is still deeply felt by the small local population. Under such conditions it is difficult to keep up a brave face and look to the future; music, song, dance and story-telling played an integral role in helping people through the difficult realities of post-war Okinawa.
With the landing of 173,000 US soldiers, civilians were rounded up and placed into detention camps, both for their own safety and to prevent them from supplying and informing Japanese troops who stubbornly fought to the finish.
A snapshot from October 10, 1945, nearly two months after the end of the war, of the main island of Okinawa shows the twelve main camps that were established to house civilians. Most of the island's population was rounded up and placed into these camps in the months after the war. There were prisoner of war camps also, Yaka, perhaps the best known of these camps was located close to Ishikawa City. From Yaka camp comes the famous Yakabushi, a song about the bitterness of war, its melancholy lyrics coloured with the local Okinawan dialect.
Perhaps the best-known cultural artefact produced in the camps was the Kan kara Shan shin. A banjo type instrument that was made from empty cans of spam, a bedpost and parachute strings. This instrument, called a sanshin, is an integral component of traditional Okinawan song. Other artefacts included the manufacture of drinking glasses from empty coke bottles, and making ashtrays and a range of other articles from shell cartridges and military waste.
Musicians and performing troupes were established to lift people's spirits from the daily grind of their lives in the camps.
The best known of these musicians was Buten Onaha, a dentist by profession, however, after the battle of Okinawa he took to performing and entertaining. His style has been described as satirical, as many of his songs are parodies of the ironies that confronted many Okinawan civilians after the war. Both Ramy and I were very fortunate to interview Buten's pupil, Teruya Rinsuke about Onaha's music and performance style. Some of his more famous songs include;
Mike neko-the three haired cat (refers to a Japanese native cat)- the lyrics sing about cats eating and sleeping all day, while at night they chase females and fight with other males, parodying the daily lives of the many US Marines stationed in the Koza area of Okinawa City. The Hitora (Hitler is pronounced similarly in Japanese/Okinawa) song. Hitora in the local dialect means 'to take' and the song is about taking Belgium, France and Western Europe, again a satire to make people laugh about the calamities of World War Two. It seems through laughter people were able to put the grief of war in the past, and commit themselves to the future. His music was very potent, and his popularity continued through till his death in the 1960's. He was also an avid storyteller, and is often referred to as the 'Charlie Chaplain of Okinawa'.
Working in the camps
"A week before being sent to Ishikawa, males aged between 16 and 45 were rounded up and put in a separate labour camp. We were put into trucks and sent to work, mainly to clean up the debris left from the battle of Okinawa. We were sent into the mountains to collected unused and unexploded shells and ammunition, which we carried down to boats and then dumped out at sea. We did this everyday. The Japanese military had also horded and hidden food in various limestone caves, and we went to these places and collected these rations and bought them back to the camp. We did all of the labour under the armed supervision of US soldiers. It was very dangerous sometimes and people were killed or injured. We also helped get civilians out of the limestone caves, who were still hiding from Americans. There was also the danger of landmines, and when they were spotted, US soldiers would go first firing into the ground, in an effort to detonate the mines.
The food supplies stockpiled by the Japanese military before the US invasion was taken back to Ishikawa camp and distributed among the civilians.
Many old Okinawan homes had survived the battle of Okinawa, and even though most had no rooves, their outer walls remained. The Americans wanted to use the timber in these houses so they sent labour gangs to demolish these old Okinawan houses.
This is very interesting because the Americans didn't know how to demolish these houses. They started by using bulldozers and then afterwards tried to sort through the debris for usable timber.
Okinawan houses are built in a certain manner and many of these labour gangs knew that if they pulled out certain wedges, they could pull the timbers apart very easily. All of the timbers were then transported back to the detention camps and re-cut into two by fours from which new houses were constructed. Many people thought it was a waste of timber, there was an easier way, but this was the way the Americans wanted things done. So houses were built with these two by fours and gradually a city was built. Until then people had been living in tents.
Onaha Buten had worked with these construction crews, putting up new houses in Ishikawa. The US Military asked him to play and teach younger people music and performance. He was given the choice of continuing as a labourer building houses or he could play and entertain people in Ishikawa and also visit other camps and villages nearby. At that time the spirits of many people were very low, having survived the war and now experiencing poverty and hardships. Elders in the community believed there was a need to lift people's spirits through song and music. The elders could see the hardship experienced by people had made them weak. So people began to gather together and play the sanshin, to dance, and this all had a positive impact on people's spirits and made them stronger. And with this recreation people began to show more signs of happiness and were thus able to work at their normal duties a lot better. The US military established a system of civil administration in the camps and a mayor was elected and a director of recreation and entertainment appointed. This would have never occurred under a Japanese administration, who considered recreation and entertainment as non-essential, especially when confronted with the task of rebuilding a community. Buten Onaha was commissioned with the task of providing entertainment in the camp at Ishikawa. And he directed many plays and performances".
military debris. Here a cooking pot is made from an artillery cartridge/shellcase.
Motor Oil Tempura Balls
Okinawans eat a tempura style dough, mixed with sugar. This is deep fried in a similar manner to tempura. Post-war, there was no vegetable oil, only motor oil that black marketers got from the US military. These merchants went around and sold the purple coloured oil per the ladle to eager civilians who really wanted cooking oil. Many civilians deep fried tempura balls in motor oil and ate them. Those who mentioned having eaten these balls had said they were delicious, however, the next day they had chronic diarrhea.
City of Toilets
"Before the US invasion, Ishikawa city was more of a town with a local population of about 1,500 people. After the war, US authorities moved 23,000 civilians into the town, stretching its resources. Virtually the entire city lived in dirt floor tents, and was commonly called tent city. Going to the toilet was very difficult. There were no real facilities, people would just dig a shallow hole, cover it and then place a small twig or a leaf on the sand as a marker for other people not to step there. Soon, you couldn't step anywhere without treading on where someone had dug a hole. In order to address this, the Americans decided to build gigantic toilet facilities. They collected thousands of 50-gallon drums and cut the tops off them, laying them in one long line as far as the eye could see. They would come and clean out the drums every now and again with bulldozers, what they did with the waste...who knows. Sometimes, when I think of Ishikawa City, I think of those long lines of drums, thousands of them, a city of toilets amongst a city of tents".
Finding out about loved ones
As many civilians were impounded in barbed wire camps, and ventured out only during the day to work, it was difficult for people to find out about loved ones outside of their camp. Furthermore, people were relocated to camps far away from their home towns, ensuring that they could not use their knowledge of the local environment to escape or assist in any resistance against the Americans.
One story from an internee at Ishikawa related to how they managed to find out who was still alive amongst the captured prisoners of war.
"We could always tell the Okinawan prisoners of war from the Japanese prisoners of war (POW)….There was a section of the camp that came close to the roadway, which carried truckloads of prisoners of war to Yaka camp. Trucks carrying Japanese prisoners of war were always silent, but you could hear the chattering and talking of Okinawan POWs a long way off before they came close to the boundary of the Ishikawa camp. The Okinawan soldiers wrapped up parcels of tobacco in white paper and threw them over the Ishikawa camp fences when the trucks came close. People would run over and unfold the packages, and on the paper there was usually a name written, and where the person was from. For example, Oshiro Nobu from Ogimi town. The person who had found the package would then tell someone from Ogimi town that this Oshiro was still alive. This is how we found out who was still alive amongst the POWs".