Japan Ground Self-Defense Force conducts annual large-scale live-fire drills

Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force held its annual live-fire exercises at the foot of Mount Fuji in central Japan on Sunday.
The large-scale drills -- the 67th of their kind -- took place at the GSDF's Higashi-Fuji training area in Shizuoka Prefecture.
They were based on a scenario of a supposed invasion of a remote island. GSDF personnel responded by bombing targets and firing shots from trenches.
Osprey transport aircraft carried members of the GSDF's Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade, whose main missions include recapturing such islands in the event of an invasion.
The Osprey aircraft will be deployed in phases at Saga Airport in the southwestern prefecture of Saga from next month.
Defense equipment was displayed at the site of the exercises, including a newly unveiled launch system for an upgraded surface-to-ship missile. The GSDF says the missile would be used for counterattacks on enemy bases.
GSDF officials say the drills are expected to use 76.6 tons of ammunition worth about 870 million yen, or roughly 6 million dollars. The exercises will conclude on Sunday night.

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Battle of Okinawa remembered 80 years on

People in Japan are marking 80 years since the end of the Battle of Okinawa, a campaign of fierce ground fighting during the closing stages of World War Two. Residents of the islands have been paying tribute to those who lost their lives. A ceremony was held on Monday at the Peace Memorial Park in the city of Itoman, the site of the final fighting. Hundreds of people observed a moment of silence. The head of a group of victims' families, Gabu Seiju, said: "80 years have passed since the horrific Battle of Okinawa came to an end. Our sympathies are with the families who lost loved ones leaving emotional scars so deep that, even now, they still haven't healed. Looking at the world today, we are deeply concerned to see all the countries currently at war. And we pray that each of them is able to achieve peace." Okinawa Governor Tamaki Denny spoke of the importance of passing on the lessons learned. Tamaki said: " Here lie the roots of the people of Okinawa and our enduring desire for peace. It is our mission, as those living in the present, to preserve and pass on the reality and lessons as the "Spirit of Okinawa" to future generations." More than 200,000 people died during the Battle of Okinawa. Okinawa recognizes June 23, 1945, as the day when the now-defunct Japanese Imperial military ended organized combat against US forces in the battle. People have been visiting the park since the early morning to pay their respects. One man said, " War will never end, so I hope people around the world will change their feelings and there will be no more war." A boy who is in sixth grade said: " I'm grateful for peace, and I'm also grateful to be able to come here. I need to remember peace no matter how many years have passed." Accounts of the battle have been passed down from generation to generation based on stories shared by survivors. But people now have few opportunities to listen to them directly.

Japan Times

6 hours ago

• Japan Times

Battle of Okinawa 1945: Memories of fire, flight and loss

The town of Nishihara, at the center of Okinawa Island, lost half of its residents in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa. Yoshiko Goya, 88, who was born in the town's Kohatsu area — the site of fierce fighting between Japanese and U.S. forces during World War II — has never forgotten the days when she desperately tried to flee the ravages of war with her family and relatives. Then age 8, Goya saw her younger sister killed by the bombings right before her. Her other sister, who was a baby, died in her mother's arms while they were trying to get away from the carnage. Nishihara, which was then a village, was at that time an important base that aimed to prevent the U.S. forces from invading Shuri, where the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army's 32nd Army was located. Japanese soldiers were stationed in the village from around August 1944, and many of the residents' homes were used as their living quarters. They included the house of Goya's male relative, Kame Kohatsu, who was then 48. Five or six soldiers stayed in each of the small houses with thatched roofs. They also set up tents under the trees. Due to her young age at the time, Goya is not sure exactly when the soldiers took Kohatsu's house, but she remembers fleeing along with the Kohatsu family around the end of March 1945 when the U.S. military's prelanding air raids grew fierce. They moved south in April when bombings from U.S. warships at Nakagusuku Bay increased. Goya's great-grandmother — Kohatsu's mother — did not go with them. 'Some older people couldn't walk so we had to leave them behind,' Goya said. 'There was nothing we could do about it.' She barely remembers how they got away during the night. They arrived at the Yonagusuku area of the village of Kochinda — currently the town of Yaese — in the southern part of the island, which had been bombed but had suffered less damage than elsewhere. They spent nights in a large house provided by a resident and stayed in a trench in the garden during the daytime. Around late May that year when Japanese soldiers started to arrive, they moved to a small thatched-roof house nearby. Soon after, the large house in which they initially stayed in, which the Japanese soldiers went on to occupy, was bombed and completely destroyed. Goya's 4-year-old sister Fumiko was struck by a log during the explosion, which killed her. It also caused the trench where the family took refuge in to collapse, resulting in Goya's grandmother and Kohatsu's wife, Yoshiko, suffering serious wounds to their legs. Because they could not walk, the rest of the family was forced to leave them behind in a nearby house as they rushed for safety. When they reached the village of Makabe — currently the city of Itoman — in the southernmost part of the island, they saw evacuees everywhere. When they tried to seek refuge at a large house, they found it was already overcrowded, so Goya, her mother, her 3-month-old sister Kazuko and Kohatsu's eldest daughter decided to take shelter in a nearby livestock shed instead. Then a bomb directly hit the house. They never saw Kohatsu again. They thought he was in the house when it was bombed but they couldn't find any trace of him in the aftermath of the explosion. In the ensuing firefight, they gave up on looking for a place to flee to, and, a few days later, they were captured by the U.S. forces. By then, of the seven family members and relatives who fled together to the southern part of the island, only three were still alive — Goya, her mother and Kohatsu's eldest daughter. Kazuko was found dead in her mother's arms. The remains of Goya's grandmother and Kohatsu's wife were discovered lying side-by-side at a house in Yonagusuku, where the family had left them. The house had been burned down to ruins. 'I don't know if they had been burned alive or caught in a fire after they died,' Goya said, with a lump in her throat. The members of the family could not find the remains of Fumiko, whom they had buried at the back of the house. 'She was a bit chubby,' Goya said, fondly recalling her sister. 'She always frolicked in the trench and made everyone laugh.' Her father, who had been called into the local defense corps comprising reservists, survived, but her mother died following the end of the war, after giving birth to another daughter. The baby girl also died soon after. A stone wall that Kohatsu had built around the family home in Nishihara still stands. Every time Goya sees the bullet holes on the wall, she is reminded of the horrors of the war. 'I can't believe we lived through such suffering,' Goya said. 'I don't want my children and grandchildren to go through such an experience.' This section features topics and issues from Okinawa covered by The Okinawa Times, a major newspaper in the prefecture. The original article was published May 30.

Japan Times

2 days ago

• Japan Times

The juicy tale of Saitama's prized yuzu

Here in the Takinoiri district of Moroyama, Saitama Prefecture, the sparsely marked Yuzu no Sanpomichi walkway threads into the forest, passing quiet yuzu groves. The ascending trail, which takes me past half-century-old yuzu trees that cling to treacherous slopes, leads to Katsuragi Kannon, a temple perched 300 meters above sea level. The area was named Katsuragi by Gyoki, a priest of the Nara Period (710-94), who believed the mountain resembled Mount Katsuragi in Yamato Province (present-day Nara Prefecture). The local citrus, known as Katsuragi yuzu, takes its name from this region. In the yuzu groves, aging farmers tend to the thorny trees by hand. Wearing thick gloves and boots to protect herself from the spikes, second-generation Katsuragi yuzu farmer Aiko Ikebe, 78, tells me it's important to thin out the branches properly. 'If you leave them, everything gets tangled and the wind can't pass through,' she says. 'Then the sunlight doesn't reach the inner branches and you start getting dead wood and black specks like you see on oranges.' New shoots appear quickly after each pruning and must be trimmed while they are still soft. Farmers like Ikebe repeat the process up to four times a year, through the scorching summer heat until early October. According to Ikebe, there are about 50 farmers left in Moroyama. Harvesting yuzu is no easy task as it involves dealing with thorny branches. | KIYOMIEN While yuzu is synonymous with Shikoku — the island's Kochi Prefecture accounts for more than half of Japan's overall yuzu production — Moroyama claims to have the country's oldest cultivated yuzu variety with Katsuragi. According to local lore, cultivation began here in the Nara Period, an era that predates the history of Mizuo, a village in Kyoto Prefecture that's traditionally known as the birthplace of yuzu. Such dueling historical claims between towns are nothing new in Japan. Documentary evidence, however, confirms that yuzu cultivation was present by the Edo Period (1603-1868) in Moroyama: An entry in the Shinpen Musashi Fudoki , a historical survey of Musashi Province (present-day Saitama Prefecture) published around 1820, identifies yuzu as a notable product of what is now Moroyama's Takinoiri district. Still, the citrus remained a peripheral crop until the early Showa Era (1926-89), when, as the local tale goes, influential local farmer Ichitaro Kushida gave up raising silkworms to dedicate the family fields to yuzu trees, banking on the fruit's aroma. Seeding ideas By the early 20th century, Moroyama growers were shipping crates of Katsuragi yuzu to Tokyo's Kanda Market. The boom continued until the opening of the Great Seto Bridge in 1988, which connected Japan's main island to Shikoku and allowed Kochi's neatly packaged fruit to be easily transported and distributed across the country. '(Before the bridges were completed), there wasn't any yuzu from Kochi or Tokushima Prefecture. Even if the crop's quality wasn't very high, we could sell our yuzu for a good price,' says Ikebe, whose daughter, Sachiko, 48, returned from Tokyo to join the family's yuzu farming business, Kiyomien, a few years ago. Aiko Ikebe (left) and her daughter Sachiko run Kiyomien, their family's yuzu farming business. | AAROHI NARAIN Yuzu cultivation is an investment that defies the economics of modern citrus farming — a yuzu tree propagated from seed won't bear fruit for nearly two decades. 'Most commercially grown citrus trees are grafted. Nurseries graft scions of desired varieties onto rootstocks, and farmers plant these saplings, which typically bear fruit in three to five years,' says Akari Hiroi, a citrus sommelier with the Ehime Prefecture-based Citrus Sommeliers Association . But yuzu, she says, follows a different rhythm. 'There's a tradition of growing yuzu directly from seeds in some places. That demands extraordinary patience.' Moroyama is one of those rare places. Most Katsuragi yuzu trees are still grown as mishō (plants raised from seed). But sticking to tradition has a downside. Faced with stiff competition from other yuzu-cultivating regions with more productive crops, prices of the whole fruit have slumped. To support aging, labor-starved farmers and keep their surplus fruit from turning into compost, Moroyama has introduced a yuzu ownership scheme : Participants enter into a seasonal contract with a local grower, effectively 'claiming' a tree as their own. In return, they're entitled to harvest the fruit. This arrangement, however, requires flexibility. Growers can't predict yields until late summer, and last year's poor harvest left farmers unable to offer new contracts. To generate more revenue, Ikebe and her daughter have turned to crowdfunding for small-batch projects such as yuzu chocolate and yuzu koshō (pepper), the latter enlisting the expertise of Saga-based condiment specialist Mifukuan . They also let local and international tourists take part in yuzu-picking at Kiyomien during the harvest season, an activity akin to the popular strawberry-picking sessions in places like Yamanashi Prefecture. An aromatic boost The allure of Katsuragi yuzu lies in its aroma, which locals tell me is four times more fragrant than other yuzu varieties. Research backs up their claim. A 2021 analysis by Josai University found that citrus paste from Saitama has nearly four times more limonene — a chemical compound found in the rinds of citrus fruits — than its Kochi-grown counterparts. Kazuki Asahara of Asahara Brewery makes a fragrant yuzu liqueur with Katsuragi yuzu juice and peels. | ASAHARA BREWERY But as ever, the proof is in the pudding. At Asahara Brewery in the town of Ogose, my sip of pure Katsuragi yuzu juice is rich and perfumed, offering aromatic notes and acidic touches. It tastes like an amplified version of other yuzu juices I've tried: deeper, rounder and inflected with spruce, clove and crushed jasmine blossoms. The brewery's tōji (master brewer), Kazuki Asahara, 35, makes 100% Katsuragi yuzushu (yuzu liqueur). He pounds the peel and incorporates it in the liqueur — using only the juice means discarding nearly 90% of the fruit. The beverage conjures up the flavors of bittersweet pith, radiant juice and fragrant skin. Traditionally, yuzushu is made with sake as a base spirit, but Asahara chose to use shōchū (traditional Japanese distilled spirit) instead, a move enabled by the brewery's broad range of production licenses that allow it to make sake, beer, liqueur and sparkling alcoholic beverages. 'Liqueurs are often stored at room temperature, so when using sake as a base, its off-smells can become more noticeable,' he says. Over at U.B.P Brewery , founder Kento Kobayashi, 43, was given a batch of yuzu by Moroyama growers last year. 'The farmers have struggled with marketing it, but it's an amazing product,' he says. The ale brewed with its juice sold out quickly. This summer, a second batch, using only the peels, is on the way. At U.B.P Brewery, visitors can try a refreshing ale brewed with Katsuragi yuzu juice. | AAROHI NARAIN At Tokigawa Brewery , a producer of over 200 yuzu-based soft drinks, owner Toshiro Kobori, 46, retains the citrus' essential oils in his beverages instead of removing them, as most soft drink manufacturers would, for visual appeal. He sells the fizzy drinks to local restaurants in Saitama. 'There's meaning in small producers (like us) crafting products with care,' he says. 'We hold hand-pressing workshops so the next generation can experience what it's like to use a traditional wooden press to make yuzu juice.' From tree to table Katsuragi yuzu isn't just being poured in Saitama, it's also being plated. At 6Hundred Cafe in the town of Tokigawa, five seed-grown trees planted decades ago thrive on the cafe grounds. 'The citrus' aroma is unmistakable — completely different from store-bought yuzu,' says owner Yoshimi Matsuo, 66. Noticing unharvested yuzu around the area, Matsuo began sourcing directly from neighbors. After rounds of experimentation, including simmering yuzu in chai spices and poaching it in wine, Matsuo and his team began incorporating the citrus into their menu, introducing items like French toast with Katsuragi yuzu compote, yuzu black tea, and Basque cheesecake with a subtle yuzu twist. Yoshimi Matsuo, owner of 6Hundred Cafe, shows off his French toast made with Katsuragi yuzu compote. | 6HUNDRED CAFE Meanwhile, for Kenmei Kunitake, 75, owner of Dante, a cheesecake shop in Urawa Ward, it wasn't novelty but nostalgia that drew him to Katsuragi yuzu. Raised in the mountains of Kumamoto, he remembers a towering yuzu tree in his family garden. 'Every year, the tree would be heavy with oversized fruit,' he says. Now his team uses whole Katsuragi yuzu — pulp, peel and all — for marmalade, pound cakes and his signature cheesecake. 'Supporting local agriculture is part of supporting the nation's stability,' he says. 'I want to honor nature's gifts and help slow the decline of rural Japan.'