Bone collectors: searching for WWII remains in Okinawa
Trekking through mud and rocks in Japan's humid Okinawan jungle, Takamatsu Gushiken reached a slope of ground where human remains have lain forgotten since World War II.
The 72-year-old said a brief prayer and lifted a makeshift protective covering, exposing half-buried bones believed to be those of a young Japanese soldier.
"These remains have the right to be returned to their families," said Gushiken, a businessman who has voluntarily searched for the war dead for more than four decades.
The sun-kissed island in southern Japan on Monday marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa.
The three-month carnage, often dubbed the "Typhoon of Steel", killed about 200,000 people, almost half of them local civilians.
Since then, Japan and the United States have become allies, and, according to official estimates, only 2,600 bodies are yet to be recovered.
But residents and long-time volunteers like Gushiken say many more are buried under buildings or farm fields, or hidden in jungles and caves.
Now rocks and soil from southern parts of Okinawa Island, where the bloodiest fighting took place, are being quarried in order to build the foundations for a new US air base.
The plan has sparked anger among Gushiken and others, who say it will disturb the remains of World War II casualties, likely killed by Americans.
And while Okinawa is a popular beach getaway these days, its lush jungles have preserved the scars of combat from March to June 1945, when the US military stormed ashore to advance its final assaults on Imperial Japan.
- Full skeleton -
Walking through meandering forest trails in Itoman district, on the southern end of Okinawa, Gushiken imagined where he would have hidden as a local or a soldier under attack, or where he may have searched if he were an American soldier.
After climbing over moss-covered rocks on a narrow, leafy trail, Gushiken reached a low-lying crevice between bus-size boulders, only big enough to shelter two or three people.
He carefully shifted through the soil strewn with fragmented bones, shirt buttons used by Japanese soldiers, a rusty lid for canned food, and a metal fitting for a gas mask.
At another spot nearby, he and an associate in April found a full skeleton of a possible soldier who appeared to have suffered a blast wound to his face.
And only a few steps from there, green-coloured thigh and shin bones of another person laid among the dried leaves, fallen branches and vines.
"All these people here... their final words were 'mom, mom'," Gushiken said, arguing that society has a responsibility to bring the remains to family tombs.
Gushiken was a 28-year-old scout leader when he was first asked to help search for the war dead, and was shocked to realise there were so many people's remains, in such a vast area.
He didn't think he could bring himself to do it again, but over time he decided he should do his part to reunite family members in death.
- 'Every last one' -
After the war ended, survivors in Okinawa who had been held captive by US forces returned to their wrecked hometowns.
As they desperately tried to restart their lives, the survivors collected dead bodies in mass graves, or buried them individually with no record of their identity.
"They saw their communities completely burned. People couldn't tell where their houses were. Bodies dangled from tree branches," said Mitsuru Matsukawa, 72, from a foundation that helps manage Okinawa Peace Memorial Park. The site includes a national collective cemetery for war dead.
Some young people have joined the efforts to recover remains, like Wataru Ishiyama, a university student in Kyoto who travels often to Okinawa.
The 22-year-old history major is a member of Japan Youth Memorial Association, a group focused on recovering Japanese war remains at home and abroad.
"These people have been waiting in such dark and remote areas for so many decades, so I want to return them to their families -- every last one," he said.
Ishiyama's volunteering has inspired an interest in modern Japan's "national defence and security issues", he said, adding that he was considering a military-related career.
The new US air base is being built on partly reclaimed land in Okinawa's north, while its construction material is being excavated in the south.
"It is a sacrilege to the war dead to dump the land that has absorbed their blood into the sea to build a new military base," Gushiken said.
Jungle areas that may contain World War II remains should be preserved for their historic significance and serve as peace memorials to remind the world of the atrocity of war, he told AFP.
"We are now in a generation when fewer and fewer people can recall the Battle of Okinawa," Gushiken added.
"Now, only bones, the fields and various discovered items will remain to carry on the memories."
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London's secret wartime tunnels set to draw tourists with spy museum and bar
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San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
London's secret wartime tunnels are set to draw tourists with a spy museum and underground bar
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They were designed to shelter up to 8,000 people in a pair of parallel tunnels 16½ feet (5 meters) wide and 1,300 feet (400 meters) long. The tunnels were never used for that purpose; by the time they were finished in 1942 the worst of the Blitz was over, and Underground bosses had opened up subway stations as air raid shelters for Londoners. Instead, the tunnels became a government communications center and a base for the Special Operations Executive, a clandestine unit that sent agents — many of them women — on perilous sabotage missions in Nazi-occupied territory under orders from Prime Minister Winston Churchill to 'set Europe ablaze.' A naval officer named Ian Fleming was a liaison officer to the SOE, and the subterranean HQ may have provided inspiration for the world of secret agent 007 that he went on to create. 'This truly is the Q Branch of James Bond,' said Murray, referring to the thrillers' fictional MI6 quartermaster and gadget-maker. 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Secret wartime history It also will house Britain's Military Intelligence Museum, which is currently tucked away on a military base north of London with limited public access. Museum bosses have agreed to move a collection covering more than 300 years of history to the tunnels, bringing a much higher profile for a story they believe needs to be told. 'It's not targeted at people who already have an interest in military topics,' said the chair of the museum's board of trustees, who gave only his first name, Alistair, because of the museum's connection to Britain's armed forces. 'A heavy theme that will run through the new museum is that there are skills and tools that military intelligence has developed over years and centuries … and the fundamental one is, how do you tell truth from lies?' he said. 'That's a very big theme of now.' The museum also will flesh out the secret story of the Special Operations Executive. The museum's collection contains agent messages, supplies, weapons and sabotage equipment from the SOE's wartime adventures. 'Most of the people that worked in SOE never talked about it, either at the time or afterwards, and many of the records have disappeared,' Alistair said. 'So a lot is known about SOE, but we don't know everything, and the chances are we will never know everything.' A unique attraction For now, the tunnel entrance is through an unmarked door in an alley, and walking the cool, dim corridors brings the thrill of discovering a hidden corner of history. Within the thick steel and concrete walls are chunky old generators and telecoms equipment, a staff canteen with its kitchen still intact, and the bar, its 1960s orange and brown décor giving off retro 'Austin Powers' vibes Here and there are graffiti tags and a few items left by urban explorers who snuck in over the years, including a set of bowling pins with ball, and — incongruously — a bear costume. London Tunnels aims to open in 2028, and to attract up to 4.2 million tourists a year. That may sound ambitious, but Murray says the site's mix of 'history and heritage and novelty' makes it a unique draw. 'If you go home and say, 'I went to this really cool tunnel today,' then we're halfway there,' he said. 'If what's inside of it is even better, you're going to go 'Oh that's fantastic.''
Associated Press
an hour ago
- Associated Press
London's secret wartime tunnels are set to draw tourists with a spy museum and underground bar
LONDON (AP) — There is a history-rich part of London that few people have seen, where the city braced for the Blitz, James Bond's creator got inspiration and secret Cold War messages passed between Washington and Moscow. It's a network of tunnels 100 feet (30 meters) below the streets that was secret for decades — but could be the city's next big tourist destination. Local authorities have approved plans to fill the 90,000 square-foot (8,400 square-meter) site with an intelligence museum, an interactive World War II memorial and one of the world's deepest underground bars. 'It's an amazing space, an amazing city,' said Angus Murray, chief executive of The London Tunnels, as subway trains rattled overhead. 'And I think it tells a wonderful story.' A vast bomb shelter The tunnels lie directly below London Underground's Central Line in the city's Holborn area. Work to dig them began in secret in 1940, when Britain feared invasion by Nazi Germany. They were designed to shelter up to 8,000 people in a pair of parallel tunnels 16½ feet (5 meters) wide and 1,300 feet (400 meters) long. The tunnels were never used for that purpose; by the time they were finished in 1942 the worst of the Blitz was over, and Underground bosses had opened up subway stations as air raid shelters for Londoners. Instead, the tunnels became a government communications center and a base for the Special Operations Executive, a clandestine unit that sent agents — many of them women — on perilous sabotage missions in Nazi-occupied territory under orders from Prime Minister Winston Churchill to 'set Europe ablaze.' A naval officer named Ian Fleming was a liaison officer to the SOE, and the subterranean HQ may have provided inspiration for the world of secret agent 007 that he went on to create. 'This truly is the Q Branch of James Bond,' said Murray, referring to the thrillers' fictional MI6 quartermaster and gadget-maker. After the war, more tunnels were added to the complex and the site became a secure telephone exchange. From the mid-1950s it was a terminus of the first trans-Atlantic undersea telephone cable. After the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in 1962, a 'red telephone' hotline between the Pentagon and the Kremlin was established and ran through here. Up to 200 people worked underground, bound to secrecy but with the compensation of an onsite canteen and bar. For a time, the site also housed a bunker to be used by the government in the event of nuclear war. By the 1980s, technology had moved on and British Telecom moved out. The tunnels lay largely forgotten until BT sold them in 2023 to Murray's private equity-backed group. Plans include a memorial to the more than 40,000 civilians killed by German bombing in the war, cultural exhibitions and a nightspot that Murray boasts will be 'the deepest bar in the world in a city.' Secret wartime history It also will house Britain's Military Intelligence Museum, which is currently tucked away on a military base north of London with limited public access. Museum bosses have agreed to move a collection covering more than 300 years of history to the tunnels, bringing a much higher profile for a story they believe needs to be told. 'It's not targeted at people who already have an interest in military topics,' said the chair of the museum's board of trustees, who gave only his first name, Alistair, because of the museum's connection to Britain's armed forces. 'A heavy theme that will run through the new museum is that there are skills and tools that military intelligence has developed over years and centuries … and the fundamental one is, how do you tell truth from lies?' he said. 'That's a very big theme of now.' The museum also will flesh out the secret story of the Special Operations Executive. The museum's collection contains agent messages, supplies, weapons and sabotage equipment from the SOE's wartime adventures. 'Most of the people that worked in SOE never talked about it, either at the time or afterwards, and many of the records have disappeared,' Alistair said. 'So a lot is known about SOE, but we don't know everything, and the chances are we will never know everything.' A unique attraction For now, the tunnel entrance is through an unmarked door in an alley, and walking the cool, dim corridors brings the thrill of discovering a hidden corner of history. Within the thick steel and concrete walls are chunky old generators and telecoms equipment, a staff canteen with its kitchen still intact, and the bar, its 1960s orange and brown décor giving off retro 'Austin Powers' vibes Here and there are graffiti tags and a few items left by urban explorers who snuck in over the years, including a set of bowling pins with ball, and — incongruously — a bear costume. London Tunnels aims to open in 2028, and to attract up to 4.2 million tourists a year. That may sound ambitious, but Murray says the site's mix of 'history and heritage and novelty' makes it a unique draw. 'If you go home and say, 'I went to this really cool tunnel today,' then we're halfway there,' he said. 'If what's inside of it is even better, you're going to go 'Oh that's fantastic.''
