NAHA--Okinawa Prefecture on June 23 marked its 78th Memorial Day to honor the victims of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

By the end of the fighting in 1945, more than 200,000 people lay dead, including a quarter of the island’s residents.

Around 4,000 people gathered in the Peace Memorial Park in Itoman for the ceremony, where mourners presented flowers to honor the souls of those on both sides of the battle who perished in the fighting.

It was the first time in four years for the ceremony to be held on the same scale as in pre-pandemic years.

In his peace declaration, Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki referred to three key national security policy documents that the Cabinet approved at the end of last year to substantially beef up the nation’s defense capability, centering on Okinawa and outlying islands.

“Combined with the memory of the ferocious ground battle (the enhancement of the defense capability in Okinawa) has greatly perturbed the residents of Okinawa Prefecture,” Tamaki said. “This situation calls for peaceful diplomacy through dialogue.”

In his speech, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said, “Our country is in the most severe and complex security environment since the end of the war, but we will achieve a society where everyone in the world can live in peace and contentment.”

Okinawans regard June 23 as the day when organized fighting by the imperial Japanese military finally ended.

Mourners started arriving at the park from early morning to pray at the “Heiwa no Ishiji” Cornerstone of Peace monuments, upon which the names of the victims, Japanese and American, are inscribed.

Security was tight. Metal detectors were in place to screen visitors because of a pipe bomb scare that targeted Kishida in April along with the fatal shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the city of Nara in July 2022.

During the ceremony, a “poem of peace” written by an elementary, junior high or high school student in the prefecture is always read out.

This year, Aki Heianna, a 17-year-old third-grader at Tsukuba Kaisei High School in Naha read a poem titled “Now, Peace Asks.”

Aki recalled that in the winter of his second year of junior high school he saw for the first time his grandmother, Hatsuko Arakaki, now 88, shed tears.

They were visiting the “Heiwa no Ishiji,” on which the names of around 240,000 victims are inscribed.

Hatsuko said, “This is my older brother’s name,” while gently touching the name Tokio Ikemi that was inscribed on one of the monuments.

Aki saw tears rolling down his grandmother’s cheeks.

Tokio was conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Navy when he was a student at a university in Kyoto.

Aki said it felt like his grandmother was literally touching her older brother when she placed her hand on the name on the monument.

He just watched her cry, not knowing how to comfort her.

Aki, who was born and raised in Okinawa, said the episode brought home the horror of the Battle of Okinawa, which he had learned about through peace education at school.

Moved by his grandmother’s tears, Aki became determined to learn more about the battle.

He started by visiting caves, called “gama” in Okinawan dialect, where Okinawan residents committed mass suicide during the war, and beaches where the American forces landed.

He also listened once again to his grandmother’s reminiscences of the war.

She recounted how she carried her younger brother on her back during a sea crossing while evacuating from Henza island, where her hometown was located.

She also talked about how she couldn’t do anything for injured people on a road begging for help while she was fleeing from American forces.

By learning about the battle, Aki realized, “Even now after all this time, the Battle of Okinawa is still at the forefront of the Okinawa people’s memories.”

He included the word “Now” in the poem’s title “Now, Peace Asks” because of the war raging in Ukraine.

For Aki, Russia’s destruction of the eastern Ukraine city of Bakhmut conjures up the image of Okinawa when it was under attack by U.S. forces. The battle was so ferocious it is often referred to as the “typhoon of steel.”

Aki felt he had to send messages from Okinawa as it marked Memorial Day this year.

That thought spurred him to write the poem.

He concluded the work with the word “chimugukuru,” which in Okinawan dialect means “heart.”

“Okinawan people who are still hurt by the war pray for peace. It’s Okinawa’s chimugukuru,” Aki says.

(This article was written by Satsuki Tanahashi and Taro Ono.)