[Reportage] The struggle to identify the remains of Korean victims lost in the Battle of Okinawa

Posted on : 2019-02-17 15:12 KST Modified on : 2019-02-17 15:12 KST
Civic group Gamafuya working to uncover remains of those sacrificed in tragic battle
Takamatsu Gushiken
Takamatsu Gushiken

“This is a piece of skull.”

Exhumation of remains at site of former Ginoza internment camp
Exhumation of remains at site of former Ginoza internment camp

Takamatsu Gushiken, 65, dug up a small fragment of bone on Feb. 15 from one meter down in the earth in Sokei, a district in the central Okinawa Prefecture village of Ginoza. An activist for peace, Gushiken has been a leader since the age of 28 for the civic group Gamafuya. With a name meaning “cave diggers,” the group has been working to exhume the remains of people killed during the Battle of Okinawa.

The exhumation that day was taking place next to a shore with long and beautiful expanses of sand that could easily be used as a beach. Around five minutes of walking through a lush forest of subtropical trees led to the exhumation site. Several broken bricks and tiles bearing the names of the dead had been discovered there. The bricks are believed to have been placed there by family members to mark where a body had been buried.

“Since then, family members have intentionally broken the bricks as a marker when they collected the remains,” Gushiken explained.

“In many cases, the Koreans did not have next of kin, so their remains would have simply been abandoned,” he added.

Gushiken points to broken bricks and tiles bearing the names of people believed to have been killed during the Battle of Okinawa in central Okinawa Prefecture on Feb. 15. (Cho Ki-weon)
Gushiken points to broken bricks and tiles bearing the names of people believed to have been killed during the Battle of Okinawa in central Okinawa Prefecture on Feb. 15. (Cho Ki-weon)
Foolhardy and tragic battle in a bid for time took many Korean and Taiwanese lives

The Battle of Okinawa was a foolhardy, over two-month-long engagement that lasted from April to late June 1945 ahead of Japan’s World War II defeat. Some 200,000 people lost their lives in the needless bid to buy time for a “main island showdown,” including not only Japanese and native Okinawans but also forcibly mobilized Koreans and Taiwanese.

Sokei, the site of the exhumation, was the setting where the US military built a camp at Ginoza to protect Okinawa civilians from the bloodshed of the war.

“The civilians were supposed to be protected by the US military at the camp. But many of them died from lack of food and malaria,” Gushiken explained.

Around 3,000 people appear to have been held at the camp, although exact figures remain unknown. Most of them were Okinawans, but their number may also have included some Koreans.

“The Battle of Okinawa was characterized by a large number of civilian deaths, and difficulties in ascertaining the exact times and places of those deaths,” Gushiken said.

“It isn’t really known where or how people from the Korean Peninsula lost their lives,” he added.

 a peace activist who’s part of a group that has been working to exhume the remains of people killed during the Battle of Okinawa
a peace activist who’s part of a group that has been working to exhume the remains of people killed during the Battle of Okinawa

Over 330,000 believed to have been interned at US civilian camps

Civilian camps like the one at Ginoza remained present throughout Okinawa until 1946. Over 330,000 people, or more than half the island’s population at the time, are believed to have been interned at US civilian camps.

The number of Koreans killed in the Battle of Okinawa is believed to be substantial. A photograph published in a 1945 issue of Life magazine showing headstones in the northern Okinawa town of Motobu included some that clearly belonged to Koreans who had been forced to adopt Japanese names, including “Mando Kanayama” and “Chomo Masamura.” A list of forcibly mobilized Koreans compiled by Japanese historical researcher Yasuto Takeuchi confirmed them to have been civilian workers for the Japanese military.

Lack of means of verifying identity of Korean victims

A remaining issue is the lack of any means of verifying the identity of any Korean remains that are exhumed going ahead. In Apr. 2016, the Japanese government announced plans to actively collect the remains of Japanese citizens who died during the Pacific War through enactment of the Act on Promotion of Collection of Remains of War Dead. But its scope was limited specifically to the remains of Japanese citizens who died in the war. As a result, while Japanese citizens can use their own DNA data and data from the remains to locate their family members’ remains, Koreans cannot. Despite ongoing protests from Korean family members over the issue, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has merely stated that it will “examine the issue if there is an explicit proposal from the South Korean government.” The only case to date of a Korean victim from Okinawa being repatriated was the 1977 return of the remains of Gu Joong-hoe, who was killed by Japanese troops after being accused of espionage.

The exhumation of remains from the Ginoza camp on Feb. 16 was part of a 2019 East Asia Joint Workshop event jointly organized by South Korean, Japanese, and Zainichi Korean citizens. Around 30 Japanese, South Korean, Zainichi Korean, and Taiwanese participants joined in the arduous digging.

“Seventy-four years have passed since the war ended, yet a lot of remains have yet to return to their families,” said Fukiko Okimoto, who has researched the topic of Korean remains in Okinawa for many years.

“There has been no remorse over the war from the Japanese government either,” she added.

In Sept. 2015, the same workshop undertook a “seventieth year homecoming,” repatriating 115 sets of Korean remains that had been kept at a temple on Hokkaido.

 

By Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

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