thedrifter
03-19-07, 02:25 PM
March 19, 2007
Iwo Jima Journal
Renewed Interest in Japanese Who Died in Epic Battle
By MARTIN FACKLER
IWO JIMA, Japan, March 14 — A breeze carried the scent of salt off sun-speckled waves, and a pod of whales spouted playfully near shore, but it was a prayer of mourning that Yo****aka Shindo directed toward the sand and surf that stretched before him.
This was Invasion Beach, where 62 years ago 61,000 United States marines poured onto this remote volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean in one of the bloodiest and final campaigns of World War II. Mr. Shindo’s grandfather, Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, commanded the badly outnumbered Japanese defenders, most of whom fought to the death.
The blasted concrete bunkers and splintered, rusting machine guns that still litter the island testify to the ferocity of the Battle of Iwo Jima, re-created in two recent movies by the director Clint Eastwood. Now it is a Japanese air base that is usually off-limits to civilians, though once a year a joint American-Japanese ceremony is held to mark the battle. Mr. Shindo said he came to pay respects to his grandfather.
“I can feel he’s still here,” said Mr. Shindo, 49, a member of Japan’s Parliament, one of about 200 people — mostly veterans, family members and officials from both nations — who visited the island. “It’s heart-wrenching that he had to fight, and that his bones are still missing even now.”
Of the 21,925 Japanese who died in action on or near Iwo Jima, the remains of only 8,595 have been recovered and brought back to Japan proper, according to the Association of Iwo Jima, a Japanese veterans group. Most of the rest remain sealed in their collapsed tunnels and bunkers, turning the island into a vast tomb.
By contrast, the United States, which returned Iwo Jima to Japan in 1968, was able to find all but 493 of about 7,000 Americans killed there, according to the Marine Corps. Most of the American missing were from the Navy, suggesting they were either downed pilots or seaman on ships hit by Japanese fire, not fighters lost on the island.
For decades, a defeated Japan put its dead out of mind, dedicating itself to rebirth through economic development. Only a fervent few, mostly veterans and bereaved families, kept their memories alive, visiting the island to pray and search for remains.
Japan’s amnesia underscores the nation’s broader failure to come to terms with the war, something for which it is frequently criticized, especially by Asian neighbors. But Japan is not alone in struggling with how to remember a war that it lost, and those who died in it. During the Vietnam era in the United States, many soldiers came home to indifference and ridicule, and there was an emotional debate over the erection of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
In Japan, the only significant memorials to the Battle of Iwo Jima, which took place in February and March 1945, are on Iwo Jima itself, a fish-shaped island about a third the size of Manhattan that is a two-hour flight south of Tokyo. Some are atop Mt. Suribachi, the dormant volcano at the island’s southern end that was the site of the flag-raising famously depicted in the Joe Rosenthal photograph taken at the time.
During the memorial ceremony, veterans and families from both sides gathered at a stone monument close to Invasion Beach. With the sun beating down, they watched as Mr. Shindo, the commander’s grandson, washed the monument with water and then bowed deeply in prayer, a traditional Shinto ritual.
“Anyone who had that dedication should be honored,” said Thurman Fogarty, 81, a former marine who was among 15 American veterans of the battle at the ceremony. “The Japanese were tough people, tough fighters.”
Of the 1,023 Japanese survivors, only about 20 are alive today, and only one was healthy enough to attend the ceremony, said the veterans association. Over all, the American visitors outnumbered the Japanese by about two to one.
Association members say that is because Americans often know more about the battle, which is barely mentioned in Japanese textbooks. It was not until the release last year of the second of Mr. Eastwood’s movies, “Letters from Iwo Jima,” which showed the battle from the Japanese side, that there was a surge of interest in Japan. The veterans association said it was suddenly flooded with e-mail messages from young Japanese.
“They wanted to know more about how their grandfathers had died,” said Yoshiaki Echigo, an association official whose own father was killed in the battle. “They said their grandmothers had taken what they knew to the grave.”
Mr. Shindo said his mother told him only that he should be proud of his grandfather, who had done “a hard job for his country.” Most of what he knew came from books, and about 80 letters from his grandfather on Iwo Jima that the family keeps.
“When I watched the movie, I felt I had finally met my grandfather,” said Mr. Shindo, who admitted he had been skeptical at first that an American movie could portray the Japanese fairly. “That movie changed my view of Hollywood.”
In the movie, Mr. Shindo’s grandfather, played by the Japanese actor Ken Watanabe, is buried in an unmarked grave by a loyal enlisted man. Mr. Shindo said he believed that his grandfather’s remains were still on the island, but that it was possible they had already been found. Only 78 sets of Japanese remains have been identified.
The veterans group still searches for remains. But with time, the collapsed bunkers and tunnels are harder to locate, said Tadanori Anshou, an association official who heads the searches.
He said he usually looked for telltale signs, like depressions in the earth or small mounds. Another clue is rusting strands of wire, used to detonate dynamite by Americans destroying Japanese fortifications, often with the Japanese still in them. The most recent search turned up a cave with the remains of 84 people.
Mr. Anshou believes that many of the remains are sealed beneath the island’s 9,000-foot concrete runway, which the Americans hastily built as a base for fighters to escort B-29 strikes on Japan. But an even bigger obstacle, said relatives of the dead, is lack of interest, which would press the government to finance more extensive searches.
“Maybe the movie will change priorities here,” said Yasunori Nishi, whose father died on the island. “It’s very painful that so many dead are still sleeping on this island.”
Ellie
Iwo Jima Journal
Renewed Interest in Japanese Who Died in Epic Battle
By MARTIN FACKLER
IWO JIMA, Japan, March 14 — A breeze carried the scent of salt off sun-speckled waves, and a pod of whales spouted playfully near shore, but it was a prayer of mourning that Yo****aka Shindo directed toward the sand and surf that stretched before him.
This was Invasion Beach, where 62 years ago 61,000 United States marines poured onto this remote volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean in one of the bloodiest and final campaigns of World War II. Mr. Shindo’s grandfather, Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, commanded the badly outnumbered Japanese defenders, most of whom fought to the death.
The blasted concrete bunkers and splintered, rusting machine guns that still litter the island testify to the ferocity of the Battle of Iwo Jima, re-created in two recent movies by the director Clint Eastwood. Now it is a Japanese air base that is usually off-limits to civilians, though once a year a joint American-Japanese ceremony is held to mark the battle. Mr. Shindo said he came to pay respects to his grandfather.
“I can feel he’s still here,” said Mr. Shindo, 49, a member of Japan’s Parliament, one of about 200 people — mostly veterans, family members and officials from both nations — who visited the island. “It’s heart-wrenching that he had to fight, and that his bones are still missing even now.”
Of the 21,925 Japanese who died in action on or near Iwo Jima, the remains of only 8,595 have been recovered and brought back to Japan proper, according to the Association of Iwo Jima, a Japanese veterans group. Most of the rest remain sealed in their collapsed tunnels and bunkers, turning the island into a vast tomb.
By contrast, the United States, which returned Iwo Jima to Japan in 1968, was able to find all but 493 of about 7,000 Americans killed there, according to the Marine Corps. Most of the American missing were from the Navy, suggesting they were either downed pilots or seaman on ships hit by Japanese fire, not fighters lost on the island.
For decades, a defeated Japan put its dead out of mind, dedicating itself to rebirth through economic development. Only a fervent few, mostly veterans and bereaved families, kept their memories alive, visiting the island to pray and search for remains.
Japan’s amnesia underscores the nation’s broader failure to come to terms with the war, something for which it is frequently criticized, especially by Asian neighbors. But Japan is not alone in struggling with how to remember a war that it lost, and those who died in it. During the Vietnam era in the United States, many soldiers came home to indifference and ridicule, and there was an emotional debate over the erection of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
In Japan, the only significant memorials to the Battle of Iwo Jima, which took place in February and March 1945, are on Iwo Jima itself, a fish-shaped island about a third the size of Manhattan that is a two-hour flight south of Tokyo. Some are atop Mt. Suribachi, the dormant volcano at the island’s southern end that was the site of the flag-raising famously depicted in the Joe Rosenthal photograph taken at the time.
During the memorial ceremony, veterans and families from both sides gathered at a stone monument close to Invasion Beach. With the sun beating down, they watched as Mr. Shindo, the commander’s grandson, washed the monument with water and then bowed deeply in prayer, a traditional Shinto ritual.
“Anyone who had that dedication should be honored,” said Thurman Fogarty, 81, a former marine who was among 15 American veterans of the battle at the ceremony. “The Japanese were tough people, tough fighters.”
Of the 1,023 Japanese survivors, only about 20 are alive today, and only one was healthy enough to attend the ceremony, said the veterans association. Over all, the American visitors outnumbered the Japanese by about two to one.
Association members say that is because Americans often know more about the battle, which is barely mentioned in Japanese textbooks. It was not until the release last year of the second of Mr. Eastwood’s movies, “Letters from Iwo Jima,” which showed the battle from the Japanese side, that there was a surge of interest in Japan. The veterans association said it was suddenly flooded with e-mail messages from young Japanese.
“They wanted to know more about how their grandfathers had died,” said Yoshiaki Echigo, an association official whose own father was killed in the battle. “They said their grandmothers had taken what they knew to the grave.”
Mr. Shindo said his mother told him only that he should be proud of his grandfather, who had done “a hard job for his country.” Most of what he knew came from books, and about 80 letters from his grandfather on Iwo Jima that the family keeps.
“When I watched the movie, I felt I had finally met my grandfather,” said Mr. Shindo, who admitted he had been skeptical at first that an American movie could portray the Japanese fairly. “That movie changed my view of Hollywood.”
In the movie, Mr. Shindo’s grandfather, played by the Japanese actor Ken Watanabe, is buried in an unmarked grave by a loyal enlisted man. Mr. Shindo said he believed that his grandfather’s remains were still on the island, but that it was possible they had already been found. Only 78 sets of Japanese remains have been identified.
The veterans group still searches for remains. But with time, the collapsed bunkers and tunnels are harder to locate, said Tadanori Anshou, an association official who heads the searches.
He said he usually looked for telltale signs, like depressions in the earth or small mounds. Another clue is rusting strands of wire, used to detonate dynamite by Americans destroying Japanese fortifications, often with the Japanese still in them. The most recent search turned up a cave with the remains of 84 people.
Mr. Anshou believes that many of the remains are sealed beneath the island’s 9,000-foot concrete runway, which the Americans hastily built as a base for fighters to escort B-29 strikes on Japan. But an even bigger obstacle, said relatives of the dead, is lack of interest, which would press the government to finance more extensive searches.
“Maybe the movie will change priorities here,” said Yasunori Nishi, whose father died on the island. “It’s very painful that so many dead are still sleeping on this island.”
Ellie