War victims remembered 80 years after US troops landed on Okinawa's main island

War victims remembered 80 years after US troops landed on Okinawa's main island

In Japan's southwestern prefecture of Okinawa, American troops landed on its main island on April 1, 1945 toward the end of World War Two. Eighty years since, people in Yomitan village where US soldiers landed observed a moment of silence to remember war victims.

On the 1st, FM Yomitan (President Asaji Nakasone) broadcast a special program live from Toguchi Beach in Yomitan Village, Okinawa Prefecture, where the U.S. military landed 80 years ago. Akari Shinjo (17), a third-year student at Yomitan High School, appeared on the program and performed the Okinawan folk song "Kanpo Nukue - Zankosa," which expresses the sadness of losing family members in the war and the hope for peace, on the sanshin.

U.S troops land on Okinawa

On April 1, 1945, after losing 116 planes and damaging three aircraft carriers, 50,000 U.S. combat troops, led by Lieutenant General Simon B. Buckner Jr., landed on the southwest coast of Okinawa, a Japanese island located 350 miles south of Kyushu, Japan’s southern main island. The goal was to capture Okinawa as a base for future military operations against mainland Japan. Over 1,300 ships gathered to support the landing, successfully bringing …