3. ZAMAMI

Zamami Island

Zamami island is part of the Keramas archipelago, a one hour boat ride south ouest of Okinawa Island. Today it’s a beautiful Marine State Park. Located in the middle of a string of islands its calm waters are an ideal shelter for whom would seek a front post in order to attack Okinawa. The islands of Kerama, of which Zamami is the main port, were thus the starting point of the American attack on Okinawa. There is little information on the island concerning the war, apart from a monument dedicated to the victims of 1945 hidden on a hill at the back of the village. Strange, all the same, when one thinks that the population was decimated here by the Japanese Army before the "Marines", the american invasion, landed on the beaches of the island. There is no trace of it found on the island today. It's hard to imagine that the war was ever here.

A detailed paper of Dave Byatt*, a foreign teacher in Zamami who interviewed the survivors of the war, gives a lot of insightful information about these dark events. I’ve summarized it’s content here below:

“In 45 the Japanese Army had 2300 men on the Keramas, building the “suicide boat” bases that were to never be used.... The Japanese Command in Naha believed that the Americans would immediately attack from the south. The Japanese therefore pulled back most of the forces defending the islands surrounding Okinawa Island, leaving skeleton forces on each, most without any supplies at all.... As troop numbers began to drop, anxiety among the local populations of the Keramas was fueled.  This in turn caused the soldiers to panic in fear of their own lives and they employed barbaric means of controlling the populace.... This was to later culminate into the famous massacre of Kume island, when 49 innocent people were executed by Japanese soldiers, some of the victims as young as 2-3 years old, accused of being spies for the enemy and executed before their families.  It had the desired effect and the people of the islands remained docile....

Admiral Turner, commander of over 1400 ships decided that an immediate invasion of the Okinawan mainland was premature. on the 26th March 1945, on the south-western horizon emerged a huge fighting force. Unknown to the American forces, the islands of the Keramas would be essentially undefended.... There were Japanese forces stationed there, but their numbers were less than half of what they once were.  There was also no trained army, but volunteer marines and specialist suicide boat pilots whose morale was all but destroyed in the first bombardment.  The suicide boats American intelligence had reported would never be used, and the bases destroyed before the attacks out of fear the American troops would capture them.  Furthermore, the Japanese had close to no bullets for their rifles as these had all been sent to aid the troops on the Okinawan mainland. The impotence of the troops to stop the attacking planes greatly angered the local people who saw it as a betrayal.... The demoralized Japanese troops had no orders, no supplies and no hopes of reinforcements to defend the islands. They could only rely on the orders given to the Okinawan forces as a whole from the Japanese High Command.  They were to sacrifice their lives in the name of the Emperor - never could they bear the dishonor of being taken prisoner by the enemy.... The troops on each island met with the village Mayor and issued their orders.  In the name of the Emperor and under the ruse that it would make combat easier for the troops, the villagers were all to commit ritual suicide.  The Mayors are then believed to have held village meetings and issued these orders to the people.  Some rebelled, but most followed their trusted leaders to the grave.  The populations of Tokashiki, Zamami, Aka and Geruma went off after sunset, some into the hills, some to caves and some to their family graves, to pay their final debt.... Without weapons, these suicides would not take the form that one would first imagine.  There were no ritual swords or bullets to do the job.  On the mainland of Okinawa many of these suicides took place by locals flinging themselves off cliffs.  In the Keramas these acts took on a more gruesome form. On Tokashiki, where the soldiers could spare them, they passed out grenades, one per family, with the instructions that the youngest, strongest family member would kill their family, and then use the grenade to kill him or herself.  Elsewhere, they did the bloody job by any means they could, by hand, club, sickle, knife blade or razor. What took place those nights on these beautiful islands is a thing of horror that I nor any other outsider could ever imagine.... After bombardment by ships and planes (including the truly formidable 12 inch guns of the battleship USS Arkansas), troops landed on the many beaches of the islands covered by heavy caliber covering fire. The American troops took the Keramas in two days. 

The Americans found those who had fled cowering in the hills along with many Japanese soldiers, something that greatly angered the surviving villagers. The ultimate betrayal: the Japanese troops had declared to the villagers that they would fight to their deaths or commit suicide, but many did not....

Today there remains and will forever remain an invisible division in the communities of the Keramas.  You could live here all your life and never see it, but to the people whose families have lived here for centuries it is very real.  The division is between those whose family gave up their lives, and those who refused.  One side cannot allow themselves to feel anything but pride for the bravery of their kin, the other looks to them in pity, shaking their heads at the awful, needless loss.  This will always be a stain on the pride of the families here, and is the horrible legacy they feel the Japanese brought to the islands. 2 ”

2. Dave Byatt, Small Island Experiences of the War

* Full article in English by Dave Byatt, link on DOCUMENTS and Links page

Keramas Archipelago

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