| Original caption: “While big brother’s attention is riveted on some object up the road on Okinawa, the little fellow protests against the delay, for all he wants is to get home.” On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, American troops landed on Okinawa and began their 82-day fight to secure the island. For the Allies, capturing Okinawa was a crucial part of their plan to invade mainland Japan. For the Japanese, holding on to Okinawa was crucial to their ability to defend the mainland. And trapped between the 2 opposing forces were the Okinawan people. The battle destroyed about 90 percent of the island’s infrastructure and claimed an estimated 150,000 civilian lives — about half of the island’s total population at the time. The Japanese imperial state largely failed to protect the island’s population from this violence; as a matter of fact, the military showed little mercy towards its own subjects. Accounts of the Imperial Japanese Army’s (IJA) brutality include stories of soldiers using locals as human shields and exposing Okinawans to violent US airstrikes and firing lines. Soldiers forcefully raided homes and shelters for supplies, sometimes killing or savagely beating noncompliant Okinawans. In the face of an impending Allied victory, Japanese soldiers also reportedly compelled civilians to commit mass suicide. This brutality stemmed in part from the prevailing view that Okinawans were not really ‘Japanese’ and hence could not be trusted to serve loyally. Okinawans are indeed distinct from the rest of Japan, linguistically and culturally, having previously been part of the independent Ryukyu Kingdom until its annexation by Japan in 1879. The IJA’s actions towards civilians support the view that Okinawans were 2nd-class citizens in the Japanese Empire at the time. There were also widespread accounts of sexual violence against civilian women during the battle, perpetrated by both Japan and the United States. Steve Robson estimates that at least 10,000 women were raped amid the violence, by both Japanese and US servicemen — most Okinawans aged over 65 today ‘know or have heard of a woman who was raped’ during the battle. Okinawa’s old pain remains little known. The commander of the 6th Marine Division, which fought the entire 3-month campaign, left the island believing that 20,000 civilians had been killed, not 7 or 8 times that number. Few “home front” Americans knew of any civilian deaths at all because war correspondents scarcely mentioned them. The torment of the islanders who bore the brunt of Japanese bigotry – a racial mixture of Chinese, Japanese, and Micronesian ancestry, Okinawans, though Japanese citizens, were mocked and despised as “little brown monkeys” – and of the stupendous American firepower was less forgotten than never acknowledged. Photographed by Marine Corps Technical Sergeant Glen A. Fitzgerald. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1787.jpg |
| Image Size | 851.68 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2360 x 2943 |
| Photographer | Glen A. Fitzgerald |
| Photographer Title | United States Marine Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | May 1, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | |
| State or Province | Okinawa |
| Country | Ryukyus |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-127-GR-99(122422) |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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