Takamatsu Gushiken includes a head and enters the cave buried in the jungle. He gently spends his fingers through the gravel until two bone pieces appear. He says it is from the skulls, from the infant and perhaps an adult.
It gently puts them in a ceramic rice bowl and requires a moment to imagine how people die 80 years ago when they hid in this cave during one of the most violent World War II fights. His hope is that the dead can reunite with their families.
The remains of about 1400 people found at Akinava are sitting in storage for possible identification with DNA testing. So far, only six have been identified and returned to their families. Volunteer bones and families looking for their loved ones say the government has to do more to help.
Gushiken says bones are silent witnesses Akina's tragedy in wartimetransferring a warning to the present generation, when Japan reduces the cost of defense before tensions with China over territorial disputes and the demands of Beijing to the nearest self -governing island of Taiwan.
Hiro Komae / AP
“The best way to honor the war of the dead is never to allow another war,” Gushiken says. “I worry about the situation with Akina.
An island that does not rest one of the most deadly battles of World War II
April 1, 1945, US troops landed on Okinawa During the impetus for the mainland Japan, the beginning of the battle, which lasted by the end of June and killed about 12,000 Americans and more than 188,000 Japanese, half of their civilian residents are oxidized. Historians say this included students and victims of mass suicides ordered by Japanese military.
The fighting ended on Itaman, where Gushiken and other volunteer cave digging – or “Gamahuya” in their native language – found the remains of what is probably hundreds of people.
Gushiken tries to imagine to be in the cave during the fighting. Where did he hide? What would he feel? He guesses about the age of the victims, let them die from a shot or explosion, and put details about the bones in a small red notebook.
After the war, Okinawa remained under the US occupation until 1972, which is 20 years longer than in most Japan, and remains the major major US military presence To this day. As Japan enjoyed the economic rise of the post -war, economic, educational and social development of Akina's lagging behind.
Gushiken says that when he was a child who grew up in Okina's capital, he would go out for mistakes and found the skulls that are still in the helmets.
Slow search for residues
Almost 80 years after the end of World War II, 1.2 million dead Japanese wars are still unanswered. This is about half of the 2.4 million Japanese, mostly soldiers who died during the Japanese 20th century wars.
Thousands of unspecified bones have been sitting in storage for years, waiting for testing that could help them coincide with the survivors.
Gushiken says that the efforts that fit DNA were too little and too slow.
Hiro Komae / AP
According to 188 140 Japanese who died in the Battle of Akinau, most of their remains were assembled and placed in a national cemetery on the island, the Ministry of Health said. About 1400 residues found in the last decades are sitting in storage. The identification process was painfully slow.
And only in 2003, the Japanese government began comparing DNA after the requests of the dead, but the tests were limited by the residues found with the teeth and artifacts that could provide hints at their identity.
In 2016, Japan passed a law on launching an initiative to promote more DNA coincidence and cooperation with the US Department of Defense. Later, the government expanded the work on civilians and the authorized testing of the limbs.
In total, 1280 remains of Japanese military services were identified in DNA, including six in Okinawa, the Ministry of Health reports. The remains of about 14,000 people are stored in the Ministry of the Ministry for further testing.
Hundreds of US soldiers are left without taking into account. Their remains, as well as the Koreans mobilized by the Japanese during the war, can still be found, Gushiken says.
The location and identification of decades are becoming more complex as families and relatives, memories disappear, artifacts and documents are lost, and the remains are deteriorating, says Naoky thesum, official of the Ministry of Health.
“Progress is slow,” the theme said. “Ideally, we hope not just collect the remains, but also return them to their families.”
The burden of history
Japan conducts an accelerated military increase, sending more troops and weapons to Akinov and its external islands. Many who have bitter memories of the cruelty of the wartime of the Japanese army are considering the current military increase with alertness.
Washington and Tokyo consider a strong military presence in the US as an important swamp against China and North Korea, but many Aquinas have long complained about the noise, pollution, planes and crimes related to US troops.
Today, more than half of the 50,000 US troops are located in Japan in Okinawa, most of US military facilities on a small southern island. Tokyo promised to move the US Marine Corps air station, sitting in a crowded city after long friction, but the oxidized remain angry to a plan that only moves it to the east coast and can use the soil that may contain residues for construction.
Gushiken says that Itaman caves should be protected from development so that young generations can learn about the history of war, and therefore search engines, as it can complete their work.
Like him, some Akinaw said that they are afraid of wartime suffering, forget.
The original Michik died shortly after she married. He wants to apply for DNA comparing to help find it. “It's so sad … If she lived, we could be so good siblings.”
The missing remains show that “the lack of remorse of the government for their responsibility,” Kobashigova says. “I am afraid that people from the oxane will again be involved in the war.”