March in Okinawa For History

Posted by Christopher Eger Oct 8, 2007

General Erich Ludendorf, who took credit for some of the biggest victories and avoided blame for some of the biggest defeats of World War One, wrote a book called "Total War" while in forced retirement in 1935 Nazi Germany. The book foretold that modern war would be one in which the complete mobilization of all resources, including civilians, to the winning of war would be paramount. Less than ten years later, during the Battle of Okinawa, code named "Operation Iceberg.", the US military saw total war. Of the 200,656 people who lost their lives on the scarred island- almost 94,000 were civilians.

It has long been stated in western sources of the battle that the Japanese military preferred suicide not only for its armed members, but for the civilian Japanese citizens they were honor bound to protect.

This has long been ignored in Japan. Huge protests in Okinawa, numbering over 100,000 in attendance, have come about over proposal to include this in the local high school textbooks as fact. To their credit, the protestors are marching to make sure this fact is not taken out, as is being proposed.

Who ever said that the history books are always written by the victors?