On 23 June we commemorate one thing every year. It is concerned with Okinawa Islands. It is not at all a happy occasion. It is supposed to be the day when organized fighting by the Japanese on these islands, particularly the Main Island, came to an end in 1945. Japan surrendered two months afterwards.
In the tragic and disastrous fighting, for the Japanese, nearly 100, 000 soldiers and about an equal number of private citizens lost their lives. The dead on the US side was 12, 520. Japan did not try to defend the Islands with any definite plan or objective. It was simply to gain time, the time to fortify the main Honshu and Kyushu Islands against the expected US and the Allied landing. Okinawa had been victimized in that sense. As a matter of fact it is said that the US forces were planning to land Kyushu sometime in November.
It is 73 years since then, and there are still many and large-scale US military bases there on these Islands, most of the US bases in Japan. They are there in accordance with the Japan-US Security Treaty. Why is this necessity? We have to talk about the Korean War to explain why, equally a tragic and disastrous war which began on this very day, 25 June, 1950, and is still casting a long shadow over East Asia. Let me please postpone it till tomorrow to discuss the present-day East Asia.
In the tragic and disastrous fighting, for the Japanese, nearly 100, 000 soldiers and about an equal number of private citizens lost their lives. The dead on the US side was 12, 520. Japan did not try to defend the Islands with any definite plan or objective. It was simply to gain time, the time to fortify the main Honshu and Kyushu Islands against the expected US and the Allied landing. Okinawa had been victimized in that sense. As a matter of fact it is said that the US forces were planning to land Kyushu sometime in November.
It is 73 years since then, and there are still many and large-scale US military bases there on these Islands, most of the US bases in Japan. They are there in accordance with the Japan-US Security Treaty. Why is this necessity? We have to talk about the Korean War to explain why, equally a tragic and disastrous war which began on this very day, 25 June, 1950, and is still casting a long shadow over East Asia. Let me please postpone it till tomorrow to discuss the present-day East Asia.
No comments:
Post a Comment