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7 August 1945

Dad visits an Okinawan cemetery, perhaps adjacent to his tent. No mention of the Hiroshima bomb of the day before, perhaps not yet known to the troops. Nagasaki followed, on August 9, 1945.


Dad’s photo of an Okinawan “turtleback” or kamekobaka tomb with a remarkably well-preserved “Omega-shaped” protective wall to guard the ancestors' qi. The house-like structures on either side are also Haka-style tombs. The wartime use of such tombs as bomb shelters by the Okinawans is movingly told in the novella “Turtleback Tombs” by Oshiro Tatsuhiro (1925-2020) (pub. 1966) available in translation in “Southern Exposure - Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa (Molasky and Rabson, 2000)

Dad’s photo of an Okinawan “turtleback” or kamekobaka tomb with a remarkably well-preserved “Omega-shaped” protective wall to guard the ancestors' qi. The house-like structures on either side are also Haka-style tombs. The wartime use of such tombs as bomb shelters by the Okinawans is movingly told in the novella “Turtleback Tombs” by Oshiro Tatsuhiro (1925-2020) (pub. 1966) available in translation in “Southern Exposure - Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa (Molasky and Rabson, 2000)


An (occupation) Yen for Mary