The US Fights Overseas

U.S. military forces spread across the globe in various states of preparation. While some military government personnel attended Civil Affairs training schools, many only received training onboard the transport ships heading across the Pacific. Soldiers received training that instructed them to approach the Okinawans with caution and to view them as potential enemies, yet they also were granted the authority to assess their own interactions with the civilians on their own merits. Marines training finalized Okinawan identity and left no room for debate or reconsideration.

“Japanese” Warriors?

Since Okinawan’s integration into the Japanese nation as a prefecture in 1879, the Japanese government embarked on a program of propaganda and indoctrination to ensure loyalty in its new Okinawan subjects. As the Pacific War drew ever closer to the island of Okinawa, the Japanese government mandated that all civilians work for the war cause. The National Mobilization Act committed every resource toward supporting the war effort and every person prepared for war. Young Okinawans rallied to Japan’s cause with innocent fervor unmatched by their elders. The older population did not share the intensity of the children’s enthusiasm, but they still committed to serving the Japanese Empire as its subjects. In a practical manner, adult Okinawans prepared their families for the rough conditions that would result from a battle waged on their land. On the brink of the battle, Okinawans saw Japan as their country and felt compelled to protect it.

Policy into Action

Initial landings and primary encounters with Okinawan civilians required careful vigilance and judicious evaluations of the potential of the population to fight. Exercising caution in order to minimize unnecessary risks to operational secrets and American lives, military government units assigned to Army combat units initially worked under guidance that resulted in intense security measures aimed to firmly control civilian movement. As the battle expanded inland by early summer, however, the possibility of the people acting violently toward the soldiers seemed less likely. Acting under orders that allowed the soldiers to determine the intentions of the civilians upon landing, soldiers, finding a cooperative, obedient population, offered charity and extended goodwill to the Okinawans. Gradually, the military government units assigned to U.S. Army combat units relaxed their strict parameters.

Introduction

This study examines the occupation of Okinawa from the wartime planning stages in late 1944 and early 1945 through to the end of the US Navy’s responsibility for occupation duties in July 1946. In engaging in the historical discourse about the role of race in the Pacific War, two analytical choices drive the structure of this work. First, civilians that ethnically bore more resemblance to the enemy than the invading US forces served as the focal point of American racialized interactions. By examining the contact between a besieged civilian population and the US military rather than the contact between two combatant militaries, the study contests the misleading argument that issues of race in the Pacific War stemmed only from dehumanizing an enemy. A large, mostly docile civilian population complicates the term “enemy” and allows for an exploration of American racism in the Pacific expressed outside of the confines of force-on-force conventional warfare. Second, the environment of combat, central to this historical debate, also features predominantly in my work. The confusion, energy, heightened emotions, delirious exhaustion, life-threatening situations, and trauma of combat pushed the actors involved into dramatic decision making.

Identifying the Enemy

Analyzing the complicated relationship between Okinawa and Japan, U.S. Army planners recognized that they had to gauge the reaction of the Okinawan population to a foreign force invading their land. Assessing the civilian temperament correlated directly to the practical military planning considerations of provisions and security, yet also required the planners to interpret the level of allegiance that the Okinawans felt toward Japan. The Americans, therefore, made determinations about the Okinawans’ identity that influenced the construction of military government policy. The U.S. Army planners who devised military government policy and the commanders and soldiers who executed that policy thus carefully considered practical military matters in their decision-making; however, contemplation of the complex ethnic and political situation in Okinawa as a prefecture of Japan stood as a paramount element of policy construction. The U.S. Army concluded that the actions of the Okinawans could not be accurately predicted. The U.S. Army’s consideration of race and ethnicity produced logically reasoned policies instituted to ensure the success of the combat mission.

No Initiative

Consistent with the Marines’ lack of emphasis during pre-battle preparations on comprehensive planning for the large civilian population, the Marines relegated concerns for the people to the lowest priority. Never wavering in their belief that the Okinawans stood as definitive enemy, the military government units attached to Marine combat units postponed the establishment of functioning refugee camps. Civilians travelled unfettered throughout the battlefield, obstructing both the operational and military government missions. Attacks staged from within the camps by infiltrating Japanese caused the Marines to associate the civilian population with the violent acts and confirm the Marines steadfast belief that the Okinawans meant harm as enemy. As a result, the Marines carried out their military government duties with an element of harshness absent from the Army camps from their very inception.

Benevolent Captors?

Confrontation with the Americans both frightened and confused the Okinawans. Believing in the horrific Japanese propaganda that described the Americans as demonic, sadistic monsters, the civilians attempted to avoid capture. Failing at evasion, the Okinawans discovered to their surprise that the military government camps offered relative safety and access to medical care, fresh clothes, and food. American military government camps and the behavior of U.S. troops offered an opportunity for the Okinawans to redefine their identity in order to capitalize on the favorable conditions. By deliberately aligning their identity either more closely with the Americans or more strictly as Okinawans, and fracturing their association with the Japanese, the civilians found they could also dispel American fears and confusion as well.

The US Navy Period

With the end of the Pacific War, responsibility for military government on Okinawa transferred to the U.S. Navy. American combat troops on Okinawa adjusted their priority from enemy engagement to demobilization, and military government changed its mission from amassing the population to full occupation of a prefecture from a defeated country. Overwhelmed by a large, displaced population who still had urgent needs for basic sustenance and medical treatment, the Navy issued ad hoc directives and did not build strategically toward a defined, long-term goal. Early Navy military government failed to adapt to the new peacetime environment; it did not attempt to rebuild and its assumptions of Okinawan identity remained stagnated in a wartime state. Navy military government struggled so profoundly in completing day to day requirements that any developments toward improvement in the program failed to reach fruition in 1945.

Having a Say

Under the chaotic and insufferable conditions of war, the Okinawans fled their homes and struggled for survival without food, water, or shelter. In their desperate travels, the Okinawans had numerous encounters with the Japanese military, sometimes seeking out the troops for protection. Most encounters, however, ended in violence and brutality. Shaken by the dissonance between the rhetoric of indoctrination and the acts of cruelty that demonstrated an abandonment of the preached ideals of shared nationhood, the Okinawans processed the duplicity of the Japanese by practically pursuing methods to ensure survival and by re-evaluating their own identity. The population began to question their commitment to Japan and their identity as Japanese subjects. The Okinawans actively reconstructed an identity to improve their situation. Through conscious process and interaction with both the Japanese and Americans, they came to a collective identity as Okinawan.

US Marine Discipline

The Marines, like the U.S. Army, conducted intensive intelligence investigations into the cultural background and disposition of the Okinawans. Despite collecting the same data as the U.S. Army and following the same Tenth Army guidance, the Marines stated unequivocally in their military government plans that Okinawans devoted themselves to the Japanese empire as loyal subjects. This erased any ambiguity for the Marines by authoritatively assigning an identity to the Okinawans that predicted a hostile response. The disparity between the conclusions reached by the Marines and the Army about the predicted response of the Okinawans displays the contested nature of the American definition of Okinawan identity and the malleable nature of race and ethnicity. Regardless of specific conclusions reached during cultural examination, scrutiny along lines of ethnicity proved pivotal in mission planning.