Myth of Arrival

At the heart of the story of the Himeyuri, what turned this from simply being one more example of courage during terrible times into horror (at least for me), was an order given right before Okinawa fell to the Americans; the order commanding the Nurse Corps to be disbanded. I am sure there are many complex reasons to this I cannot even begin to fathom but the history books show that this had two major consequences; the obvious, of course, being that the two hundred girls that made up the Himeyuri no longer were under the protection of the Imperial Army. This certainly sealed their fates since they were caught between the retreating Japanese and the advancing Americans, but there was another outcome that is harder for me to explain but I suspect just as important; since they were now citizens they no longer could expect to win their family the honor of having their names enshrined at Yasukuni; a Shinto shrine in Tokyo dedicated to the spirits of soldiers who died fighting on behalf of the Emperor of Japan.

I will be the first to admit I grossly uninformed about Japanese culture; I am an outsider looking in. Because I come from a culture in which such an honor would be dubious at best, in the first draft of this script I left out the controversy surrounding Yasukuni. It seemed far too complicated to explain in a ten minute film. However, doing so not only simply illustrates my own ignorance but also ignores a large motivating factor in many of these girls' decisions as to enlist with the Himeyuri in the first place. Patriotism for the Emperor was not limited to Japanese men only; in the oral histories I have read and listened to plenty of the Okinawan girls stated one of their motivations was to be rewarded with a chance for their families to receive such a high honor as enshrinement at this Shinto temple.

Whatever the reasons as to why the Himeyuri were disbanded (and scholars much more knowledgeable than I would need to answer for that) the facts remain that they were; the remaining girls who had survived for so long suddenly found themselves abandoned with an advancing enemy that was shooting, bombing and burning everything in its path.

Notes:

Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru – Highest ranking officer coordinating the southern defense of the island.

Naguri – Okinawan for farewell. It can also mean a memory, a keepsake, remains or a faint trace of one who is no longer there.

Shinshii – Teacher. While the Japanese would say Sensei, this is the Okinawan pronunciation.

[The order from the Imperial Army to retreat from the American advancing army has been issued. cut to: the surviving members of the 3rd Army Surgery Unit gathering around a map trying to come up with a way to get all the Himeyuri, themselves as well as all the wounded under their care safely back before their cave is attacked]

Doctor #1: This can be done, I know it.

Shinshii: This is insane, we have nearly five hundred people – most of which can't even walk – under our care. We don't even have a truck to use! We might as well stay here and let the Americans kill us in the caves.

Doctor #3: Now is not the time to lose heart. The Army will provide for us.

Shinshii: Where have you been all this time? Where is the Army now? Do you think they'll come back for us? We have been abandoned.

Doctor #3: Nonsense, our nurses are being addressed right now by the section chief for our unit. His orders come directly from Ushijima. We shall get out of this alive, you just see.

[cut to: Section Chief talking to the last Himeyuri. The sound of distant enemy artillery fire and bombs can be heard, constantly, coming closer]

Section Chief: Nurses of the Star Lily Corps. You have done heroic acts under constant enemy fire, risking your lives for the glory of the Emperor. For that the Imperial Japanese Army salutes you. You might have heard rumors by now that your surgery unit will fall back with the rest of the Imperial Army. This is not true! What I am about to read to you comes directly from Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima himself; consider this, then, law. “The 3rd Army Surgery Unit is no longer a desirable asset in the defense of Japan. The Unit will now be disbanded and all members ordered to return home. It is regrettable to do so but we must sacrifice everything for the Emperor.”

Kohitsuji [suddenly realizing what this means]: But, but if we're not part of the Imperial Army we can't get into Yasukuni.

Katsuko [sobbing]: No! No! They can't, we will all die …

Section Chief: As a way of parting please sing “Farewell Okinawa.”

[cut to: Himeyuri all singing]

“But it's goodbye now and forever, farewell/ Say goodbye to Okinawa/ Naguri/ Naguri/ Goodbye/ Goodbye …”

Doctor #3: I was mistaken, we really are abandoned … there is no way any of us will make it home now.

Wounded Soldier #4: No! No! Don't leave me behind —

Wounded Soldier #5: This is the end, the end –

[cut to: two officers whispering in the dark of the caves]

Officer #1: The order has been given, then. We must be strong and carry out our mission.

Officer #2: This is too cruel, I cannot believe Ushijima would tell us to do such a thing! There is no honor in this.

Officer#1: Idiot! We are not to question orders, just to execute them. You call yourself an officer? Bah! You know what to do, now do it!

[cut to: Himeyuri, doctors, medics all sleeping on mats together. They will march away in the morning. Even at night the room is full of tense, miserable energy. Shinshii rises, worried and restless]

Shinshii [to himself]: Tomorrow we leave and … what is going to happen? All these girls are going to die and there is nothing I can do.

Katsuko: Shinshii, I am hungry.

[voices in the dark: yes, hungry, we are hungry too]

Shinshii [getting up]: Yes, food will help! I didn't want to say anything because it is suppose to last us on our trip home but a Colonel left us a box of food. He said “use it as soon as possible.”

[suddenly everyone is awake, excited. Cut to: Shinshii dragging a large box into the room]

Shinshii: Everyone, come here! Let us celebrate our leaving with some good food!

[cut to: row after row of hand grenades, enough for each girl. dead silence as everyone realize what this means for them. fade out]

[The next morning in pouring rain. The Himeyuri are gathered outside their cave, waiting to start the long journey home]

Katsuko: I can't find her – where is Kohitsuji-san?

Higa: She's helping Ashitomi-san get ready.

Tira: Where have you been all this time? Ashitomi-san can't even get up! She's been ill for the last week.

Katsuko [stunned]: What? How can that be? How are we going to take her with us?

Higa: Carry her, I guess.

[cut to: interior of the cave. The wounded have yet to be removed. Shinshii and Kohitsuji find Ashitomi slumped in a corner, too weak to even sit up]

Kohitsuji: [panic at seeing her best friend so ill] No, no, no! We have to get you out of here. Shinshii, what are we going to do?

Shinshii: I am going to carry her all the way back home.

[they attempt to get Ashitomi to grab onto Shinshii's back, but she is coughing up blood and can barely raise her head]

Kohitsuji: Ashitomi-san, don't give up please!

[suddenly Ashitomi begins screaming, struggling, sobbing]

Ashitomi: Let me go, I won't go, let me go!

Kohitsuji: Don't say that! You are my best friend!

Ashitomi: Let me die here! Let me die! I can't even move …

[a roar; outside the cave explosions, screams; a soldier rushes in]

Soldier: Shinshii! Run! The enemy has arrived! They are on the other side of the hill! Run!

Kohitsuji [sobbing]: No, my love! I won't leave you!

Ashitomi: Kohitsuji-san?

Kohitsuji: Yes?

Ashitomi: If … if you love me then please, go now.

Kohitsuji: What?

Ashitomi: Hell must be so full … I don't want to bring anyone else. Please, Kohitsuji-san, live.

Shinshii [utterly wretched]: I … see …

Kohitsuji: My friend, my heart …

Ashitomi: I hate this … so much … so much.

Kohitsuji [whimpering, moaning]: Oooooh ….

[they leave as bombs begin falling steadily outside]

Wounded Man [terrified]: They … they left us …

[cut to: the Himeyuri, marching in rain. Kohitsuji and Shinshii defeated, frightened. Bombs begin dropping on either side of the long line of girls. f/x: the sound of gunfire can be heard in the caves they just left]

Kohitsuji: Wh- what is that? Guns? Are the Americans killing them?

Shinshii [softly]: Those aren't American guns.

Kohitsuji: What?! We must go back! Ashitomi-san!

Shinshii: Kohitsuji-san … no.

[cut to: the last remaining doctor, going from body to body, pouring a mixture of milk and cyanide into their bowls]

Doctor: For the Emperor … banzai …

Ashitomi: Hey, don't forget me.

Doctor: No, not you. The Americans won't kill you … you're a girl.

Ashitomi: What the hell does that mean? Am I not to have honor? You stupid men escape and leave me behind? Damn you!

Kohitsuji: Ashitomi, where are you? I have to go back! For all my love I have to go back!

Note on Music Used:

Schubert's “Piano Trio E flat major op.100” arranged and performed on a rainy day in a downtown parking lot by the Armenian cello jam-band Horny Goat Weed (May 10, 2008; Detroit, Michigan) … cellos rule!

A Couple of Notes:

Throughout this movie I have been trying to use only Okinawan phrases and concepts in the dialog. Thus, using the Okinawan term for mother, “Okkaa,” instead of the Japanese,“Okasan,” makes perfect sense to me. However, because 99% of my research comes from books, there are certain phrases I will remain ignorant about until I finally make an Okinawan friend who can correct my mistakes. For example, what would the wounded soldiers call the nurses? I am not sure what the Okinawan word for “Nurse” actually is; plus there are so many other factors to think about. Most of the soldiers are grown men (many Japanese, not Okinawan) all hurt or maimed in some terrible way or other and all requiring deeply personal assistance that they probably have never asked a fourteen year old girl to do before (as a nurse aide myself I have seen the struggle my residents go through just to ask me to do something as personal as wipe them after using the bathroom; never mind if there are social boundaries like age and gender involved).

Finally, I settled on “Wunai” as a good term to use. Its definition is “A sister, either elder or younger, from her brother's point of view” (Sakihaea, 221). If I was slowly rotting from gangrene in a humid cave without pain killers or anyway to keep clean I think I'd consider anyone helping me to be family. However, there is another term closely linked to “Wunai,” which is “Wunai-gami” — which is, “a sister deity, referring to a sister when she is acting in accordance to the traditional belief that she has spiritual powers to protect her brother” (ibid.) Perhaps the closest thing we have in the West is the concept of a Guardian Angel but regardless, since the line is spoken to Kohitsuji by a young man dying of brain fever (a horrific way to die by all accounts; unchecked fevers that literally stripping away one's humanity as the brain rots from within), since she herself was in training to be an onarigami before the war started, his begging to her to play out her role as his divine sister seemed appropriate.

At the end of the film I try to make a point about something I came across in an excellent book by George Feifer, who quotes Shigemi Furukawa as saying: The way of bushido is to die – but in this battle where we and the enemy stand on different dimensions of metal and supplies, it completely loses its meaning. Something is now beginning that has had no precedent in Japanese military: death without meaning.

Ask any Westerner with a professed love of all things Japanese and they might not be able to tell you who the current Prime Minister is but they'll know all about Bushido (since all samurai movies feature at least one Mifune Toshiro wannabe "finding the right place to die" by simply gutting himself like a bluefish on the field of battle). I know the explanations are very complex as to why many Japanese choose to rewrite the Battle of Okinawa in order to cast the Imperial Army in a favorable light (and by doing so negate the atrocities committed against the Okinawans) but I wonder to what extent seeing the defense of Okinawa as a "death without meaning" has been a motivation in this rewriting; especially for people trying to honor ancestors who might not have been very honorable right before they died?

“Amazing Grace” — Let's just say singing in Okinawan is not as easy as I hoped; anyone with a better voice is welcome to submit their version and I will gratefully use it in the film (hint, hint).

Coming up with music for these films has been interesting; sometimes I have been forced to improvise as I went along (that is me mumbling a lullaby in the second film simply because I couldn't find anyone else willing to try to sing in Okinawan … not that I'd call what I am doing “singing” in its pure sense). Still, once in a while I come across a rendition of a song I am so blown away with I think “that's it! If I ever get a budget for this project I want this person to perform on it!” I was blown away by a performance by Natsukawa Rimi singing Amazing Grace in Okinawan! Even though after seeing the Japanese TV version of the Himeyuri, which uses the traditional American Gospel song sung in English, I had decided against using it (after all, I don't want to simply cut and paste somebody else's work and call it my own) … but after listening to Rimi's version I can't but want her to sing an Okinawan version of Amazing Grace in my movie too.

Natsukawa Rimi you are my new hero!

[cut to: the endless rain, mud, night. An Imperial Army hospital truck bringing wounded to the 3rd Surgery Unit. Cut to: nurses unloading countless bodies.]

Tira: How many came in this time?

Ashitomi: Eleven, I think.

Higa: I counted thirteen, but one is dead, I think. He lost his face.

Katsuko: Please, I need a stretcher!

[cut to: stretchers, Himeyuri hauling bodies into the caves]

[f/x: water dripping from cave walls. Ashitomi hurrying from body to body, checking bandages. The wounded are grouped depending on the type of treatment they need to receive, almost all are amputations. In one corner untreated gangrene cases toss about in agony; their limbs swelled dark and grotesquely]

Wounded Soldier #1: Wunai … please, wunai …

Ashitomi: Yes? What is the matter?

Wounded Soldier #1: I am … so ashamed. Please, I need to go to the bathroom … I can't move, it's been two days … please.

[cut to: Ashitomi bends down to pick up a bed pan only to find it is half-full with urine. She undoes the wounded man's trousers and helps slide them down. As the man urinates Ashitomi tries not to vomit. They are both highly embarrassed]

Wounded Soldier #2: Wuani-gami, it hurts! Please kill me!

Kohitsuji: Brain fever … gangrene … tetanus … he will die soon … he is not even human now.

[cut to: A small antechamber set off from the cave. Kohitsuji helps hold down the leg of a screaming boy. There is no pain killer. A doctor takes an old saw and begins to slice the leg off. The boy twists and screams in pain. Suddenly his eyes go blank and the screaming stops but the doctor keeps cutting into the boy as if so exhausted he can do nothing else]

Wounded Soldier #3 [sitting up in bed and shouting]: Hey! You bastard!

[jumps up and grabs a small, wounded officer, begins choking him]

Wounded Soldier #3: You bastard! You ordered us to attack yesterday! You! You killed everyone! You ordered us to attack knowing we would all die! I will kill you!

Ashitomi [rushing over]: Please, sir! Please let go!

Wounded Soldier #3 [slowly turning around in disbelief] : Idiot! What do you know? You are a child! Why are you even here? [strikes Ashitomi]

[Ashitomi lands in mud and urine and feces. Kohitsuji and Katsuko rush over to help her up]

Ashitomi: Me? Me? I'm the idiot? We are in hell and I'm the idiot? [screams]

[f/x: moans and screams all around cave]

Wounded Boy: We are forsaken … Forsaken! Where is my honor? Don't let me die this way … give my death meaning … my death … my death!!

Works Cited

Feifer, George. The Battle of Okinawa. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press (1992)

Sakihara, Mitsugu. Okinawan-English Wordbook. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press (2006)

This is an image I made of a Star Lily, the lilium auratum, which gets used interchangeably throughout both this story and histories of the Himeyuri.

When I started writing this poem I was fascinated with the Okinawa word kusa-nu-nuii; grass roots. Grass isn't as beautiful as lilies, of course, but the lilies are gone from this life for now and forever; it is you and I, the grass, that remains. Then I stumbled upon the phrase kaamii kee-sun; literally translated as “to forcefully flip a turtle over or on its back.”

That seemed more appropriate to the story, though I couldn't work the turtle and the grass into a 3-line haiku. As I understand it, the phrase can have several meanings; to commit an act of violation or rape, to brutally maim or, (perhaps my translation is poor but it is closer to the spirit of the poem I am working on) to annihilate completely.

Star Lilies all gone …
… so let our sleeping grass roots
have long memories.

History, they say, has terrible ways of repeating itself. In this part of the film we meet a 10 year-old girl, Chiaki; a neighbor of Kohitsuji's, someone she tries to take care of even as the Himeyuri begin their fateful march across the island to the battle front.

I chose the name Chiaki on purpose; it is the the pseudonym of a young girl the Okinawa media dubbed “Chiaki Hibi;” a junior high school student raped this year in February by a U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sergent. For a full account of the incident as well as the reports of some activists actually trying to get something done, please read the Feminist Peace Network's resolution.

Regardless of my Government's lawyers who appear to be trying to place the blame squarely on the the 14 year-old (labeling her as some sort of Okinawan Lolita) I have a hard time separating the story of this young child from the children who made up the Himeyuri in 1946. In both cases those who claimed to have a vested interest in their protection (and the population of Okinawa itself, truth be told) allowed terrible things to happen on their watch. Whatever your feelings about our U.S. Military bases scattered over Okinawa this rape is not an isolated occurrence with our soldiers. I do not wish to demonetize my Military, most of which do not go about raping children. However, for over the last six decades rape cases have been reported by the locals — both in the Okinawa media, their government and survivor's first hand accounts — only to have my own military administrators look the other way, make embarrassing excuses they should be ashamed of or simply claim some vague form of diplomatic immunity. As long as these men are escaping the law how can anyone claim justice has been served?

I say my military because it is easy for us to distance ourselves from such events and people. Things that happen half a world away by members of an organization many people on the Left already have doubts about has been and will remain far too easy to dismiss. Perhaps because it is so easy to say “That Isn't My Problem;” which might explain why we've let those who need to be held accountable off the hook for so long? To be a citizen is, after all, to be responsible. If I don't start with myself, why should I expect anyone else to?

Still, I sincerely sympathize with the Okinawan people who wish to have such people off their islands; who wouldn't?

Notes:

Naha is the capital city of Okinawa.

“Namu amida butsu” – Pure Land Buddhist prayer, roughly translated as “I trust in the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Eternal Life.”

[Graduation Day: Walking over rocky grounds the Colonel and head doctors for the Himeyuri address the collected girls]

Colonel: Himeyuri Student Corps! Work hard so as not to bring shame to the First Girls' School! This is the greatest glory you will ever have! For those who can return to your homes to say goodbye to your families. We march tomorrow afternoon. We shall all die in the service of the Emperor! Banzai!

[cut to: later that day. Kohitsuji has returned to see her mother. She answers a knock at their door to find their Neighbor and her daughter]

Kohitsuji: Oh, it is a pleasure to see you again.

Neighbor: Ah, Kohitsuji-san, I am glad to see you are well [they bow] We have come to ask for your help.

Kohitsuji: Mine? Certainly. What can I do?

Neighbor: I do not want to leave my daughter, Chiaki, alone when I return to Naha to help my father get ready for the invasion. Chiaki is only 10 years-old but I thought she'd be much safer if she went with you, with the Himeyuri.

Kohitsuji [bending down]: Chiaki-san, is this what you want? You know we'll be working all day taking care of wounded men.

Chiaki [softly]: I … want to go home.

Kohitsuji [worried]: But Chiaki-san, the enemy is dropping bombs everywhere. Maybe your village isn't safe right now?

Mother [entering]: Do we have guests? Oh my, it is a pleasure to see both of you. Kohitsuji-san, please show some manners and put the tea on.

Kohitsuji [bowing]: Of course, Okkaa-san. [exits]

Mother: Please forgive my daughter, she leaves tomorrow to the front. I understand there are a lot of wounded men there that need caring for.

Neighbor: Please, will you help us? I must return to the capital city but I want Chiaki to be safe. Would you talk to Kohitsuji? I was hoping she would take her along.

Mother: You mean to the front lines where the enemy is bombing us night and day from what I am told? How could that be safer than your village?

Neighbor: But the Himeyuri won't be at the front, will they? I thought they were assigned to the rear where the hospitals are? Where else is safer than surrounded by our Army? Even the Americans won't bomb hospitals, would they?

Mother: Do not worry, both of you. The Emperor will not let anything happen to us. We might be on an island but we are all Japanese citizens. All of us. I am sure he would have evacuated us if anyone thought this war would drag on too long.

Neighbor: But please, talk to Kohitsuji? For Chiaki's sake …

[cut to: next day the Himeyuri march across the island to the 3rd Army Surgical Unit]

Girls [singing]: “We shall meet again/ This time as friends/ We shall see all we love/ Waiting for us at home …”

Katsuko [laughing]: Colonel-san was so embarrassing yesterday!

Tira: He was drunk!

Niigaki: And what was that terrible song he kept trying to sing? “Give your life for the sake of the Emperor/ Wherever you may go!/ Give your life!”

Tira: I think he should leave the singing to us.

[laughter]

[cut to: Chiaki marching in the crowd, looking miserable and lonely]

Higa: You know, I have never really seen a wounded man before. They kept having us bandage each other. What if I see blood and pass out?

Niigaki [teasing]: Higa-san is a big baby!

Kohitsuji: I wouldn't worry too much. I think once the excitement starts we will all just do what we have to.

[cut to: next day at their new barracks with many girls on washing detail]

Ashitomi [calling out]: Kohitsuji-san, is this what you meant yesterday as “exciting”?

Kohitsuji: Oh, I don't mind, just as long as …

[cut to: a muffled noise, girls looking around in hesitation]

Chiaki: What is that?

[cut to: explosions in the jungle, screams of planes overhead]

Man #1: Bombs! Bombs! Run to the caves!

[chaos as the nurses try to flee, shot of Niigaki looking about in panic, calling to girls still in the dormitory]

Niigaki: Chiaki! Run!

[cut to: long tracer fire as American fighters race to the 3rd Surgery Unit. cut to: Niigaki and Chiaki falling forward as bullets rip past them]

Chiaki [calling out]: Kohitsuji! Kohitsuji!

[cut to: inside of cave, girls screaming, stumbling about in the dark]

Kohitsuji: Chiaki! Run!

[cut to: American fighters dropping bomb after bomb.

cut to: Niigaki, Chiaki and a third girl pick themselves up and try to run for shelter]

Kohitsuji: Chiaki!

[Kohitsuji falls back, blinded as the three girls vanish in a burst of flame and agony]

Kohitsuji: Chiaki! No! Chiaki!

[cut to later that night: Kohitsuji praying and crying]

Kohitsuji: Namu … Amida … Butsu … Namu … Amida … Butsu … I am so sorry, Chiaki … I am so sorry Niigaki … I failed you, I couldn't protect you … you came here to do good and you are gone … Namu … Amida … Butsu … I am so sorry … I failed you.

My favorite band in all their splendor … if only I had a pretzel tree!