Seventy years ago this week the last and bloodiest land battle in the Pacific during World War II began. Twenty years ago I was the Okinawa News Bureau Chief for Stars and Stripes and was allowed to cover the three months of reunions and ceremonies any way I wanted. Here’s one of my best stories during that period. The news piece read like a poem and here it is, unchanged except translating it into poetic form.
THE NAMES
By David Allen
George Allen White Jr.,
Edward Lewis White,
James White
Names,
American Marines who died on Okinawa.
These names are read in June,
in April the names were soldiers,
May was for sailors.
Names
every day.
On April 1,
the reading of the names began
to commemorate
April Fool’s Day,
Easter Sunday,
Love Day,
the day the Americans invaded Okinawa,
struck back on Japan’s home soil
in 1945.
Every day
for an hour at lunch
and in the evening
they came to read the names
at a church high on a hill
overlooking the invasion beaches.
A church with American and Japanese parishioners,
with a Japanese-Canadian priest,
who spent his war in a cold Saskatchewan internment camp.
Every day
they come to
All Souls Episcopal Church
to read the names of the souls
lost.
James Preston White,
James Thomas White,
Jerry Wilson White.
They are coming to the end.
Eighty-three days,
each day of the battle.
Returning veterans,
some with wives and grown children,
sit in the back of the chapel.
Silent.
Respectful.
Thousands of names.
12,281 Americans,
110,000 Japanese soldiers and Okinawan conscripts,
More than 150,000 Okinawa civilians.
Logan Willard White Jr.,
Thomas George White,
Charles Edward Whiteman.
Each name another soldier,
sailor, aviator, civilian
killed in the carnage that was
the Battle of Okinawa.
Listen –
James Richard Whiteman,
Mark Edward Whiteman,
Forrest Whitt,
Joseph Henry Whitaker.
Whisper them softly,
fall into the rhythm.
it’s a Jewish Kaddish,
a Buddhist chant,
a Christian prayer.
Meditate.
Joseph Henry Whittaker,
Marvin Jones Wiggins,
William Robert Wiggins.
Name after name.
Each man some mother’s son,
some father’s pride.
this one the class clown;
that one the brain.
Some were orphans,
no family except their platoon
or shipmates.
That guy was a Gary steelworker,
and wasn’t little Jimmy Whit
the mechanic down at the corner garage?
And what of the names read
on other days?
David Bond,
Earl Graham,
Ernie Pyle.
Wait, that one’s familiar.
Pyle, a newspaperman,
he wrote about these people,
always making sure he got the names right.
Thousands of names for the readers back home,
’til a Japanese sniper reaped his name
for the book of the fallen.
All-American names
like,
Howard S. Schwartz,
Louis Odachowski,
Kazuyoshi Inouye.
Some of the veterans are uneasy
on the wooden church pews,
it’s hard to sit through.
The reader’s voice is hoarse,
so many names.
Robert Wiggins,
Gray Huntley Whitman,
Hugh Whittington.
So many names.
Names inscribed on a striking monument
on Mabuni Hill, where the Japanese Army
made its last stand.
The Cornerstones of Peace,
the names of the dead from all the countries,
carved into 1,200 black granite walls,
stretching to the sea
like the wings of doves.
Donald James Wilton,
Kenneth William Wilkins,
Jack Williard.
The American list is over for the day.
the veterans leave,
handkerchiefs pat at moist eyes.
Few remain in the chapel
as a new reader sits at the table.
She begins to read.
Sato Yoshiro,
Yasuoka Tomohiko,
Murakami Minoru.
More names.
These are Japanese,
a college conscript from Tokyo,
a farmer from Hokkaido.
soldiers in the Emperor’s Army on Okinawa
when the Americans came with their
Typhoon of Steel.
Pak Man-do,
Chou Che-jiu,
Song Yong.
Korean names,
forced laborers,
comfort women.
Masahiro Kohagura,
Masao Ota,
Kiyo Yamashiro…
Okinawa names,
Page after page.
It sometimes takes 10 minutes
to read the day’s American names,
maybe 25 minutes for the Japanese,
much longer for the Okinawans.
That name belonged to a fisherman from Kin.
And wasn’t that the name of the mother from Itoman
who huddled in fear
at the rear of a deep cave with her two children,
shivering with fright as death came calling,
collecting his names?
Grandfathers,
babies,
teenage girls pressed into service to tend
the wounded.
Whole families of names,
each a sad reminder of War’s toll;
each name a testament.
To what?
Life.
This person once lived.
“I existed,
I had a name,
I was somebody.”
Read our names,
remember us.
This photo is called “Girl with the White Flag.” It was taken by a GI as a tunnel filled with civilians was cleared. They Survived. Many more did not.
This poem is included in my first book, “The Story So Far,” published by Writers Ink Press (New York), copyright 2004 and available on Amazon.com. Or get a signed copy by emailing me at david@davidallen.nu.
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