News On Japan

Banzai Cliff Survivor Recalls Tragedy of Mothers Throwing Babies

OKINAWA, Aug 13 (News On Japan) - Eighty years ago, the fall of Saipan played a decisive role in intensifying air raids on cities such as Osaka and Kobe. Located only about three hours by air from the Japanese mainland, the island was seen by the U.S. military as a strategic base for launching attacks, while Japan regarded it as a vital line of defense.

For many in western Japan, the Battle of Saipan is a distant event, little known despite its role in intensifying air raids on Osaka and Kobe. The American victory became a springboard for attacks on the Japanese mainland, and in the final days of the battle, desperate civilians jumped from the cliffs now called Banzai Cliff. Yamine’s grandmother was among those who leapt.

Eighty-seven-year-old Hideko So, the grandmother’s younger sister, was five years old when the fighting reached her family. She recalls fleeing naked through the mountains, losing her mother and brother to bombings, and seeing the sea turn red with blood as people fell from the cliffs. Captured at Banzai Cliff while waiting for her father to return, she witnessed mothers throwing their children into the sea before jumping themselves.

So has returned to Saipan many times for memorial journeys, visiting the Tower of Okinawa built in 1968 to honor the dead. These visits, now continued by younger generations, bring a sense of closeness to her lost parents and siblings.

Another survivor, captured en route to the cliffs, recalled her mother’s intention to leap into the sea together. Many families’ remains were never found, leaving only stones placed in graves as stand-ins for the dead. Despite the passage of eight decades, bonds between Saipan locals and former residents endure.

An 87-year-old woman from Okinawa, who lost her parents and many siblings in the battle, recalls scenes of mothers throwing themselves from cliffs with their children at the site now known as Banzai Cliff. She appeals for an end to war, saying, "When war breaks out, everyone is blown to pieces. Please, never let it happen again."

Her story was brought to light through interviews conducted by her grandniece, a director at Kansai Television.

Source: KTV NEWS

News On Japan
POPULAR NEWS

OpenAI has unveiled its latest video generation AI, Sora2, which can produce realistic footage in about three minutes, including Japanese anime-style clips and composite videos featuring real individuals.

Vast hillsides have been cleared for the construction of a large-scale solar power facility in Kamogawa, Chiba Prefecture, leaving piles of felled trees scattered across the slopes. The development covers approximately 146 hectares, or the size of 32 Tokyo Domes, and involves cutting down about 365,000 trees to make way for 470,000 solar panels.

Former US President Donald Trump is arranging a three-day visit to Japan starting on October 27th, marking his first trip to the country in six years.

Maebashi Mayor Akira Ogawa held a closed-door meeting with all city council members on October 2nd to explain her repeated hotel meetings with a married senior city official, but afterward she avoided stating whether she would resign.

A two-story wooden house collapsed in Tokyo’s Suginami Ward on the night of September 30th, with experts suggesting that the ground beneath the property, rather than the building itself, gave way, likely due to a cracked retaining wall.

MEDIA CHANNELS
         

MORE Society NEWS

Princess Aiko, the daughter of the Emperor and Empress, has tested positive for Covid-19, the Imperial Household Agency announced on October 2nd, cancelling her scheduled trip to Shiga Prefecture on October 5th and 6th to observe the National Sports Festival.

A man in his 60s was found bleeding and collapsed inside a cattle barn in Tsugaru, Aomori Prefecture on the morning of October 2nd, later dying after his condition suddenly worsened.

A two-story wooden house collapsed in Tokyo’s Suginami Ward on the night of September 30th, with experts suggesting that the ground beneath the property, rather than the building itself, gave way, likely due to a cracked retaining wall.

A woman in her 30s was found dead with multiple stab wounds in Higashi-Osaka after a man who claimed to have stabbed someone turned himself in at a local police station.

Today, we'll be looking at some CRAZY Japanese tattoos that foreigners got! Even Ariana Grande got a really bad tattoo! They're so weird and don't make sense at all! (Mrs Eats)

Osaka Prefecture has revised its ordinance to set a cap of 100,000 yen per day on ATM transfers made with cash cards by certain elderly account holders, marking the first such restriction in Japan.

Japan's National Police Agency and Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department launched a new structure on October 1st to pursue the leaders of the so-called Tokuryu, an 'anonymous and fluid' crime group responsible for large-scale fraud and violent robberies linked to black-market recruitment.

A Spanish tourist in Japan has become the subject of widespread criticism after a series of videos showed him pushing a passenger on a train, firing fireworks at a karaoke shop, and intruding into a shrine, with condemnation spreading even to his home country.