Old-school typewriter produced information bulletin for personnel assigned to Kadena Air Base. There is some discussion about a new dental facility projected to be completed by 1966 so this is probably '63-'65 (?) era. I was stationed with the 824th in 1972-1975. Some time during my assignment the official clinic designation was changed from "USAF Dispensary" to "USAF Clinic".

[Read it]

Just received this book 6-28-14. Will comment after reading it.

[Download Here] (2.71MB .pdf file)

Draft copy of the December 2013 issue with numerous editorial comments. This was given to me by Walt Christianson who made the corrections and sent it back for fine tunng before going into print. I visited with Walt during my 2014 visit to Okinawa.
Topics in this magazine include

Amer Ch of Commerce, Okinawa's Beginnings

Sixty years with Okinawa

President's Ball 60yj Anniversary Program

Consul General Alfred Magleby biography

ACCO President Walt Christianson biography

MOFA Ambassador Toshihisa Takata biography

Past Presidents listing

60 Years of Leadership: Past presidents in review

Shinnenkai 2014

Officers, Governors elected for 2014

ACCO News

In Memoriam

Manchester has produced a book that covers the entire life of the controversial five star general, from his infancy to his death, in the finest of detail and in a lively literary style. - If you want to know about MacArthur, this is the book for you. The author very carefully presents facts about the general and lets you the reader make up your mind on where the truth lies. Manchester does not appear to "take sides" in this book; he does not take the general and make him a god, nor does he denigrate what the general has done. He presents the many sides of this mysterious general and lets you, the reader, put it all together which is not difficult, since Manchester provides you the tools to do it: plenty of rich detail, plenty of quotes, excerpts of memos and messages, much detail on his private family life. Again, Manchester does not tell the reader what to think. For example, with the fall of the Philippnes, it seems that the general has made up his mind to stay and, along with his family, expects in a matter-of-fact way to commit suicide rather than be taken prisoner by the Japanese. You wonder about his wife and child, but Manchester doesn't tell you what they want to do: he lets them speak. - An excellent biography and significant historical account. Probably the best ever on MacArthur whether you like the general or not. (review on amazon.com)

For more on Douglas MacArthur, see:
Reports of General MacArthur - The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific (Volume I)
Reports of General MacArthur - MacArthur in Japan: The Occupation: Military Phase (Vol I Supplement)

How do the Japanese and Okinawans remember Occupation? How is memory constructed and transmitted? Michael Molasky explores these questions through careful, sensitive readings of literature from mainland Japan and Okinawa. This book sheds light on difficult issues of war, violence, prostitution, colonialism and post-colonialism in the context of the Occupations of Japan and Okinawa.

You can read an abridged copy [here].

Nice 24-page booklet touting the many services that are provided by the American Red Cross on Okinawa. Mostly photos with captions and free-hand artwork.
The cover is reminiscent of a 1945 U.S. Navy publication, "Okinawa: Photographic Interpretation Squadron One" (see below)

Read it [HERE] (4.06MB .pdf)

Interesting book whose first half is in English language, and the second half is a Japanese translation.
It introduces the diary kept by (Bull), an American missionary, during her stay in Okinawa. It will be of special interest to persons with a concern for Okinawan history and culture, Okinawan society, women's studies, and Christian mission in Okinawa.

This extremely important study in Pacific and island archaeology makes use of the huge database generated by Okinawan archaeology in the post-war era and places the Okinawan islands in the context of current theoretical debates within island archaeology in the Pacific and beyond. It is also a major study of premodern Okinawa. With its many valuable overviews and discussions, as well as its original analyses and interpretations, it will undoubtedly become the definitive text in English." Mark Hudson, Nishikyushu University

196 pages of color and B&W photos of Japanese art.
Art Exhibition was being held jointly by the National Commission for Protection of Cultural Properties, and the Participating Museums in the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Sept 29, 1965 - Nov 7, 1965
In the Lytton Gallery

Detroit Art Institute
Dec 5, 1965 - Jan 16, 1966

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Feb 13, 1966 - Mar 27, 1966

The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
Apr 24, 1966 - Jun 5, 1966

Having never had access to anything but the "western" accounts of the Battle for Okinawa, I found that Yahara presented a splendid account from the other side's point of view.
Chillingly accurate were his predictions and sadly detailed were the final events before the fall of the Japanese 32nd Army. Having spent more than 2 years in the United States, in the 1930's as an exchange officer, Colonel Yahara knew how the American military leaders thought and was privy to some of the strategies and general American military principles. Unfortunately for the Imperial Army, Yahara's expertise and gut hunches were mostly brushed aside and the Samurai mentality of offensive warfare prevailed.
Only after senior commanders, LtGen Ushijima and LtGen Cho realized that they were fighting a hopeless losing battle was Yahara finally given the reins - but it was too late. The 32nd Army had already lost too many troops and too much equipment. Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo, for reasons that are still arguable to this day, offered little more than pats on the back and lips service in the name of the mighty Empire.
Soon after Colonel Yahara was given authority to call the shots, it strikes me that his mission became two-fold: Hold off defeat for as long as possible in order to delay invasion of the homeland (mainland Japan) and, two, on a personal note, how to survive after the fall of Okinawa into American hands. He understood how foolish was the Japanese propaganda telling of how Japanese would be treated if they were taken prisoner.
I think that, in writing this book Colonel Yahara truly wanted to set the record straight but he had another motive - to relieve himself of the guilt and the condemnation of his peers that he felt as a result of surviving the campaign when his commanders had ended their fate in traditional seppuku - the taking of their own lives.
I also believe that Yahara saw the writing as a way to let the Japanese people know that he was loyal, intelligent and not a disgrace to his country.
It is interesting to note that the book was first publsihed and released in Japan in 1973. Not until the past decade have the school children of Japan been taught about the Okinawa Battle. Even the Okinawan children had long been deprived of our side of the story. The book should serve well to help the young Okinawans to understand why their land and their people were so clearly abused and wasted! Well written and fairly well validated by editorial counter-point provided by Gibney. Any fan of the Pacific War owes it to himself to read this book! (My review on Amazon.com)

Reproduced by Information-Education Section, Hq. 25th Replacement Depot
18 February 1946

Nicely done type-written and mimeographed account of the Battle for Okinawa.

Read it [HERE] If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

At the time of publication, Mr. Ota was the governor of Okinawa Prefecture.

In this book he gives us the complete account of the battle, using ample evidence carefully gleaned from documents and photographic materials from the U. S. National Archives, the Dept of the Navy, Army and Marine Corps Depositories and the Japanese Defense Agency Library, as well as numerous books and records written on the battle in Japan and abroad. Plain language, in additioon to accurate statistical figures and vivid photographs, makes this account of the battle most convincing. (from inside jacket)

Hanson Baldwin wrote a well-researched history of eleven major battles which can serve as touchstones to trace the chronology of the Second World War. Endnoted with references and in-depth background analysis, this book penetrates deeply into facts and judgements about the war and those in charge. The endnotes cover over one-third of the book.

Mr. Baldwin's easy style makes this book readable even to those without much foundation in matters of history. As the eleven key battles discussed form a series of touchstones to walk the reader through the war, weaving chronologically between the European and Pacific theaters, it offers an excellent framework for the beginner to construct a mental outline of the war's progression.

For those more grounded in military history, Mr. Baldwin's readable narrative contains innumerable insightful passages dealing with matters political and strategic. The cogent analysis, references, and evidence presented should by now have earned this work much affirmation by professional military thinkers. With a book like "Battles Lost and Won" to read and ponder, the fog of war dissipates and one can view man's most destructive activity with clarity and understanding. (reviewed on amazon.com)

Though I didn't get to Okinawa until the early 1970s I could relate to just about everything that Cooper described during his time there in the 1960s. Reading this novel brought me back a few decades and my memories sprang to life as he so clearly detailed his comings and goings throughout his time on island. A dandy read. If you enjoyed E. A. Cooper's book, B. C. Street, nearly as much as I did, then you might be happy to know that he contacted me today (2-2-10) and reports that he's working on another, Kimiko and the Young GI: Okinawan Affair. He said, "I am re-editing and re-writing the novel with new chapters. I am reshaping the story into a romance novel."

Handy reference guide for... you guessed it! Glass floats.
Many folks have gathered glass floats from the seas and sands around Okinawa, myself included. This little book may give insights into the origin of those precious glass souvenirs.

Nice little heavy paper paperback booklet with a map of Okinawa and a good number of hig quality photos with bi-lingual captions. Highlights of the main tourist attractions comprise the majority of this booklet, but it also has several showing the natural beauty of the Islands' flora. And, of course, no memory book would be complete without a photo of Iriomote's wild cat. So, that makes this booklet complete!

During my 2014 visit to Okinawa a dear friend who I had met in 2013 gifted me with this absolutely beautiful book. It's a large, hard-bound coffee-table style book of amazing color photos of life on Okinawa. It's a collection from the many previous issues of Okinawa Living Magazine, a local publication put out by the U.S. Marine Corps. The list of contributors and credits is massive. You can pick up a copy at the local exchanges on island. If you decide to buy one be sure to tally its weight into your return baggage allotment!! It's a heavy one!

" ... Bingata, which is a part of the greatest heritage of the Kingdom of the Ryukyus."

"Sixty-six years after Japan’s annexation of the former Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879, in the waning months of the Asia-Pacific War, the American military partitioned the Ryukyu Islands from Japan. The replacement of Okinawa Prefecture by US military rule in the Ryukyus from 1945 had profound implications, for residents of the occupied islands..."

[Read it]

Heavy-paper soft-bound book of black & white photos by Junko Hirai. 131 pages of bold B&W images that capture the lifestyle of that island - festivals, sporting events, village life, seascapes, and, of course, a wonderful photo of the infamous wildcat!

My sincere thanks to Warren and Mieko Rucker for this generous contribution to the Okinawa Library.

U.S. military BRATS share intimate memories about their unique childhoods - growing up on military bases around the world, then struggling to fit into an American lifestyle with which they have little in common. Narrated and featuring songs by Kris Kristofferson. Interviews include the late General Norman Schwarzkopf and military brat author Mary Edwards Wertsch.

Brave Men begins with the landing on Sicily, when the Allies were making their first bold and dramatic assault upon fortress Europe. It ranges from Sicily, Italy and the grim days of the Anzio beachhead through the calm of those last few pre-invasion weeks in Britain, the savage climaxes of the Normandy beaches to the smashing drive through France.

You might be thinking, 'Why include the book in an Okinawa library?' and I might agree - but the plain fact of the matter is that I believe he earned a place along with Last Chapter on my shelf, and so here he is.

Part Christian ministry and part sea-faring adventures, Ketchum takes us on a whirlwind tour of the 5 years that he and his wife and fellow Foursquare Church missionary, Florence spent on Okinawa. Ministering to the outer "hungry little islands" his efforts brought about Christian awareness and even a few converts, almost total eradication of leprosy and tuberculosis from many of the small islands of the Ryukyus.

When they first settled in Itoman - a town which at that time was quite pro-communist - they were shunned and distrusted. With time and patience they were able to win over the townspeople, beginning with the children, and eventually built a permanent church in that town.

Lots of adventures at sea too! Somehow, he miraculously survived the loss of three boats - vessels that were critical to his mission work.

Overall, a quick and easy read, fun and somewhat instructive, giving some personal insights into the people of Okinawa.

[READ here] the pamphlet, "Operation Goodwill" Throughout the Ryukyu Islands Aboard the Mission Vessel "Island Evangel", a 36 page publication that describes Ketchum's missions. It is loaded with photos, taken by Blackie the Photographer, of the outlying islands and the people it served.

A cursory text of Okinawa's early days as the Ryukyu Kingdom. Advertisements are fun to read.
Foreward by Carl F. Bartz, Jr., Director, Office of Public Information, USCAR (United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands)

[Read It] (.pdf)

Sergeant Steve Maharidge returned from World War II an angry man. "They said I killed him! It wasn't my fault!"
After Steve died, Dale Maharidge began a twelve-year quest to face down his father's wartime ghosts...
Maharidge traveled to Okinawa to experience where the man in his father's picture dies and meet the families connected to his father's wartime souvenirs.
(from jacket)

A love of beauty, a joy in simplicity, a gracious acceptance of life. The values of the Okinawans in John Patrick's comedy The Teahouse of the August Moon seems irresponsible and even subversive to the American Marines whjo plan to bring democracy and industry to the island. But after a series of amusing events, it is hard to tell the converter from the convert. (inside cover)

Newspaper of the Naha Air Base, Okinawa

Read it [HERE]

Fun little story book with Joji-chan sister, Koko-chan of the Shima family. Koko-chan is up and rarin' to go, wakes brother to remind him that today is the day they're going to the circus.

At the time it was published, there were very few good references on karate and karate history. Since then however, there have been many excellent texts and articles, including some from the same author.

While the kara descriptions are excellent, with good photography showing the movements and how they should be done, the kata themselves are not classical versions. They are rather versions taught by Richard Kim, which don't always agree with the originals taught in Okinawa.

Also, there are a fair number of incorrect historical references and incorrect translations of kata names (and the kanji is not included either), making most other current history books much more desireable. (review at amazon.com)

Closing the Circle is military historian Edwin P. Hoyt's attempt at an overview of the last 4 months of WWII in the Pacific. Hoyt is usually a master of distilling military history of a mass market audience, but unfortunately this work falls a bit flat. The book covers the USN carrier raids on mainland Japan in the summer of 1945, the loss of the USS Indianapolis, the internal Japanese court intrigues and of course the decision to use the atomic bomb. It's such a broad scope that Hoyt can't cover it all adequately; his effort seems both cursory, breathless and unfocused. It's unfortunate that Hoyt didn't just stick to the USN carrier raids - had he concentrated on that topic he would have written a much stronger and more valuable work. (Rob Fitzgibbon - Amazon review)

In Codename Downfall, Allen and Polmar accomplish an amazing feat. In a book describing U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to use the atom bomb, they make the world's only nuclear attacks seem almost unimportant.
Fifty years have passed since U.S. bombers annihilated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but those events have been debated frequently and furiously ever since. Using insightful research the authors paint so terrible a picture of the Pacific war's escalating destruction it even dwarfs the instant vaporization of two complete cities.
Downfall does not linger on the classic numerical comparison of lives lost to nukes versus invasion. Instead, the authors provide a sweeping account of the Allies' efforts to liberate or capture island after island in their determined drive to seize the Japanese homeland and stop the Japanese war-making ability.
Both sides expected a full mobilization of every Japanese citizen to fight what would be the largest invasion of all time. As Japanese generals preached about "100 million souls" all dying together, the American leaders searched for any alternative to the "decisive battle" as the Japanese military referred to it. The book described how the U.S. leaders grasped at the atomic bomb as a last, desperate hope to avoid this bloody climax their enemies thirsted for.
By the end of the book, the reader no longer wonders why Truman dropped the Bomb, but how the Japanese leaders could refuse the mercy of a peaceful surrender. Responsibility for the bombing finally rests squarely on the shoulders of the Japanese "cabinet."
Codename Downfall gives a fresh and convincing perspective on a very old question. (review at Amazon.com)

This is a nice little 'story-book' style piece with modernistic artwork and captioning in both Japanese and English. They describe it as "a pictorial profile of the Okinawa Islands". It references Naha, Naha Airport, Itoman, Tsuboya kilns, Shuri; Okinawan costumes, music and dance; Okinawa's crystal clear waters, farms, beaches, and more. Nice catchy, colorful pages.

"As I described with Chapter 2 in the Postwar Section, I tried to combine a discussion of the socio-economic development of Okinawa in the broad with Kin Village (later a town) in the narrow. Rather than follow the standard use of 'contemporary' to relate to post-reversion (post 15th May 1972) developments in Okinawa I am starting this account with a description of the process of planning for Okinawa's reversion. Since this dissertation was submitted in 2002 it does not cover developments in Okinawa thereafter. I will upgrade this at some point but my priorities at present are on the Ancient Ryukyu and Early Modern- Modern Ryukyu sections. Part 13, 'Conclusion: Managing a Wild Horse with a Rotten Rope' is added for those who are interested because I made some suggestions then as to how Kin Town might look at improving its economy. 11 years have passed since I made these suggestions."

01. The Tectonics of Reversion and Promoting Identification (ittaika)
02. Long-Term Development Planning - Early GOJ and Okinawa Initiatives
03. Reversion Decided: Official and Independent Initiatives
04. Reversion Achieved: Expectations versus Realities
05. Kakusa Zesei and the Promotion and Development of Okinawa
06. Case Study: The First Kin-son Promotion Plan
07. Remembering and Forgetting the Kakushin Okoku
08. The Second Okinawa Shinko Keizai Keikaku
09. Tachi no Shita kara: The Second Kin Town General Plan
10. The Reformist Nineties: Bringing Bases Back onto the Agenda
11. Heiwa, Kyosei, Jiritsu: Ota Masahide’s Base-free Cosmopolis Ideal
12. The Third Kin Town General Plan
13. Conclusion: Managing a Wild Horse with a Rotten Rope

I don't have a physical copy of this one in my Library but it's worthwhile having access to it.
Available at Amazon.com and the Kindle Edition can be had for a mere 99 cents (as of 4-12-15)

READ IT HERE

Although the U.S.-Japan alliance is often labeled as "the cornerstone" of security in the Asia Pacific region, local concerns about the U.S. military presence on the Japanese island of Okinawa have challenged the management of the alliance for decades. The Japanese archipelago serves as the most significant forward-operating platform for the U.S. military in the region; approximately 38,000 military personnel, 43,000 dependents, and 5,000 DoD civilian employees live in Japan...

Read it HERE

Very valuable resource in a small pocket-size soft cover book. 200 page wealth of information useful to anyone who seriously cares to know about Okinawa. Not too heady but just right for the beginner Okinawaphile. Most attractive to me, and I've not seen such in any other hand-book, is the final chapter that has many native songs, with sheet music and lyrics.

Read it HERE (revised Second edition, 5th printing 1966)

Newspaper of all the Armed Forces in the Ryukyus.
Click on a date to read the issue.

February 1, 1946 February 3, 1946 February 8, 1946 February 9, 1946 February 10, 1946

February 11, 1946 Feb 12, 1946 Feb 17, 1946 Mar 2, 1946 Mar 5, 1946

Mar 7, 1946 Mar 8, 1946 Mar 9, 1946 Mar 10, 1946 Mar 11, 1946

Mar 24, 1946 Mar 25, 1946 Mar 31, 1946 April 1, 1946 Memorial Edition April 10, 1946

Colonized by Japan, traumatized by war, dominated by an ongoing American military presence, Okinawa has never attracted the sustained attention of Western anthropologists. That has now changed, for here we have an ethnography of Okinawa that finally does justice to the complexity of its poetic and political realities. (Marilyn Ivy)

A very basic text; mostly B&W photos with a few maps. Cursory text with only two pages devoted to Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Many cool photos.

Download (MS doc)

"... In Japan the first recorded arrival of dependents occurred May 10, 1946 when families of Army Air Corps personnel landed at Johnson Army Air Base located in Irumagawa. Johnson School opened September 7, 1946. In Okinawa, Japan, only sixteen months after one of the most costly battles of World War II in which an estimated 104,000 lives were lost, a school was established for dependent children of military and civilian personnel.
The commitment by the United States to become deeply involved in occupational responsibilities among the defeated powers in Europe and the Far East after World War II, resulted in the occupation of Okinawa which lasted much longer than it did elsewhere. The decisions that resulted in having dependent wives and children accompany military members and civilian government employees to the overseas areas resulted also in attempts to transplant the American culture to these overseas military installations in Okinawa... "

A reader, Donn Cuson, offered the following: [ Page 18 “On September 15, 1946, the American Dependents School on Okinawa began operation at Okinawa University School under the direction of Dr. Theodore Koob as principal. This original site was located on Route 30, Camp Howard (see map, page 141). The buildings comprising Okinawa University School served as a school during the day for the 25 students in grades 1-12 and as an education center for American military personnel at night.”
His statement contains 2 errors that have been carried on to all the histories of dependent schools on Okinawa: Dr Koob did not arrive on Okinawa until Oct 1946 (it is believed that the school actually started in Nov.)
The Okinawa University School was located at Camp Hayward, not Howard.
Also in question is if the 1st grade started then at Okinawa University, there was actually an earlier school at Kadena AB for Nursery through 8th grade which started before Okinawa University. ]

Read it [HERE] .pdf d/l

"...explores the subjects for which Chalmers Johnson is now famous, from the origins of blowback to Barack Obama's Afghanistan conundrum, including our inept spies, our devastatingly bad behavior in other countries, our ill-fought wars, and our capitulation to a military that has taken ever more control of the federal budget. There is, he proposes, only one way out: President Obama must begin to dismantle the empire before the Pentagon dismantles the American dream..."

Herein there are a number of references to Okinawa and the Okinawa Problem.

During the battle for Okinawa 40 American ships were either sunk or damaged beyond repair, and 368 were damaged in some degree, mainly as the result of suicide attacks by Japanese pilots. At the time it seemed to most people that those taking part in such attacks must be mere robots or fanatics lacking in all normal human feelings. Bernard Millot shows them, on the contrary, as clear-thinking volunteers of the highest courage and their actions as the outcome both of their traditions and of the particular circumstances with which Japan found herself confronted at this juncture of the war.

Photos by Blackie the Photographer
Here is a neat little hard-cover book dedicated to the dream of Hatsue Kawakami, a qudripelegic, to one day have a chapel in her village. Chock full of photos of Okinawa (mainly Naha and Hatsue's home village of Iju, Nakagusuku Son, and a section at the end on the Philippines) that are presumably taken by Blackie. Blackie the Photographer was famous for his ability to capture true Okinawan moments on film. A prolific artist and a softy at heart, he has this to say about the dreams of Hatsue:

"Dear friends, ... sometimes when I tell people to smile, I've heard them say, 'What have I to smile about.'
I wish everyone could meet Hatsue Kawakami. She is always smiling [despite her] physical handicap. She has no feeling from the neck down ... I was shocked to hear that the cockroaches were eating on her but she was not aware of their biting. We need to get her ... a place to live and a chapel to fulfill her dream."

Small manual, all in Japanese, full of driving instructions. Lots of figures, drawings, etc.

Small manual, all in Japanese, full of driving instructions. Lots of figures, drawings, etc.

This is a superb analysis of the Pacific War between the USA and Japan. It is always very difficult for an author to strike a balance between sufficient detail on the one hand, and the risk of overwhelming the "big picture" with too much detail, on the other. Here, the author hits it just right. This is a detailed and thorough analysis of the Pacific War that focuses on the main trends of the war, while supplying sufficient detail to support the themes that the author presents to the reader. (review at Amazon.com)

Book of Japanese words and phrases. The vocabulary section lists Japanese words (in romaji) in alphabetical order. There is not a list of English-language words. Useful little book but not one for looking up how to say such-and-so in Japanese.

A year-book style book containing many color and B&W photos with bi-lingual captions, having to do with education of Tamagawa and the Whole Man Education. Only the photos have captioning in English. The last part of the book is entirely in Japanese. It is well-protected in its own hard cardboard sleeve.

"On May 31, 1945, two American soldiers sat cross-legged on the floor of a small hut in the gutted village of Nodake on the island of Okinawa. Their hostess, a middleaged Okinawan woman, stooped down over them as she poured hot tea into small round clay cups. Many different families shared the hut with the woman and some of them crowded into the main room to join in the tea ceremony with the Americans.1 The bombings, begun in October, 1944 preparatory to the America invasion, had destroyed numerous homes in the village. Under the direction of the United States Army, several families now lived together in the homes that survived."

[Read It] (pdf)

This is a compilation of Ernie Pyle's best dispatches from the front lines during World War II. His stories were printed in American newspapers throughout the war, and brought home to the people of those years just what our men (and women) on the front lines had to endure, and how brave they were in doing their duty day after day until the job was done. It's moving to read about the hardships our soldiers went through in order to preserve the freedoms we enjoy today.

We owe a great debt to the generation of Americans who struggled through this period of history. So many Americans, regular people like you and me, lived through hell and many paid the ultimate price. Ernie Pyle's stories bring this sacrafice to life in a very emotional way.

The book also includes a brief biography of Pyle. It's a beautiful, if sometimes tragic, time-capsule of the WWII years, and I strongly recommend it. (review at Amazon.com)

Read about and listen to Ernie Pyle

Handy little pocket-size book with vinyl covers to stand up to years of daily use.l First is a listing of English-to-Japanese translation in dictionary format. Latter portion of book are the appendices: Phrases for Everyday Situations. Auto Parts and Accessories (first time I've seen this in any book). Phrases for health matters. Numbers and Counting. Telling Time, and so on. A very handy little book.
During my total of 7 years on island, I did find that there are so many "handy little pocket books" that there wasn't room in my pockets for them all!

This is a fun and fact-filled paperback book that includes high-quality maps and discussions about various areas of Okinawa Prefecture. Discussed are its main facilities, cultural properties and famous places:
Kunigami
Nakagami
Naha Area
Shimajiri
Miyako, and
Yaeyama

No photographs but instead there are numerous sketches and drawings of the various topics of interest.

Long out of print, theses wartime diaries of a key admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy, provide a revealing inside look into the Japanese view of the Pacific War. Matome Ugaki was chief of staff of the Combined Fleet under Admiral Isoroki Yamamoto until both were shot down over Bougainville in April 1943, resulting in Yamamoto's death. He later served as commander of battleship and air fleets, finally directing the kamikaze attacks off Okinawa. Invaluable for its details of the Japanese navy at war, the diaries offer a running appraisal of the fighting and are augmented by editorial commentary that proves especially useful to American readers eager to see the war from the other side. When first published in 1991, this dairy was hailed as a major contribution to World War II literature as the only firsthand account of strategic planning for the entire war by a Japanese commander.

Japan in Your Pocket proclaims the back cover - This little pocket-book is divided into 4 sections: Festivals throughout Japan; Curious Festivals; Annual Events; and Some Useful Information. The main festivals in each ;locality are shown on the book's Festival Map, and all festivals are listed in the Festival Calendar. It includes Festivals of Okinawa and Surrounding Islands. All entries in the book are done in a very cursory manner but still enough to peak the reader's interest. One would have to refer to a more comprehensive text though to get a full interpretation of each of the various festivals.

Here is a delightful little soft cover book of beautiful color photos of Okinawan festivals, photographed by Junko Hirai. It is a mate to another book by the same publisher entitled Shape of Okinawa Vol. 2
Thus, I presume there to be another book of this 'set' of photos by the same person in a volume 1. Alas, I do not own that missing volume. There also may be volumes beyond these three.

Ninety pages, each with a single, brilliant color photograph and a brief caption - in Japanese.

Summary of principal events in the Ryukyu Islands during the author's administration as High Commissioner.

The fact that this is the last report prior to the Reversion of Okinawa to Japan confers some degree of special interest to the many Reports that were submitted between the years 1945 to Reversion which occurred the day following the date of this document. It is in .pdf format so you will need to have a PDF Reader installed on your computer. If you don't have one you can download a FREE reader from ADOBE here.

[Read the Report here]. (26.8MB pdf file)

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

Watching planes fly over his Minneapolis home, young Samuel Hynes never imagined himself flying in one, let alone being a pilot. He never saw an ocean, yet before he turned 21, he would be flying and fighting over the largest of them. World War II was a transforming conflict in many ways. For Hynes, it was his ticket to a larger world.

Not that he seems too happy for the experience. Yes, Hynes writes with humor, and some nostalgia, about his experiences fighting in the Pacific Theater with the Marines air wing in the last year of the war. Yet, when he describes his feelings about his return to civilian life as "the end of something that had been good, perhaps like the breaking up of a marriage," it feels odd and wrong.

Hynes didn't see a lot of combat, but he saw a lot of waste, deadly waste, pilots in training killed attempting maneuvers, or else later on, lost at sea because they were lost in the clouds. There are attacks on a Japanese-held island tucked too deep behind Allied lines to threaten anyone. There's no glory in Samuel Hynes' war; even the deaths of Japanese foes are related with bitter resignation.

Hynes writes of his and his comrades' struggle less in terms of victory than simple survival, doing what the military asks them and no more. Hynes mentions the film classics "Wings" and "Dawn Patrol," but there's more here of Joseph Heller's "Catch-22," where the carnage of World War II is played as a sick joke. Even the humor has that same acidic quality. When one pilot is lost at sea, only to be rescued, his comrades disguise their relief by pretending to have gotten rid of his belongings when he returns.

The book is three-fourths over before Hynes reaches the only real battle he participated in, Okinawa. As he hops from post to post stateside, the narrative sometimes gets dull. But the overall tone of "Flights Of Passage is what makes it worth reading. With most war books, the focus is naturally on battles, or individuals who made some difference in the conflict. Hynes, a self-described small cog in giant machine, writes of the other side of war, its boredom, pettiness, infidelity, and creeping ennui. Danger, too, and tragedy, but in such small doses one can never be ready for them, not ready enough.

While his style is dispassionate and nonjudgmental, I get the feeling Hynes didn't care much for what he saw of the war. It's not that he was a bad Marine, just not a warrior.

His best sections involve the spurts of battle he did see, his impressions of flying the different combat planes of the era. Corsairs were prized as beauties but prone to spinning out during landing approaches, while the Hellfighters were "all muscle and no guts." (review at Amazon)

"A rarity among Asian lands, the Philippines had large areas of potentially agriculturally productive land remaining uncultivated. Thus with great potential resources, broad habitable areas open for settlement, and geographic proximity to Japan, the Philippine Islands were a natural attraction for Japanese emigrants through the first four decades of the twentieth century.

According to the Report of the Philippine Commission for 1900, there were so few Japanese in the Islands that 'they were hardly worth mentioning'..."

This book contains both Japanese and English text!

"A collection of Okinawan legends and folktales intended for readers above the twelfth grade.
Illustrations by Fumio Amuro.
This book is just an introduction to the thousands of tales about Okinawa and its surrounding islands. If the readers' curiosity is arounsed enough to go on to further adventure of seeking more Okinawan tales, our mission will be joyfully accomplished."

An improbable though absorbing yarn of a search by a young seaman in the United States Navy for his twin brother whose ship was lost somewhere off Okinawa in 1851. Coming to the mysterious islands of Japan in the service of the Perry expedition, young Barry Sturgess gradually gathers enough hints of his twin's whereabouts from Oriental friends and some aery sibling thought-transmission to rescue his brother Barney. As a member of the Perry force. Barry witnesses the cautious excursions into the alien civilization, the historic presentation of a letter from the President of the United States to representatives of the emperor, and the confusing and often humorous clashes between East and West. The Perry expedition is unusually interesting in the light of the events of the last ten years, but this book is less an objective study of Japan at the time than a Gilbert and Sullivan concept in which the Japanese are known mainly for their conscientious use of bird cages into which they stuff their prisoners. Superficial but colorful. (review at kirkusreviews.com)

As the title suggests, the book is written to illuminate some of the fun and fantasy on the Rim of East Asia - Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

"... it is the Himeyuri, the daughters of the upper classes in prewar Okinawa—most of whom died on the battlefield—who have become a primary symbol of Okinawa in the postwar era. In fact, Himeyuri now designates all alumnae of these schools. I suggest that in the fifty years since the end of the Pacific War, the name Himeyuri has acquired powerful symbolic significance within local and national discourses of postwar Japanese and Okinawan identity—far beyond the original reference to alumnae of these two elite schools. The following is the Himeyuri story."

Download and Read (.pdf) [HERE]

From a series of USAF WARRIOR STUDIES, this is a 579-page compilation of reports by - guess who? General George C. Kenney, of course!

FORWARD

This reprint of General George C. Kenney's General Kenney Reports is part of a continuing series of historical volumes produced by the Office of Air Force History in direct support of Project Warrior. Since its beginnings in 1982, Project Warrior has captured the imagination of Air Force people around the world and reawakened a keener appreciation of our fundamental purpose as a Service: to deter war, but to be prepared to fight and win should deterrence fail.
Military history helps provide a realistic perspective on warfare. Through the study of past events, we gain insight into the capabilities of armed forces and, most importantly, a sound knowledge of the policies, strategies, tactics, doctrine, leadership, and weapons that have produced success in battle. Each of us, in broadening our knowledge of air power's past, helps to maintain the most effective Air Force possible, now and in the future.

LARRY D. WELCH, General, USAF
Chief of Staff

The book is comprised of chapters in each phase or campaign in his career. He begins with "Assignment to the Pacific," in July 1942 when he was commanding the Fourth Air Force, and concludes with "The Japanese Surrender" in Aug-Sep 1945. It includes a chapter, "Okinawa and the Kyushu Plan".

a MUST HAVE for any researcher of 1900-1955 US military and politics. Unlike MacArthur, Patton, Montgomery or even Ike, Bradley writes an unbiased and contrasted biography.

By 'Becky' in Montana:
I knew General Bradley when I was a child in the late 1970s. He visited a health mine not far from my home in Montana in the summers. There were some large boulders near there where chipmunks hung out. My dad and I would feed them and General Bradley and his valet would stop to feed them also. Dad had a lot of respect for General Bradley. Dad was a Marine and served in WWII. So, I figured if a Marine thought highly of an Army General, he must be pretty special. He was always friendly and kind to me. I've met several famous people in my life, but I can honestly say that he is one of the few I'm proud to have known.(Amazon)

This is a bi-lingual publication, 288 pages in length, that is mostly comprised of photographs with captions and dealing with Genocide, defined by jurist Raphael Lemkin as, "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group." It deals primarily with destruction of peoples throughout the world during World War II. Although not specifically referring to Okinawa, the islands are included in this treatise. The majority of the book is chock-full of photographs of deaths resulting from war.

Cute little paperback handbook chronicling the ghostly legends of Okinawa.

A first-person testament to the terror of war involving a little girl, her sisters, and her brother, Nini, as they eked out survival during the Battle for Okinawa. One did not survive.

We managed to make a hole - or rather a hollow - just big enough to hold Nini's and my bottoms. The hollow was too small and shallow to lie down in , so we just sat close together, with our legs stretched out in front and our backs against the side of the hollow. I went to sleep with my head on Nini's shoulder. Nini put his arm around my shoulder and covered us with a piece of cloth. Our sisters slept in a hollow they had dug right beside ours All the while, shells and machine gun bullets continued to fall about us, near and far, without any let-up. If we had worried about them we would not have been able to sleep at all. We had already resigned ourselves to the horror of the enemy attack.
It did not seem to me that we had slept for more than a few moments when five or six soldiers appeared and shouted in loud voices, "Move off, Move off! There's going to be fighting here soon. Go somewhere else."
I hurriedly tried to shake Nini awake, but he did not respond. He's fast asleep, I thought, and saw that he was sleeping with his eyes wide open..."

HIJMS Yamato was - and will now forever be, the largest battleship ever built. It will also forever remain a supreme curiosity that Japan - the one country which had the foresight to recognize how air power and aircraft carriers were the sea-going naval might of the future, should insist on building 2 Yamato class Battleships when their construction almost bankrupted the nation to the extent that their building even deprived the country's fishermen of their nets.

Nevertheless this magnificent vessel of death, doom and destruction went into service at a time when the Imperial Japanese Navy could do no wrong. Prior to WW2 Japan broke the terms of the peace treaties by preparing for their eventual complete domination of the Pacific region. The building of Truk Lagoon being one example. Then, in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor those plans were put into effect with devastating results. In June 1942, however, they failed to take Midway Atoll and from then on it was all downhill. Three years later, the largest battleship ever to have been built was sent on a final mission from which she never returned.

In A Glorious Way to Die Russell Spurr gives an account of this great ship from beginning to tragic end. It is a complete account - as befits one of the world's greatest ships.

A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Hawaii in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Jan 1967.
As the title suggests, this is another historical reference for the history of Okinawa with a focus on the period from the Satsuma invasion to the annexation of the Ryukyus, by Japan, bringing it into the fold as another Japanese prefecture.

A withdrawn ex libris from the Reference and Loan Library in Madison, Wisconsin.
Glacken spent several months on Okinawa in 1951 and 1952 working under the auspices of the Scientific Investigations in the Ryukyu Islands (SIRI) program. It was his special task, as a field associate in anthropology, to study the effects of the native culture upon the natural environment; his interests led him to a comprehensive examination of Okinawan social relationships. His report to the Pacific Science Board of the National Research Council provided the basis for the book.

For study and comparison, Mr. Glacken chose three villages, each representing a different phase of Okinawan culture and economy, and each relatively free from American influence. He selected Matsuda, in the northern region, as a typical forest community; Hanashiro, in the south, as a community dominated by agriculture; and Monotogawa, on the southern seacoast, as a fishing village.

On September 7th in 1945, the surrender document between the US and Japanese military was officially signed in Morine, Goeku Village (presently Kadena Air Base), thus concluding the Battle of Okinawa.
Our City thought it fitting to commemorate the day that peace was restored to our island and so our City designated Sep 7th as Citizens Peace Day and Aug 1st to Sep 7th as Peace Month.

[Read it Here]

The largest cave in the Orient, is claimed in this brief, heavy paperback with lots of glossy photos of the interior of the Gyokusendo Cave. Most of the text is in Japanese but there are very, very brief English-language captions for each of the photos and a sprinkling of paragraphs explaining some of the features of the cave. Twenty-two pages. Available for sale at the entry point for the tour.

Date is not indicated but the map shows the old Makiminato-Naha Housing Area as it was before its return to Okinawa.
Large fold-out maps of roads, ports, airports, Government and Public Offices, National Parks, Quasi-national Parks, Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, Shrines, Temples, Historic Sites and other Noted Places, Department Stores, Banks, and U.S. Military Facilities.
There is also a section of Main Traffic Signs. Maps are in English.and in Japanese.

Decent full-size heavy paperback book with lessons that employ use of helpful sketches . Glossary contains a table for verb conjugation, a dictionary-like Japanese-to-English translation section, and an English-to-Japanese section.

"a poignant memoir elaborating on the personal aftermath of war. Glenn conveys his heart and mind with the hopes of coming to terms and healing from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. His personal story is an optimistic example of the profound impact early diagnosis and treatment can have." (Bob Kerrey, former Governor and Senator of Nebraska, former Navy SEAL awarded the CMoH)

"If there's any good in was beyond self-defense when necessary, it's the humanity that sometimes wells up in those who endured its unspeakable awfulness. This rich contribution to combat literature spills over with it. Gless gives us a far broader, deeper picture of trembling with fear, killing fellow human beings, and their often brutal consequences. His bonuses are acute observation and good writing." (George Feifer, author of TENNOZAN.)

"This Master’s thesis is my attempt to explore the question of what it has been like to live in Okinawa after World War II through examining literary texts set in postwar Okinawa. In particular, I will explore the ways in which Okinawan authors portray the complex realities of Okinawa after its reversion to Japan in 1972. Okamoto Keitoku made observations about the post-reversion period between the late 1970s and early 1980s and argued that this period was characterized by rapid “Japanization” and urbanization of Okinawa. According to Okamoto, these new circumstances altered Okinawan people’s lifestyles and traditional community relationships, creating a sense of anxiety among people about losing their cultural identity. These changes and the subsequent sense of loss of Okinawan identity resulted in raising public interest in what is native to Okinawa."

Read it [HERE] (.pdf)

"This booklet has been designed to aid Navy and Marine Corps personnel and their dependents who must, for whatever reason, subsist on the local Okinawan economy. Although many food items in the Orient are quite different, they can be incorporated into the American diet with minimal culture shock and maximal enjoyment. The Marine Corps Family Service Center hopes that the following information will help during those times when the commissary is not available. So, Tabemasho or 'Let's Eat!' "

The last page is a list of commonly used Okinawan/Japanese phrases that can be useful for the beginning Japanese speaker.

Read it [HERE] (.pdf)

A wonderful book by Holt chronicling the travels and actions of the famous writer, Ernie Pyle. He starts off with Chapter 1, Convoy to Africa and ends with Chapters 16-18, The Final Push, Victory, and Aftermath.

I purchased this book, a 150 page pictorial biography of Japanese Emperor Hirohito, shortly after he died January 7, 1989. Can't read a lick of the text/captions but is a beautiful and moving experience. The photography is, as one would expect, meticulous.
It was released for sale only 9 days after his death so whomever published it had it just "waiting in the wings" for the emperor to go to the Big Beyond. Not a bad little magazine for only 300 yen.

[READ it HERE]

Handy little 42-page soft-bound booklet that I bought at the Ryukyu Mura gift shop.
Very brief historical text but that is made up for by many great color photos and
some tables and illustrations. A very nice "starter" for a tourist of beginner historian.

221-page hard-bound book in Japanese language only. Packed with photos in color and in B&W.
It has the original cardboard slip-cover. Amazing photos and some of mundane community events, school, etc.
Some day I'll translate the copious captions - another long winter project!

There is nothing about Okinawa in this book - except for the heart of the author. Ernie Pyle sacrificed his life for the GIs with whom he lived and, in the end, on the tiny island of Ie Shima. Ergo, Pyle has earned his place in my Library.

Translated from the French by Nina Rootes with an introduction by Robert Lecke

The writer, being more interested in literature than his counterparts, spends a lot of time pondering about the ever deteriorating war situation and the impending likelihood of him being sent on one of those "last throw of the dice" missions.
He strongly holds the view that all participants of these missions participate on a purely voluntary basis. No strong arm tactics on the part of the Japanese Imperial Army. As such, he continually fights an inner battle on the decision to volunteer and meet a certain death, or to remain alive and pursue his dreams of further study.
He ultimately decides for the former out of love for his homeland and family. The book builds up to a climax as the reader begins wondering how he survived the suicide mission to write this moving book. (review at amazon.com)

Read it [HERE]

Read it [HERE]

Coverage of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

In The Philippines And Okinawa: A Memoir, 1945-1948 is the third volume of the autobiography of Colonel William S. Triplet. It completes his personal story by recounting the American occupations after World War II. From overseeing the temporary burial of thirteen thousand U.S. servicemen to rounding up Japanese holdouts who refused to believe the war was ended, In The Philippines And Okinawa is a powerful, dramatic, first-hand look at the dawn of a new history arising from the horrors and heroism of World War II. A very highly recommended contribution to military history collections dedicated to the aftermath of the war in the Pacific.

This is a nifty little monthly handbook that the War Department distributed to soldiers and commanders in the field. What makes it intriguing is that these were written and sent out during the time that the U.S. was in actual battle. What was learned from "the field" was very smartly compiled and shared widely throughout the battle units. Inside the front cover is, in part, the following:

HAVE YOU LEARNED A LESSON ABOUT THE ENEMY?
The Intelligence Bulletin is anxious to obtain contributions from units and individuals, especially intelligence agencies, for publiscation. Articles that present lessons about enemy tactics, techniques and materiel are particularly desired, and when it is consistent with security, credit will be given to the contributing agency or unit.

Readers are urged to comment on the use they are making of this publication..."

Sample: SLICK TRICKS ON OKINAWA
The Nips are still at it. On Okinawa they tried to get away with some of the same old gags:
A field telephone in a cave was booby-trapped with a single-horn antiboat mine. The mine was set to explode when the phone was cranked. Many other caves were reported booby-trapped with bangalore torpedoes fixed with trip wires. As usual, many Jap dead were reported booby-trapped, the helmet of the corpse being the favorite place to plant the booby charge.
And in Naha city, U.S. troops were "engaged" by two uniformed women armed with rifles and grenades.

This is a nifty little monthly handbook that the War Department distributed to soldiers and commanders in the field. What makes it intriguing is that these were written and sent out during the time that the U.S. was in actual battle. What was learned from "the field" was very smartly compiled and shared widely throughout the battle units. Inside the front cover is, in part, the following:

HAVE YOU LEARNED A LESSON ABOUT THE ENEMY?
The Intelligence Bulletin is anxious to obtain contributions from units and individuals, especially intelligence agencies, for publiscation. Articles that present lessons about enemy tactics, techniques and materiel are particularly desired, and when it is consistent with security, credit will be given to the contributing agency or unit.

Readers are urged to comment on the use they are making of this publication..."

Sample: BANZAI CHARGES DISCOURAGED
Jap Offensive Tactics Improving
The Jap high command has become increasingly worried about the tendency of its troops to commit mass suicide when in a tight spot. The official name, of course, isn't mass suicide but banzai charge. Whatever the name, the chief result of the frenzied, hopped-up attacks that featured early island campaigns was compact masses of dead Japs. Perhaps the incessant speeches and orders inciting the soldiers to fanatical bravery were too effective. With such thoughts in mind, the Jap high command in the Philippines tried to prevent its troops from indulging in large-scale night attacks unsupported by automatic weapons and artillery..."

"... The prefectureís politics, sports, arts, and role as a peaceful land occupied by the United States underlie this. The question of the proto-entrepot past leads to the economic gap between Okinawa and the mainland. By becoming Ryukyu again with a weaponless realm and serving as a global marketplace, then the prefecture becomes just like prosperous Japan. The reversion movement was predicated on a unique identity wanting to return home. Okinawans may resent mainland tourists visiting the islands for an exotic vacation, but these people buying anthropomorphic pineapple dolls or T-shirts with the word ěporkî on it are furthering the islandsí identity. For now and the foreseeable future, Japanization is Ryukyuization."

[Read it]

...a wife's "tour of duty" of Okinawa, according to the author. This is a series of letters written to my mother and to "the girls". This is a personal account of what I saw and did and loved about Okinawa and the Orient. As such it is a collection of experiences - unrelated experiences - in a wonderful land peopled by wonderful men and women who have a philosophy of life which is different from that which I have learned as an American...

Read

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

Somewhat similar to This Week on Okinawa this little paperback throw-away magazine provided social networking in the 1960s and 70s.

TOURS

Here Comes the Bride

Wedding Superstition

Flower Arranging

Tai Fu - the Great Wind

OBON Festival on Okinawa

Vintage advertising throughout the issue.

READ it HERE

Somewhat similar to This Week on Okinawa this little paperback throw-away magazine provided social networking for the 1970s.
Many show pages at the beginning of the magazine showcasing the AOWC leadership, committee chairs, etc.
The good stuff, in my opinion, begins around page 27.

TOURS

The Dive - a poem

The Song of the Mermaid

OBON

Kitchen Katchers - recipes

Vintage advertising throughout the issue.

READ it HERE

Somewhat similar to This Week on Okinawa this little paperback throw-away magazine provided social networking for the 1970s.

Leadership and "society" stuff in the first several pages

$aving Money

"Mighty Manfred" the macaw

The Song of the Plover - an Okinawan folk tale

Tsunahiki - the tug of war

A Dive into History

Once Upon a Mat - The Judo Master

The Last DX from Saigon

Kitchen Katchers - recipes

Food for Fido

OBON - Festival of the Dead

Great old advertisements - fun memories!

READ it HERE

A good primer on Japanese culture. Sansom's book has been around for a long, long time, and it has been an introduction to the subject for several generations of interested readers and budding Japanese scholars.

As a book for beginners on Japan it is an excellent start. If you already know something about the subject, you will probably find that it is long on history and short on culture. The author goes out of his way to keep the political context in the forefront and always maintains the chronological order of his story, even when the development of some cultural features (e.g., Japanese Buddhism) may not be well-served by that approach. Most of the major features we associate with Japanese culture are mentioned. Too many of them are only mentioned in passing, and could have merited more in-depth treatment. (Review by Thomas F. Ogara)

The author ardently offers sound rationale for why Ryukyuans, Okinawans, do not and should not consider Japan to be their "Fatherland." A moving and passionate missive.

Read it [HERE]

323-page paperback, including chronology and notes, that is crammed with facts. Not much about Okinawa however. Pretty dry, to the point fact book. For example, the chapter on "The Early Japanese" is condensed into 6 pages of text. Good read for someone stepping up from novice Japan historian.

"For the reader unfamiliar with Japan’s supernatural, this book should provide a preliminary introduction to the shadowy world that lies behind Tokyo’s hard, commercial dazzle. There may be readers who are disappointed that I did not include more, but to cover all was not my intent. As an exploratory journey into otherworldly things in Japan, this book is meant to offer a starting point. I hope readers will enjoy reading its pages as much as I have enjoyed writing them." (C. Ross)

Read the book [HERE]
This book was obtained and is available as a free download at academia.edu

First course in Japanese language for either class room use or self study.
Thirty hours? I don't know about that. In my case there would have to be 7 days in each of the author's hours! Good little handbook though.

Two-way, Japanese-to-English and English-to-Japanese phrasebook

"Confused? You needn't be if you only learn to say a few greetings in Japanese. And maybe a word or two to get you around town.

All the survival words and phrases you need.

pleanty of conversation topics, easy expressions and colloquial terms to help make your trip into something more

tips on protocol and the culture to help you understand what's going on

explanations of sumo and other cultural delights."

"The personal histories of those who experienced the war and Occupation in Japan between the early 1930s and mid-1950s will soon fade away as age takes its toll. With this in mind, the authors decided to chronicle as much of that oral history as possible and to accomplish this in as deep and, at the same time, broad an approach as possible. Deep in the sense that we dug into layers of memory from citizens living in one prefecture in Japan, a place that reflects in both drama and detail the national challenges and attitudes of the times; broad in the sense that we interviewed diverse populations of Japanese citizens encompassing ages and professions across the spectrum of society during the war years."

This is a 1980, second printing of the paperback edition. A fairly quick read with much detail and abundant photograph plates.

Made up of 14 members, The Pacific War Research Society is a group of Japanese historians who devoted years to the research involved in preparing Japan's Longest Day. The authors (not named) drew heavily on interviews with eyewitnesses of the drama that unfolded on that historic day; over one year alone was spent on interviewing and cross-checking the accounts of seventy-nine of the men who took part in the decision to surrender.

August 14, 1945, 12 noon to 1 p.m. "Anyone who disagrees will have to do so over my dead body."
General Korechika Anami

"Descriptive of these islands and their inhabitants; in an attempt with the aid of natives educated in England, to create an opening for missionary labours in Japan," by Peter Parker, M.D., medical missionary from the American Missionary Board.

Read it [HERE] (.pdf download)

Read it [HERE] (.pdf download)

Personal account of the travels and observations by Thomas E. Dewey, the 47th governor of New York (1943-54). The information in the book is based on his travels to 17 Pacific countries, a trip suggested by State Department adviser John Foster Dulles. Only 6 pages are devoted to Okinawa.

Okinawa, half the size of the State of Rhode Island, and scene of the last great battle of the Pacific, was our midway stop on the way from Japan to Formosa. It is said that the Japanese were jealous of the Okinawan civilization, which had flourished on the island for hundreds of years. Whatever the reason, they invaded and conquered Okinawa in 1609 and the island was seldom heard of in the Western world until the final stages of the Pacific war.

A dandy read if you're interested in Asian-Pacific history and politics.

Kamikaze looks at the origins of the suicide campaign amid the concepts of Bushido, Japan's self-sacrificing warrior code, and Shinto, the State religion. It follows the ebb and flow of the major battles. The author also looks at kamikaze tactics and the U. S. response, and offers a critical analysis of one of World War II's most bizarre military phenomena.

This is the first reference book in English written on the history of karate. Compiled by a scholar with not only a deep interest but also a thorough knowledge of both Asian history and karate, this book is sure to be the definitive work in the field.

In the mid1990s, Okinawa became the focal point of a major crisis in U.S.Japanese relations. During this diplomatic incident many Americans were surprised to learn that the United States had military bases on this island. In fact, the United States had ruled Okinawa and its surrounding islands as a colony in everything but name from 1945 to 1972. The island had been the strategic keystone of the American postwar base system of double containment in the Pacific and the only spot in that chain that American officials insisted on governing under the legal cover of “residual sovereignty.”

Why had the United States insisted on administering an entire province of a country that it otherwise called an ally? And why did the Americans return Okinawa when they did? In this thoroughly researched, carefully argued work, Nicholas Evan Sarantakes argues that policy makers in Washington worried that the Japanese might return to their aggressive and expansionistic prewar foreign policies after the occupation of Japan ended. Even after it was abundantly clear that Japan posed no threat to its neighbors, the United States insisted on retaining the island, fearing that Japan might adopt a policy of neutrality during the Cold War.

Sarantakes uses recently declassified documents to examine America's larger strategic purposes during this period. The story he tells includes soldiers fighting in combat, mobs rioting, diplomats navigating the dangerous waters of power, and clever politicians on both sides of the indigocolored Pacific taking highrisk gambles. In telling this tale, he brings our attention to an episode in American foreign relations that has been taken for granted for half a century.

Large mid-1950s photo book chock-full of photos and captions (in Japanese and briefly in English) of many facets of Okinawa life 10 years or so after the end of the Battle of Okinawa. Sections relating to culture, commerce, etc. Inscription (on paper glued over the original inscription): "Information on what has taken place in Okinawa after World War II has been piecemeal, and, up until the publication of this volume there has been no effort to assemble the whole story in one book. We, The Okinawa Times, previously published "Tetsuno Bofu," (Typhoon of Record,) a record of the Battle of Okinawa, and received the public's praise. In this present volume of "Kichi Okinawa" (Okinawa, a Military Base) we present a book of news pictures as a companion to Tetsuno Bofu. We are proud of its value as the only monumental record to be published in full after World War II.

Cover without jacket.

The narrative is full of details but the real guts of the book is the first-hand accounts by the men involved in the assaults against the well constructed Japanese defensive positions. Not only were the Japanese well dug in and protected but they used their firepower and weapons to great advantage. They wrought destruction upon the advancing marines. Men and machines were continually being knocked out with no gain being made against the determined Japanese defence.

Finally after a heroic night attack the marines secured a toehold on Sugar Loaf but then had to hold against Japanese counter attacks and massive counter fire from artillery, mortars, machine guns and snipers. The casualty list for the marine units were massively high causing some questioning of the strategy and tactics used by the Army High Command. In over seven days of fighting the 6th Marine Division suffered over 2,000 casualties fighting for this pimple of a hill which secured the Japanese Shuri Line.

Handy 30-page type-written and hand-drawn text/study guide. It has quite a few useful phrases with explanations of sentence structure and conversational vocabulary.

[Read it Here]

This is the final book of Ernie Pyle's war reporting. After Africa, Italy and D-Day on the European continent, Pyle took it the hard way again. There was still the Pacific war to win, and where the fighting was Ernie had to go, soul-sick though he was with the thousands of scenes of death and destruction he had already witnessed.
He was attached to the Navy early in 1945. In the Marianas first and then living with the boys who flew the B-29s over the Japanese homeland, Pyle was experiencing a side of the war that was new to him. Next he joined an aircraft carrier on the invasion of Okinawa. He made the landing with the Marines and saw Okinawa secured.
Then his luck ran out. A Japanese bullet killed Ernie Pyle on April 17th, 1945 on Ie Shima, and Americans lost their greatest and best-loved correspondent. Millions mourned the going of this modest man who wrote of the war with all honesty and no pretensions, and whose writings will stand as one of the most vital records of the struggle.
Last Chapter is a brief, brave little book to complete that record permanently. There is a sixteen page picture section and an index of names and places.

This is one of those rare books that made me sad to reach the end. I wanted to know more!

A conniving Marine platoon sergeant never passes up an opportunity to make a buck, or 60,000 for that matter. Whereas he is an excellent NCO and a leader that every man trusted, he also had a hell of a nose for a deal when the opportunity presented itself. His camp's CO, Colonel Mason, a "mustang" from way back knew he could always count on Sergeant Carter to come through on a recon mission. He also knew that whenever the camp was abuzz Carter had to have something to do with it.

The book begins with the near end of combat operations on island and follows Carter and his platoon through mop-up, aid to local villagers, and even eventually to Japanese Imperial Army troops holed up in a cave up north.

Jake Carter wasn't satisfied to deal within his own; he ended up dragging in every branch of service except for the Coast Guard before his enterprises on Okinawa were through. He even found time and opportunity to whip up a little romance before being shipped off to the brig of a Navy aircraft carrier!

Despite having a few too many convenient coincidences it is a gripping story of a wheeler-dealer and a true patriot. I'm looking forward to 2 years from now when I won't remember having read this book and I can start all over again! Ha! See? Age has its perks.

In modern military literature, there is no more pernicious theme than that the day of the infantryman has passed us by, overwhelmed by increasingly lethal technology. Japan's Battle of Okinawa takes us into the world of the modern infantryman and illustrates in vivid detail Clausewitz dictum that combat is to war as cash payment is to commerce.

Dr. Thomas M. Huber's work is unique: for the first time in English, the Battle of Okinawa is analyzed from the vantage point of the Japanese defenders. Basing his work on extensive research in Japanese military archives, Dr. Huber affords the reader a view of the Okinawa battles literally from "the other side of the hill."

[Read it HERE]

I take issue with the claim to be the first English-language account "from the vantage point of the defenders." In the book The Battle for Okinawa, Col. Hiromichi Yahara, General Ushijima's Chief of Staff during the battle, presented a very clear and concise account of the battle from the Japanese military's perspective. That book was published in 1955; long before this book came out in 1990.

A rare look at what we knew about Loo Choo 160 years ago, in 1853.
Never underestimate the treasures that can be found if a guy just keeps on looking!

[Read here] (.pdf file) - Click your browser's "Back" button to return to this page.

The first page is the magazine cover. The Loo Choo article starts on the second .pdf page; magazine page 630. part way down first column. Enjoy!

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

Probably the most comprehensive English language account relating to Okinawa published prior to the narrative of American Expedition to Japan headed by Commodore Perry which arrived in Okinawa more than two years after Smith's visit. This book is Bishop Smith's account of his efforts, supported by the British Government, to obtain better treatment of Dr. Bernard Bettelheim. Bettelheim, a medical missionary, had been sent to Okinawa in 1846 by the British Loochoo Missionary Society. His presence on Okinawa was unwelcome by the authorities and his activities were constantly limited and hindered. Both Bettelheim and the Okinawan authorities complained about his situation, but an impasse had developed. Neither side appeared to be willing to give in. Bishop Smith's visit was intended to show the Okinawans that the full authority and power of the English government supported Bettelheim's continued and unrestricted presence on Okinawa. Bishop Smith's account of his visit, which spanned the period from Oct 3 - Oct 10, 1850, provides exceptional insight into the conditions under which Bettelheim conducted his medical mission.

Though the book is in my Library, you can Read it Here (download .pdf)

[Read it HERE]

[Read it HERE]

[Read it HERE]

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

[READ] selected pages

TEXT

[READ] selected pages

TEXT

TEXT

Read it [HERE] (.pdf download)

This is another outstanding book by a 1st Marine Division man. Johnston served with E Co 2nd battalion 5th Marines on Bouganville, Pelelieu and Okinawa. To his surprise he also got a campaign star for New Guinea as he doesn't recall anything happening there. Initially he is a machine gunner with the Heavy weapons company but battle experience led to a reorganization that saw machine gunners attached to line companies (the mortars were attached to HQ Company). Accordingly, Johnston is in the thick of the action, particularly on Peleliu and on Okinawa where he commands two squads.
This book is only 174 pages long, though it is of the slightly larger 6x9 inch format. It is however a very intense read. The combat is never sensationalistic but clearly shows the horror of death, wounds and its shattering effect on men. Johnston has written a highly developed memoir that goes further than most towards graphically illustrating the nature of combat in the Pacific. (reviewed at Amazon.com)

Read it HERE (.pdf)

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

[Read the Book]

By his sympathetic and graphic pen, Rev. Schwartz seeks to introduce the Islanders to the Christian world, not for gain, but that we of the West may have a share of gospelizing this ancient, civilized people. The story he relates is very much condensed, but it gives in intelligible account of a people who were regarded by Commodore Matthew Perry as only second to the Japanese and with whose ruler he negotiated a treaty with America. What is of greater interest is that Schwartz and his family had consecrated themselves to the service and salvation of these long forgotten 600,000 souls. They love the people and God has given them a soul-inspiring vision of a Christian Loo Choo which they would now make a fair reality through the help of the missionary society and friends.

Though the book is in my Library, you can Read it Here (download .pdf)

This was "A Special Issue: The End of the War with Japan.

The struggle for Okinawa was the last battle of World War II and the bloodiest campaign in the Pacific against Imperial Japan. Long before the battle ended, U.S. Army civil affairs officers began the task of providing essential services for the island's war-torn population. This volume is an authoritative account of the Army's military government efforts on Okinawa from the first stages of planning until the transition toward a civil administration began in December, 1950.

[Read preface by the author] 24 April 1987

This is an interesting work that addresses the missions of Military Police during the Okinawa campaign. Having recognized that there is very, very little written about the MPs during Operation Iceberg the author has extrapolated data from numerous sources to create a fairly graphic picture of what those Army and Marine Corps cops did. Despite significant failures of leadership during the planning phases of the campaign the MPs, once they got their feet on the ground, did an amazingly good job. With fewer troops than needed (and requests for more turned down) and emerging policing requirements that had not been anticipated they were able to get the job done - sometimes at the cost of interfering with and even stalling combat troops.
They had a lot of jobs to do too! Some things I would not have thought about. Things like traffic control. From setting up traffic direction on the beaches for arriving troops and supplies to rounding up civilians who kept sneaking out of their compound in order to return to their homes (some of which had been destroyed), those boys had their hands full. There was a need for MPs to provide security for airfields and the best they could do was to cover Yontan (Yomitan) and Kadena fields. No planning had been done to provide security for 14-16 additional airfields that were in the works. Instead the MPs were tasked with things like controlling traffic on what miserable roads were available - they had to close down Routes 13 and 5 because they were being pummeled by unrestricted traffic and torrential rains. At one point Route 1 was the only road available to move troops, weapons and supplies to the front lines. Twenty MPs were detailed to provide the security detail for the Commanding General. With only 3,000 cops it was a pretty big chunk to assign to a single mission.
So many more things to do and never enough men on hand - but somehow they worked through it and for the most part did an excellent job.

Being an account of Visits to the Malay and Loo-Choo Islands, the Coasts of China, Formosa, Japan, Kamtschatka, Siberia, and the Mouth of the Amoor River

[Read it HERE] -

My Three Years with Eisenhower could have been written only by the man who lived with Dwight D. Eisenhower day and night; who acted as his friend and confidant; whose duties ranged from opening the General's car door to handling such ticklish jobs as the battle between General Patton and Sergeant Bill Mauldin; who saw Dwight Eisenhower, in his intimate day by day life, develop from a relatively unknown staff officer to the Commander of the greatest military operation in all history. Captain Harry Butcher served for three years as naval aide to General Dwight D. Eisenhower during World War II. As he wrote in his introduction, "I want to make it clear to the reader that this effort is my responsibility and not General Eisenhower's. Yet I like to think that, although I wrote the book, General Eisenhower lived it." General Eisenhower did indeed live it. So did Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Harry Hopkins, Bernard Montgomery, and General George Marshall and dozens of others of the English and American leaders who bore in their minds and in their hearts the terrible responsibility of planning and executing the war against Axis Europe.

[Read it HERE]

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

Here is a list of the issues that I have here in the Library. Click on the hyperlink to download the issue:

January, 1965 (4.53MB .pdf file)
March, 1965 (2.02MB .pdf)
April, 1965 (2.37MB .pdf)
May, 1965 (2.71MB .pdf)

[Read it HERE]

[Read it HERE]

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

[Read it HERE]

[Read it HERE]

NATSUKASHII: Uchinaa nu umui / Old Times: Reflections of Okinawa offers you an extensive up close and personal experience as you follow him, day by day, throughout his last five trips to Okinawa. He details what it's like to live and play on the island by way of reading his stories that are complemented by historical details that are woven into his dialogue as well as links to hundreds of his videos that allow you to accompany him on adventures from underwater caves to the majestic top of Rainmaker Mountain. Ride along as Mick takes you on windshield tours along the Okinawa Expressway and down country roads of remote outlying islands. Sail with him as he ferries to Ieshima or slog through the mud with him at a rice field festival. Traipse along through tall grass

This book will get you as close as you can get to the real Okinawa without actually being there - which is kinda nice now since COVID has shut the door on vacation travel to Japan.

Read about it HERE

Chapters range from the Growth of Japanese Sea Powers to Guadalcanal.

Chapters range from The Japanese Offensives through to the Strangulation of Japan.

"This article explores the negotiations between Japan and Okinawa to clarify the latter’s role in this process. I focus on visits to Tokyo by Chobyo Yara, Chief Executive of the Government of the Ryukyu Islands, to meet with Japanese Government officials, including Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and Foreign Minister Kiichi Aichi. In particular, I consider ‘homeland level status’, a term used in these discussions to define the conditions for Okinawa’s reversion to Japan."

Read it [HERE].

"Thought-provoking and timely, Night in the American Village is a vivid look at the enduring wounds of US-Japanese history and the cultural and sexual politics of the American military empire." (Amazon review)

I find the book to be unashamedly biased with an unquestionably anti-US military theme running throughout each character chapter. Some of the author's assumptions and conclusions are erroneous, such as "the military ranking system indicates a man's pay grade, educational level, and dedication to work." I've known E-3s who were much more dedicated to their work than their O-4 overseer. I've also known plenty of enlisted members with college degrees (including bachelor and masters level).

The author bends over backward to impress upon the reader the notion that all off-base areas surrounding U.S. military facilities are seedy and beneath her dignity. In a description of Gate 2 Street "(t)he aroma of sizzling meat," she writes, "mixed with an underlying stench of urine. If you want to see homeless people, go to Gate 2 Street," as if to say to readers unfamiliar with the area that it's teeming with derelicts and bums. To those of us who DO know the area we recognize and I, for one, resent the mis-characterization.

With those criticisms aside I did find the book interesting and readable. I can only trust that the characters who comprise each chapter are indeed real people and from them I learned things about the seedier side of Okinawan culture that I'd never known nor been exposed to before.

A bit ho-hum, shiny magazine style piece with a few good stories, "What's Good About Okinawa", "Flavors of Okinawa", "Exploring the Island", "Setting Up House", "Survival Kit", and some directories for Camps Foster, Lester, Hansen, and Schwab; Torii Station, and Kadena Air Base - with maps of the bases.

Coffee table type book replete with color and B&W photos with copious text. A good primer on Operation Iceberg.

The battle for Okinawa was a long, drawn-out affair that resulted in a tremendous loss of life, ships and aircraft. The Japanese had introduced kamikaze attacks earlier but they reached a new level at Okinawa. Twenty two ships were sunk and 250 damaged, some so badly that they were out of the war. Over 500 aircraft were lost and casualties in the action were close to 50,000.

The Japanese army had refined their defensive actions during the island campaigns to extract the most loss of American lives and Guadalcanal proved the effectiveness. At sea, the ring of ring of picket ships set up to warn of impending air attacks became the main target and the location where most of the ships that were sunk met their end.

Foster's book is the shortest but still gives a great overview. It contains good maps, lots of glossy photographs, and a great appendix that includes numbers of each type of ship that were damaged or sunk followed by a complete list of every ship by name with the cause of damage or sinking.

From a unique dual viewpoint, encompassing both the American and Japanese perspectives, Ian Gow has put together an exciting, comprehensive account of the battle. Fascinating material has been gathered from Japanese sources that had never before been seen in English. This scrupulously researched volume also contains appendices that include a calendar of events, a guide to the military forces involved, and comparative battle statistics.

Large mid-1950s photo book chock-full of photos and captions (in Japanese and briefly in English) of many facets of Okinawa life 10 years or so after the end of the Battle of Okinawa. Sections relating to culture, commerce, etc. Inscription (on paper glued over the original inscription): "Information on what has taken place in Okinawa after World War II has been piecemeal, and, up until the publication of this volume there has been no effort to assemble the whole story in one book. We, The Okinawa Times, previously published "Tetsuno Bofu," (Typhoon of Record,) a record of the Battle of Okinawa, and received the public's praise. In this present volume of "Kichi Okinawa" (Okinawa, a Military Base) we present a book of news pictures as a companion to Tetsuno Bofu. We are proud of its value as the only monumental record to be published in full after World War II.

Cover without jacket.

A theological study of unusual (at least to Western world) religious beliefs and practices. This is a complemetary piece to Women of the Sacred Groves and to On the Threshold of the Closed Empire.

Subject throughout their long history to many foreign influences, the Okinawan people still retain to a remarkable degree a strong reverence for their prehistoric animistic beliefs.

The United States - Japanese power struggle, and what may happen
Mister Morris spent years on post-war Okinawa with the US Army, in the Real Estate section of the Military Government (MG). His book is a trove of information detailing the recovery of Okinawa's society and economy, the political ins and outs, and documentation of the Okinawan life in the late 1950s.
Easy to read, captivating and a "must read" for the more-than-entry-level Okinawaphile!

Paper cover 64-page magazine published for U.S. Air Force personnel and families to familiarize themselves with USAF missions, services and general information about the 313th Air Division, Naha Air Base, and Kadena Air Base.

This is bound to rustle up some memories for those who were stationed on island in the mid-to-late 1960s. My first tour of duty on Okinawa wasn't until 1972 yet I find many ads for businesses that were still there.

A fun walk down Memory Lane!

Read it [HERE] ! (.pdf file)
Clicking the link will launch a new window (or a PDF reader) which may be closed after you're done reading.

Nice soft-cover magazine size publication that is not a "welcome to Okinawa" theme.
Okinawan culture data written by Hisashi Ashimine, and the Okinawa history data written by Christopher Ames. A nice primer.

Chapter 1 - Myths and Prehistory
Chapter 2 - The Rise of the Ryukyu Kingdom
Chapter 3 - The Ryukyus Become Japanese
Chapter 4 - U.S. Administration of Okinawa
Chapter 5 - Post-Reversion Okinawa

Detailed information on all inhabited islands from Osumi to Yaeyama.
Discover hidden beaches and cultural gems found in no other guidebook.

287 pages, including the index, comprising crisp photos, maps and tons of written information about the multitude of places to go within the RI. Small enough to fit in a handbag or perhaps a camera carrying case, it would have been nice to have with me on my 2015 trip to Okinawa. Rest assured, it will be with me when I go back next year!

Tucked inside of a pocket on the inside back cover is a terrific, large road map of all of the Okinawa islands. Since this is a 2014 publication it has the most current roads/places map that I've yet seen in English language.

45 islands of Okinawa - Culture, Cuisine and Marine Sports. "Area Guide" on the cover are the only English language words in this entire 190-page colorful large pocket-size book. It has maps of various areas of the main island of Okinawa as well as surrounding islands. Replete with brilliant color photos there is apparently much information about the various sites and sights to be enjoyed.

[Read it Here]

A comprehensive guide to the Okinawa Islands, complete with full-color road maps. A detailed guide to the main U.S. bases, and airplane, bus and ferry information included.
Beautiful photography. Minimal advertising. Book has a lot of text describing each place of interest in enough detail to whet the traveler's appetite - and then some. This little book, by far, was the best-spent Ą1,500 of my second tour on island. I went nowhere without Okinawa by Road and the other guide, Okinawa - Where Is It?.

This is another year-book style book containing many, many B&W photos of the children of Okinawa. No date is found in the book but it appears to be, based on my observation of what few automobiles are depicted, circa. 1950s.

Get leaner, live longer, and never feel hungry.

Discover how the world's longest-lived and healthiest people eat to stay slim

Use the caloric density index to achieve lifelong healthy weight

Choose the right proteins, the right fats, and the right carbs

More than 150 delicious, easy-to-prepare recipes

The book Okinawa Dreams Ok provides a much needed update on the current situation in Okinawa, with a particular emphasis on the developments that occurred after the brutal rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by three U.S. servicemen. Delving into not only the everyday impact of the U.S. military and the Japanese government's decisions to keep the military in Okinawa, this book also focuses on the Okinawan people (Uchinanchu) as they continue to define themselves culturally and and collectively on their own terms, in the face of the constant threats from the military. Overall this book is a must read for all people interested in issues of social justice and who stand firmly against imperialism wherever it rears it's head, and who stand for the right to self-determination for all people. With the advent of the "Pacific Century" this book helps to demonstrate that the myth of Japan's homogeneity has always been imagined, and that now, more than ever, the Okinawan people are coming into their own, and increasingly defining themselves, and their land, on their own terms. (review at amazon.com)

Guidebook is divided into three main sections based on Okinawa's history: Nanzan (southern kingdom), Chuzan (central kingdom), and Hokuzan (northern kigdom). Each section contains selected places for travel with explanation on history, culture, entertainment, food, and accommodations.
The NAVIGATOR helps visitors plan a trip to Okinawa according to the guidebook attractions. The navigator functions as a planning tool for putting together itineraries. It is one of the most important sections of the book.
Visitors should use this guidebook from the beginning through the end of their planning; however, the book is only a guide. The real satisfaction of travel comes from the experience of exploration!

Produced entirely in Japanese this little booklet contains information about the 1989 Okinawa Matsuri.
The bulk of the booklet is advertising. A 64-page comic book size and paper quality publication was available
in downtown Koza. I don't recall if this was a "handout" or if I had to pay a few yen for it. Nice keepsake.

Great little hard-cover book is 271 pages of excellent black & white photos with text and captions in Japanese. The first eight photos are colorized. The book appears to be entirely photos of pre-war Okinawa depicting their architecture and culture. Very interesting and I truly regret being unable to read it.

If someone who sees this can recognize/translate, please give me as much information as you can about this book.
For a better look at the cover, please right-click on the photo then select "View Image". [Send me an e-mail]

Here is a fairly comprehensive - and valuable - resource for those things that American military members on Okinawa should know and want to know. It's a glossy paper-bound reference chock full of information along with more than enough advertising.
Includes introductory comments, Communications (phone, Internet, etc.), Transportation (driving tips, buses, taxis, monorail, expressway, etc.), Climate (typhoon info, sea conditions, etc.), Sights and Sounds (culture, festivals, holidays, beaches, exploring, etc.), Dining & Entertainment on and off-base, Shopping (shopping areas, groceries, flea markets, etc.), Sports & Hobbies (diving, golf, boating, etc.), Education & Career options, libraries, etc., Marine & Family Programs (resources, children, teens, etc.), and a Military Installation Directory that includes maps of the various Marine Corps, Army, Navy and Kadena Air Base. This publication does not have prefecture maps.

Nice hard-cover book, 103 pages in length, containing numerous sketches, drawings and photographs of Okinawa as percieved in 1945. It is primarily a Japanese-language book but with ample English-language captions throughout. The first 1/3 of the book is replete with sketches and captions. In the mid-portion of the book there are photos with two columns of text; one in Japanese and the other in English. In the last third of the book are photos with bi-lingual captions.
An Engish-language preface by the editor reads, in part,

With the recent mounting "Peace Movement", including the One-Foot-Movie-Film Campaign, we often have chances of knowing the real pictures of the war on Okinawa. Thus I came to have a better opinion of the pamphlet "Guide to Okinawa." The pamphlet is consisting of sixty-one (61) sketches seemed drawn by the U.S. military newsmen, two-hundred and seven (207) pictures with explanations, and reports of Okinawa history and culture...

This pamphlet (original) gave me the impression that judging from the printing types used, it had been printed during a period of 1945 to 1947...

I would be very much happy if this publication could be helpful, as a step, toward the everlasting peace of the world.
Thank you very much
Yoji Aoyama
Editor

Delightful photo and memo booklet, constructed of heavy paper and with 39 beautiful photos of Okinawa scenery and people. I think it's one of Blackie's best collection of photos in a single binding.

This is a neat little soft-bound handbook containing a compilation of stories that had been printed in The Shimpo Weekly News, a publication whose primary purpose was to keep English-reading folks apprised of happenings on Okinawa and to also provide for an English-language periodical that native Okinawans could peruse in their quest to master the English language.

I. History (General Themes; Castles and Bells)
II. World War II (Recalled; Malaria; Legacy)
III. The U.S. Military Presence
IV. Politics, & A ourism (Tertiary Sector II)
VII. Okinawans in Okinawa (Themes & Trends; Festivals & Ceremonies)
VIII. Education and Sports
IX. The Arts (Native Art; Western Art)
X. Okinawans Abroad
XI. The Environment (On Land & In The Air; In the Water; Man's Impact
XII. The Water Problem

"Culture, food, healthy aging
Tourist attractions, arts and crafts
Area highlights and maps
Resort hotels, outer islands
Marine activities and more"

Nice reference resource and not too over-run with advertising. My copy has been a bit defaced since I ripped out the maps that I found to be very helpful in my touring of the islands in Feb-Mar 2014.

The photography is amazing in this book of 270 black & white stills of mainly children of post-war Okinawa. I enjoy the pictures immensely but the text leaves a lot to be desired. References are made to photographs that are many pages away so the reader, in order to follow the author's streams of thought, finds himself flipping back and forth, hither and yon trying to tie it all together.

The Chinese have a saying, "One picture is worth a thousand words." I have fallen back upon that old proverb in the preparation of this book. During my two years on the island, I have really had an opportunity to indulge my hobby of photography. ... I have been guided by the advice of many of my Okinawan friends. I explained that many of the people in America would hope to learn something about their island, and themselves, from the pictures.

High-quality magazine published by the Marine Corps contains great articles
Southern Comfort: Life on Ishigaki Island
Living Art: Ikebana and Bansai
Photo Essay: Captured in Glass (Magic Lantern slides)
The rest of the magazine is loaded with things of interest to military personnel such as restaurant review, tours, activities at the clubs, etc. A nice mag.

The same publisher puts out a weekly issue entitled Okinawa Living Weekly
Read current and archived issues of both publications [HERE]

Glossy magazine published monthly. I picked up this copy during my 2014 month on island.
Features:
Shuri Castle: Echoes of Ryukyu's Past
Chocolates: the sweetest of gifts
Explore Okinawa: Nago
Taiyo Golf
Hanami Time - viewing cherry blossoms, and lots more useful information.

Compiled and edited by: H. H. Smith-Switzer
Historical data by: Lt. Cmdr. Hanna
Photography: Ralph Robinson & Alex Balasenowich
Illustrations: McFadden
Foreword by W.E. McCain, Capt (SC) USN

Read the Book [HERE]

Bob fought with the 763rd Tank Battalion on Okinawa. He starts of though recounting the story of his family as ranchers in Texas - Confederate ancestors and all. At first I thought this was a bit staid but it grew on me. Interestingly, he attended a military school which offered cavalry training and this saw him assigned to armour training when the war came. Some might find these opening chapters a bit plodding but once he gets to Leyte his delivery warms up considerably.

He starts the Okinawa campaign as a liaison officer with the infantry. He provides some good context on the operations of the 96th Infantry division, which his battalion supported throughout. Interestingly he believes the infantry had a harder time than the marines. He also explains very clearly the difficulties presented by attacking the Japanese on their strongly fortified ridges and particularly the reverse slopes. I learned a lot. His experiences are very dramatic in this role and there are several very close shaves. Once men alongside him are cut in half by a shell and he is crystal clear about what this meant. The horrors of battle are not sanitized. It is a sobering read.

During this phase he demonstrates exceptional shooting skills and even uses infra-red equipment to deal with night-time infiltrators. Then, under extraordinary circumstances he is given command of a tank troop and drives straight into a very vivid and violent battle. He recounts a number of vicious fights from his tank, against suicide squads and anti-tank guns. It is a war of extermination. He writes of this to his parents and his inclusion of complete letters is very useful for modern readers trying to understand the mentality of men in his situation. They are frank and unedited, using the terminology of the time. Green is no racist though. He was a decent young man who wanted no more than to be back on the family farm.

Green is very observant. He notes things about LSTs for instance that no one else has mentioned. He writes interestingly of combat fatigue and the bravery of medics. He conveys very well the tragedy of the war and there are some wrenching stories. As a tank troop commander he is mostly directing the action but there are a few times where he personally performs some incredible deeds, one such earning him the Silver Star. (Review by John E. Larsen, Brisbane, Australia)

Read the entire publication [Here]

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

Bilingual heavy paperback manual includes fair-quality black & white photos of the art pieces of the museum with captions and text. Textiles, pottery, lacquerware, paintings, calligraphy, burial urns and funeral customs, fishing utensils, farming implements, machinery, food storage implements and methodology, musical instruments, and many other interesting aspects of Okinawan culture.

"Marian Mann, an accomplished artist, felt compelled to set on paper or canvas her impressions and feelings about Okinawa and the people who live on the island ... we enjoyed getting a closer look at the Ryukuan way of life." Jean Shadrach. [click HERE to read the book] - a new browser window will launch. At the end of the book you can close the window or it will take you back to my "Home" page.

Shuri Castle and Sugar Loaf Hill, the Big Apple and Naha - these names that were once famous live again in the pages of this book, and so does the heroism that these battle objectives witnessed. Nor is the account one-sided: a special feature of (the book) is the inclusion of much previously unpublished eyewitness Japanese material, so that the reader sees the battle from both sides.

Researched and written by George H. Kerr, I believe that this book is accepted as the text of authority with regard to the history of pre-war Okinawa. I've read and re-read this book and have a much greater understanding of the people of the Ryukyu Islands - and I also have a much deeper regret for having not known this history while living among the Okinawans. "...this is the history of a little-known people whom events have made it necessary to know well. It is also one of those all-too-rare books that happily combine solid scholarship and detailed accuracy with a forthright, enjoyable literary style that does justice to the storybook quality of many of the episodes. It will long remain the standard history of Okinawa and the Ryukyus."

A portion of the book can be read here, at Google: [Excerpts]

The Revised edition (2000) contains an Afterword by Dr. Mitsugu Sakihara, professor and president of Hawaii International College. Prior to assuming his duties at Hawaii International he taught for many years at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, where he continues to teach an annual course on Okinawan history. Dr. Sakihara was a 1987-88 Fullbright professor to Japan.

Among the revisions, annotated in the Afterword, following the alphabetical index, are:
Part A: Pre-Modern Okinawa
Notes to Part A
Part B: Okinawa since 1945
Notes to Part B
Part C: Revisions to Chapter Four
Part D: Errata in Original (1958) Edition

These are important modifications to Kerr's original work and should be incorporated into previous editions.
The Afterword may be read HERE.

In my opinion, this is the ultimate treatise - detailed description of the military events leading up to and play-by-play account of the Battle for Okinawa! Well written and exquisitely authoritative. Loaded with photos, charts, tables, organizational charts, maps and detailed text.

Read online version [HERE]
Download PDF [HERE]

See description above.

The author, who himself fought as a Marine through many Pacific battles, retells this epic story of war from both sides, with strikingly close portraits of the Japanese generals, who in the battle's last moments committed hara-kiri. Robert Lecke especially focuses on the American soldiers themselves and their commanding officers, drawing brilliantly illuminated portraits of individuals who fought a merciless enemy in the tradition of American military history at its most splendid and most self-sacrificing.

ex libris from a middle school library, so you know it's not going to be a deep thinking account of the Battle. Actually though, it was a very fast and enjoyable read.

The last amphibious campaign of World War II was fought on the island of Okinawa, not far from Japan itself. In numbers of men, ships, and aircraft involved, Okinawa was the greatest battle of the Pacific war...

Wonderful book of collection of museum pieces that represent the "Koza Champuru" from the 1940s thru Reversion in May of 1972. This book, chock full of photos and narratives, shows us much about the evolution of Koza into its international appeal.

[Read it Here]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this one's from the 1960s, judging by the vehicles shown in a Naha scene. Heavy paper with metal ring binding. Colorful photos of scenes very typical of the emerging tourist destination of Okinawa. Predominantly in Japanese but there are quite a few English-language passages throughout this very enticing book.

Handy little soft-cover handbook that was most likely produced by the U.S. Navy since it has a disclaimer about advertising, etc. not being endorsed by the Department of Defense, and welcoming comments by BG R. B. Johnston, Commading General of Marine Corps Base, Camp Butler, and by Capt. A. C. Konczey, Commander Fleet Activities, Okinawa. There are no such welcoming comments by anyone Army or Air Force.
Anyway, it's a neat little book with lots of tips to help make one's stay on Okinawa more productive and enjoyable. Typical military fare. My favorite feature is a pull-out map depicting the many shops, hotels, eateries, etc. along Kokusai Dori in Naha.

I'll have some page samples soon

I'll have some page samples soon

I'll have some page samples soon

I'll have some page samples soon

I'll have some page samples soon

Paper back pocketbook with many B&W photos of fairly good quality.
Small print with what I consider intermediate study text describing the Battle for Okinawa.
This would be a good book for someone who is interested in the history of the battle and who is ready to move up from the rudimentary primers on the subject. The author was a civilian historian with the Marine Corps. He served with the 1st Marine Division in the Pacific theater during WWII operations.

I don't know if it was intentional or not but the two 1st edition copies are entitled Okinawa: touchstone to victory on the outside covers, but bear the title, Okinawa: capstone to victory on the inside title pages.
The April, 1973 3rd printing copy has uniformity of title inside and out. Perhaps his original intent was to entitle the book using "capstone" and the publisher screwed up.. ? In any case, this is the first time that I've seen a book bearing two different titles. I wonder if there's any additional value to these 2 books; sort of like a stamp or a coin that is issued with error(s).

This is another year-book style publication loaded with color and B&W photos and a multitude of maps. Lots of maps! Fairly in-depth commentary. I have enjoyed this book for several years as a quick reference for most of the questions I've looked up. The index in the back is helpful but not really very detailed.

Green recruit PFC Timothy Cole is fresh off the boat in the GI paradise of Okinawa. Looking for adventure, the “cherry boy-san” finds his first true love – a beautiful Okinawan nightclub hostess called Kimiko.

It’s the spring of 1963 and the subtropical island is still under U.S. military governance. Tensions simmer beneath the surface, and as the young Marine’s romance with Kimiko takes an unexpected turn, he finds himself embroiled in a wider drama. Both Cole and Kimiko will have to make difficult choices that test their loyalties.

The Okinawa We Lost is a time capsule of GI life in 1960s Japan; all the sights, sounds, and experiences come alive in note-perfect detail. Hail a s’koshi cab and head to the A-1 Bathhouse for a dollar-fifty scrubbing and massage, and then hit the bars on B.C. Street for an ice-cold Orion or two.

Here's an indisputably indispensable guide to touring the islands! Undoubtedly, there is a much newer edition of this wonderful guide available today. I'd have never seen many of the wonders of Okinawa without this book. Between this and "Okinawa by Road" I don't think a person would need any other guide until ready to delve into the truly in-depth aspects of the island culture. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time on island to mature to that point. I always look forward to a time when I will return to Okinawa.

By the way, I steadfastly believe that it's impossible to get lost on Okinawa. Disoriented, maybe. Side-tracked, without a doubt. But Lost? Nah! Just keep driving, pedalling or walking and you'll eventually hit a beach!

(I also have a copy of the 12th edition, Guide Book and Restaurant Guide that I purchased June 24, 1986. It has an orange cover but it is very faded from sitting on the dashboard of my van for so long. I took that book - and subsequent editions - with me just about every time I ventured out.)

This one is the "Okinawa 50th Anniversary Memorial Edition."

More than a mere telephone directory - One of the best bargains I ever got on Okinawa! This FREE publication is chock full of good useful information. Publication began in 1988. I don't know if it is still being published any longer.
Far and away the best feature is a collection of highly detailed maps of Okinawajima. A little clumsy to navigate, even in the book, but once you get the hang of it it's easy. In the .pdf form there will be a lot of scrolling up and down but I challenge anyone to come up with a better English-language atlas of maps, even the ones you have to pay for!

Besides the maps there are tons of articles about every-day issues like how to prepare your garbage for collection, paragraphs about various aspects of Japanese culture (customs, beliefs, etc.), a few useful words and phrases in nihongo, telephone services, how to use the bus system, festivals and holidays, area codes and zip codes, typhoon preparation, banking and postal services - the list just goes on and on. But the maps! Darned good maps!

Oh, yeah... it also has a good telephone directory for on-base and off-base activities.

Read much of it [HERE] (62.5 MB .pdf)

While providing the context in which martial arts developed on Okinawa, Okinawa's Complete Karate System offers a comprehensive history of Isshin-Ryu as well as a thorough investigation of its founder's life and philosophy. Dealing in depth with the system's lineages, the internal and external aspects of the art, and multiple interpretations of all Isshin-Ryu kata, this book is a unique, compelling, and engaging experience.

MESSAGE OF DEATH FROM THE SUN

The morning of the 28th was filled with even greater sadness for the people. They had walked all night the night before and finally reached Nishi Mountain at dawn. The mayor told them to wait together. He said they would soon get an order from the military to commit mass suicide. The village leaders said that all of the Japanese soldiers and sailors were also going to commit suicide. The people believed that they were all going to die together to save the honor of the Emperor.
They waited as the morning sun rose higher and higher in the sky over their heads. Shigeaki Kinjo recalled, "It was not a bright sun. It did not give us hope. It was a pale sun, almost shut out by dark clouds. It seemed that the sun was sending a message of death. Mothers and children talked and cried as they prepared to die together. Tearfully, girls and women helped each other comb and pin up their hair." The morning was truly filled with sadness as people made preparations to die...

Read it [HERE]

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

Fund-raiser publication for the United Okinawan Association in Hawaii. Nice little book with some Okinawa history, some photos and descriptions of various aspects of Okinawan culture and, of course, some recipes, starting with Basic Miso Soup all through to Kashogan (peanut butter balls). It finishes with a glossary defining the Okinawan terms used in the recipes.

"The first Okinawan immigrants arrived in Honolulu in January 1900 to work as contract laborers on Hawai'i's sugar plantations. Over time, Okinawans would continue migrating east to the continental U.S., Canada, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, Cuba, Paraguay, New Caledonia, and the islands of Micronesia. The essays in this volume commemorate these diasporic experiences within the geopolitical context of East Asia"

Ronald Y. Nakasone, Buddhist cleric and scholar, teaches at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, and has lectured at Ryukoku University, Japan, and Mahidol University, Thailand.

"This book is an important contribution to a long neglected aspect of Japanese history. Drawing on interviews, memoirs, and popular literature, excerpted in smooth and seemingly effortless translations, Steve Rabson provides a compelling portrayal of the transformation of rural agrarian subjects into an urban proletariat. Readers will find themselves immersed in the experiences of discrimination and betrayal, extermination and neglect, hope and assimilation that have shaped and transformed the lives of Okinawans since Japan first brought the southern islands under its colonial rule."
Christopher Nelson - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

312 pages, hardbound

Good article by Rabson: The Okinawan Diaspora in Japan at War, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 41, No. 1, October 13, 2013

A short lexicon of the Okinawan language with English definitions and Japanese cognates.

This is a fun little paperback full of Okinawan folk tales, written in Japanese, Hogen and English. Simple hand-drawn illustrations. A pretty cool feature includes an audio CD containing the tales recited in Hogen with pleasant folk music playing softly in the background!

In a 'Preface for Foreign Readers' the author writes, in part:

This is a book about Okinawan proverbs. It has been written for both the Japanese and English-speaking people who are interested in Okinawa and her culture, especially in the Okinawan dialect...
...book contains 250 proverbs although it can be safely estimated that there are found between 600 and 700 proverbs in the Okinawan dialect ... however these 250 include the most typical and popular...

Example: Chira kagi yaka chimu gukuru. - Kind hearts are better than fair faces.
One more: Yiti furimun samiti. - When drunk he becomes mad, when sober he repents.
Favorite: Buchi nu shicha niru yi. - A child under the rod will grow a good one. (in other words, spare the rod, spoil the child).

This book of Okinawan history, culture and recipes "is the result of many hands pulling together in the spirit of laulima - working together ... cooperation. This book is released as Hawai'i celebrates one hundred years since the first Okinawan immigrants arrived in Hawai'i. The culture they brought with them enriches our island community.

Hui O Laulima was organized in 1968 as a women's auxiliary of the United Okinawan Association of Hawai'i. Over the years it has taken the lead in promoting the Okinawan culture in Hawai'i through exhibits, demonstrations, cultural grants, and publications such as Chimugukuru - the soul, the spirit, the heart.

This book spotlights the culture of a people we hold dearly in our hearts. It's the result of many years of hard work and dedication, and was inspired by persons to whom we dedicate this book, our parents, our grandparents, and our founding members.
(from Preface)

It's a book chock-full of information about Okinawan Culture and Cuisine with great recipes as well as stories of Okinawa's history and culture

"Troubled about the future of his only son and heir, a royal government official of the Ryukyu Kingdom wrote down his "Instructions" as a code of practice for all affairs. Written in flowing, elegant Japanese, he refers to a wide spectrum of artistic accomplishments that the royal government officials were ought to study in those days, such as court etiquette, literature and poetry, music, caligraphy, the tea ceremony, and so on."
Translated into English

The Office of Strategic Services, formed June 13, 1942, as a wartime intelligence agency. The OSS was the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. Obviously the American military had a keen interest in learning everything they could since they had their eye on Okinawa. This report is, for its time, an extensive informative piece on many aspects of the Ryukyu Retto.

I have it in .pdf form, not printed in hard copy yet. It's a very large file so won't upload to my server but you can Read it [HERE]

I just received this 565-page tome today (9-14-15) from a friend in Ruckersville, Virginia. His name is Warren Rucker and he had obtained this book while researching his Masters Thesis. It is a dissertation by James Lawrence Tigner submitted to the Department of History and the Committee on Graduate Study of Stanford University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
The book is a photocopy of the author's type-written material and photographs, bound in a heavy paper cover. Since it was published on demand, that is, produced at the request of the researcher who ordered it, I believe that in all likelihood it is a one-of-a-kind book. Most endearing to my eye is the typewritten label on the front cover, I suppose done by whomever prepared the publication, that has spelled the word in the title, "OKINAWWANS" with two W's. If this were a stamp it would be rare indeed and of some substantial value.

After I've read it I may come back to provide a review.

Many thanks to Warren and his wife with whom I had a delightful and educational phone conversation today upon receipt of this very generous gift.

Read it [HERE]

Chapters XXIII and XXIV relate to the Battle of Okinawa

This is a book that fascinated me. It's essentially a treatise on the theological inroads made to the Ryukyu kingdom in the early days. We often hear or read of Commodore Perry who is credited with having opened Okinawa to the Western world. Perry indeed! The commodore was a relative late-comer to the island. Bettelheim and Forcade were leaps and bounds ahead of Perry when it came to knowing the Ryukyuans and their culture and politics.

This is one of the rare finds which have allowed me access to the English-language writings about pre-war Okinawa. Fascinating!

The more I've read about the pre-war history of Okinawa, including accounts of Christian missions to Ryukyu, I've come to recognize that Bettelheim, indeed one of the earliest visitors, was perhaps one of the least diplomatic, and one of the most offensive representatives of the Western world to wash ashore. For example, he would violently enter homes against the wishes of those who inhabited the home, literally breaking and entering, foist himself upon the shocked and frightened Okinawan family under the pretense of spreading the Word of God. His behavior got so bad that people would scatter, and word of his approach would spread throughout the village, whereupon parents would gather up their children and fortify their homes.

Small paper magazine presumably produced in 1946.

"This booklet is intended as a souvenir publication. It does not attempt to present a detailed history of the events which took place on Okinawa during that one year of 1 Apr, 1945 to 1 April, 1946. It simply includes certain highlights of the rapid-fire events of that year during which more history was made than in the combined centuries of Okinawa's ancient past..." (from the Foreword)

Read it [HERE]!

I would like to tell you a story of how God plucked me up out of my comfort zone. How He whisked me across the Pacific to the tiny island of Okinawa for 10 adventure-packed weeks of student teaching. But this book is more than just a story. It attempts to depict the work God performed in my life in the short time I called that island "home".
Author's Introduction (in part)

Bi-lingual (English and Japanese) 36 page pamphlet that shows and describes the missions of Cres Ketchum as he meandered for 16 years through the waters of the Ryukyu Islands, bringing healing and Christ to the citizens of the outlying Ryukyu Islands. To fully appreciate this little booklet one must first read his book, Bread Upon the Waters. Some of Blackie the Photographer's finest work (in my opinion) is included in this 1st edition publication.

Read the .pdf [HERE]. - will launch a new browser tab/window

Operation Iceberg is a masterwork of the oral history approach to telling a story. Astor ably edits and arranges the various oral accounts into a quick-paced, yet comprehensive account of a rather complex and important battle. Astor has collected inputs from Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, and Airmen who were there and made victory possible. But the accounts would be nothing if they weren't arranged into a pattern that the reader could follow. Astor does that, and provides his own brief narrative to fill in any gaps that the oral accounts have left. As a result, the book becomes a text on the Battle for Okinawa and not just a collection of personal reminisces. (review at Amazon.com)

A Guide to Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum

Importance of Peace

In the last war, Okinawa Prefecture experienced one of the severest battles in history between the Japanese and the American forces, which resulted in the loss of over three hundred thousand human lives, involving many civilians. In the horror of the battle fields far beyond our imagination Okinawans were forced to find their own means of survival. Everywhere Okinawans were pushed into corners where many lost their lives.
In our profound realization of these historical facts, we have established the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum to commemorate the war dead and to remind Okinawans not to sacrifice themselves in that kind of war again, and to celebrate peace on earth.
On display at the Peace Memorial Museum are reminders of that battle, written "testimonies" about the war by the prefectural people. These are all on display to make visitors to the museum understand the significance of the Battle of Okinawa.
We firmly believe that it is the responsibility of those who experienced the war to tell the peoples of the world, especially the younger generations, about that war. We also believe that it is the only way to honor the dead who sacrificed their lives in the battle.
I sincerely hope that this guide book will be of help to you in undestanding the Battle of Okinawa and in realizing the importance of peace on the earth.

March, 1985
(signed)
Junji Nishime
Governor
Okinawa Prefecture

I bought this booklet at the museum and was very happy that I did becasue much of the testimony that the Governor refers to was not available in English.
These are indeed some heart-wrenching stories. A LOT of pain in just 43 pages.

Coffee-table magazine full of photos and personal accounts by those who served during WWII. A nice tribute and valuable addition to anyone's military history or, of course, Okinawa library. That said, there really isn't much about the Okinawa campaign but I include it anyway because it's such a nice publication and a great read.

Nifty little handbook replete with data about the Okinawa Prefecture. Contains a few B&W photos of moderately poor quality.

Forward by Okinawa Prefecture Governor Junji Nishime, October 1980

Read it [HERE]

A great insight from the point of view of a grunt sailor. Not your typical historical document, written by an admiral, general or committee of experts. Not written by a submarine commander, a bomber pilot or a soldier-turned-Senator. Here's a book written by a young "nobody" sailor who, knowing that it was against regulations, was driven anyway to maintain a daily journal. According to Edward L. Beach, Captain, USN, author of Run Silent, Run Deep, "It was contrary to Navy regs to keep a diary during World War II, but we are all gainers from James Fahey's violation of this rule. He wrote an extremely rare story, that of an ordinary sailor during the war, and because of him the world got an unusual view of it, and one of the best books about the war."

As I was reading this one I kept thinking about how routine, repetitive and mundane his life was. But when called to action, Man!, what a read.

This pamphlet history, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in the Vietnam War, is published for the education and training of Marines by the History Division, Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia, as part of the U.S. Department of Defense observance of the fiftieth anniversary of that war. Editorial costs have been defrayed in part by contributions from members of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation.
Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series
Director of Marine Corps History - Dr. Charles P. Neimeyer
Chief Historian of the Marine Corps - Charles D. Melson
Senior Editor - Angela J. Anderson
Vietnam War Commemorative Series Editor - Shawn H. Vreeland
Visual Information Specialist - Robert A. Kocher

Read it [HERE] (.pdf)

Love this little magazine that I picked up back in 1988! I can't read a word of it but really like the name - "Peapul" !
I don't know if it was so named in order to have a "People" magazine to highlight the folks of Yomitan but to avoid conflict with another well-known maga-rag. Or, perhaps, as happens in many cases, the developers spelled out and English word phonetically. In any case, it's a nice addition to my Library.

Read it HERE

A year-book style book containing many color and B&W photos with bi-lingual captions, depicting, as the title suggests, several scenes froma wide variety of plays and dances performed by Tamagawa students. A beautiful book, it is well-protected in its own hard cardboard sleeve.

Interestingly, this little pocketbook (145 pages) has imprinted on the 2nd page, For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington 25 D.C. Price 45 cents. I don't know if the GI had to pay 45 cents or if the services were responsible for that payment.

This is a neat little pocketbook though. Quite a bit of information for a newcomer. Chapters: Introduction; The Land; A Strategic Outpost; A Long, Checkered History; A Look at the Economy; A Democratic Government; Meet the People; Religious Faiths and Festivals (in 1961 it was okay for military personnel to officially recognize religion); Pastimes - Familiar and Otherwise; Getting Around; In Conclusion; and, Appendix. In the Appendix there are many useful phrases - essentially a primer of the language that the GI was about to be exposed to. Mostly "survival" phrases such as how to ask how much something costs, how to ask directions, etc.

A funny, but, oh, so typical aside: This pamphlet was intended for use by ALL U.S. service members but, the services being what they were (and to a great extent, still are) had to have their own designation for the same manual -
DoD (over-arching) - DoD Pam
Army - DA PAM 20-196
Navy - NAVPERS 92822
AirF - AFP 34-3-23
USMC - NAVMC 2574
I just think that's funny. After growing up in the military and then serving over 20 years of my own, it still tickles me to see how everything has to be so ritualistically pigeon-holed!

See "A Pocket Guide to Okinawa (1961)" above.
Seven years later the booklet had been revised and reduced to 78 pages and a little map of the island had been added. The content was still pretty much the same - different presentations but fundamentally the same info.

And, of course, each service had to modify its name for the thing:
DoD now called it DoD PG-13A
Army - DA Pam 360-413 (Army and Air Force had to re-invent the wheel.)
Navy - NAVPERS 92822A (Wow! At least THEY kept the same basic designation!)
AirF - AFP 190-36 (I guess things like this was job security for 702X0s)
USMC - NAVMC 2574 (Rev.) (The Navy, which includes Marine Corps, is the only one that, to me, really made sense.)

Beautiful photos from the late 1950s and early 1960s - estimated by content of photos.

"Jo Nobuko Martin writes of what happened in 1945 to Okinawa, her native island, and of earlier Okinawa as well. Okinawa is a beautiful place, populated by gentle, pleasant people, and it is also a tragic place. The tragedy did not negin in 1945 but it reached new heights in the spring and summer of that year, when the island was invaded and taken by the Americans.
The happenings of 1945 deserve to be remembered, and indeed they are remembered in Okinawa, certainly, and to a lesser extent in the rest of Japan. Among the victims whoa re remembered best are the girls of the Himeyuri (here rendered Princess Lily) schools. Conscripted into the Japanese government service, most of them died, by their own hands and otherwise. The Himeyuri memorial has become a sort of shrine.
Mrs. Martin is one of them, and this is her story and theirs."
(part of the Foreword by Edward Seidensticker)

Little pocket-size paperback magazine covering myriad topics and issues of the day.

Animals, Art, Battle of the Week, Books, Business, Columnist's QuotesCrime, Education, Entertainment, Fashion, Food, For Women Only, Good News, Health, Home Life, Labor, Male and Female, National News, Pictures of the Week, Predictions, Quick Quiz, Religion, Science, Sports, Vital Statistics, What They're Saying, and World News. (Whew!)

Quite a lot of material to cover in such a small book of only 64 pages. In the Pictures of the Week department are a couple of photos: One with flame throwing tank assaulting a Japanese position on Okinawa. The other, a photo with caption, In the stagnant silence of spring, 1950, that same island of Okinawa is a last resting place for hundreds of U.S. Army jeeps, stored fender to fender and left to rust away.

Nice little book that was probably very popular with commuters who didn't want to lug around a bulky full size magazine. On the back cover is an admonition to, Get Quick at your newsstand each Thursday and carry it in your pocket or your purse...and read it wherever you are.

[Read it HERE]

[Read it HERE]

[Read it HERE]

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

[Read it HERE]

Selections of short talks on culture and religion of East and West, originally presented over the Far East Broadcasting Company, Okinawa ken, Japan. The talks were intended to help Americans residing on Okinawa understand the cultural history and ways of thinking fo the peoples of Okinawa and other parts of Asia.

This appears to be an addendum perhaps to the original book written in Japanese. It is entirely type-written with not a single photgraph except for the front and back covers. Translation into English language was provided by Edward E. Bollinger.

Preface to the Third Edition

"It has been fourteen years since the second edition of this work appeared. There have been many people since that time who have requested a third edition, but since the author was called into God's presence in April, 1968, to the present day it has been impossible to answer their requests.
...
I decided to proceed with the publication of the third edition.

In the preface to the first edition, the author wrote, 'Dedicated to the people of Okinawa.' I think it is not too much to say that the author possessed always a great interest in the eradication of the superstitions of his people, took this problem as decisive in the evangelization of Okinawa, and fixed his attention on the questions of ancestor worship and religion..."

signed: April, 1977
Yoshie Teruya

A deeper read than most - not for all tastes.

Inside the Japanese Navy in peacetime and at war.

"One of the most comprehensive and enlightening biographies available of a wartime leader," said the New York Times.

"An intimate portrait of the man who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor and died a traumatic death in the South Pacific," according to The New Yorker

Not in my Library

Volume I narrates the operations of forces under General MacArthur's command from the Japanese attack on Luzon in 1941 through the
surrender in 1945. While service histories have covered much of the same ground in separate volumes, no single detailed narrative of
General MacArthur's leadership as commander of the Southwest Pacific Area has yet appeared. Chapters dealing with the reconquest of
Borneo, plans for the invasion of Japan, and the Japanese surrender make a distinctly new contribution.

Read it [HERE]

For more on Douglas MacArthur, see:
American Caesar - Douglas MacArthur - 1880-1964
Reports of General MacArthur - MacArthur in Japan: The Occupation: Military Phase (Vol I Supplement)

Not in my Library

Volume I Supplement describes
the military phase of the occupation through December 1948, reporting events not treated elsewhere in American publications. Volume II
on Japanese operations brings together a mass of information on the enemy now only partially available in many separate works.
Collectively, the Reports should be of wide interest and value to the American people generally, as well as to students of military affairs.
They are an illuminating record of momentous events influenced in large measure by a distinguished American soldier.

Read it [HERE]

For more on Douglas MacArthur, see:
American Caesar - Douglas MacArthur - 1880-1964
Reports of General MacArthur - The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific

Publication of the Yomitan Township, intended for U. S. President, Sec of State, Sec of Defense, Speaker of the House, and the Vice-President, full of data re the Yomitan Peninsula. It outlines the history of Yomitan since the U.S. military invasion of Okinawa, including land usage, accidents, and other activities imposing hardship on the people of Yomitan. A very interesting read, especially so since Yomitan is a place that is still to this day close to my heart.

Read it [HERE]

Requiem for Battleship Yamato is Yoshida Mitsuru's story of his own experience as a junior naval officer aboard the fabled Japanese battleship as it set out on a last, desperate sortie in April 1945. Yoshida was on the bridge during Yamato's fatal encounter with American airplanes, and his eloquent, moving account of that battle makes a singular contribution to the literature of the Pacific war. The book has long been considered a classic in both Japan and the United States. As with most great battle stories, its ultimate concern is less bombs and bullets than human nature, less death than life..

Bright, colorful photography on good shiny stock, this is a throw-away guide to various restaurants on Okinawa. 26 pages of eateries from McDonald's to ... Who Knows? It's all in Japanese. Oh, there is one other that includes English - the Grand Canyon Western Steak House. This was obviously intended to cater to Japanese, and probably those from the mainland. One page is great - full-page ad showing an 8-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola and the dated (1980s) slogan, I feel Coke. I loved those big billboards!

This monumental narrative history, told primarily from the Japanese viewpoint, traces the dramatic fortunes of modern Japan from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atom bomb. The Rising Sun not only reveals an enigmatic and aggressive people fighting for survival as a modern nation, but refutes many assumptions and misconceptions about the motivations of those in power as well as their conduct of the war.

One of a set of Time-Life history and photo essay books. A must have for history wonks who really like photos to boot! Chapter include: 1. Master Plan for Invasion. 2. Brutal Battle for Iwo Jima. 3. Bold Forrays by the Fleet. 4. Assault on Okinawa. 5. Ordeal by Kamikaze. 6. Ushijima's Savage Retreat.
Scores of excellent photography, well-captioned make this a great reader for fledgling-to-intermediate history buffs.

Hefty magazine with some "comic book" quality pages depicting black & white photos of various entertainers and other pop culture figures. The first half of the magazine - about 40-50 pages - are the cheesy ones that comprise maybe 1/2 of the mag. The next 40 pages or so are glossy page B&Ws and the last 40 pages are glossy color layouts of Japanese and American film personalities.
On the spine reads "Movie - Video - Music - TV" with issue date of "8 / 1990"

Also have the October, 1990 and the February 1985 issues.

This is an interesting and factual piece which discusses, in 1975, tidbits of information regarding the Okinawan people, the geography, geology, archeology, bathymetry and numerous other aspects of the islands of the Nansai Group. Brief presentation of the early history of Okinawa's struggle with its dual allegiance to China and Japan, its trade and culture. McCune handles the traditional way of life and brings us into the 20th century with economic advancement, plotics and the development of tourism.
It's a fine primer for those who visit the islands of the Ryukyu Kingdom and who want an understandable foundation of knowledge about the islands. I like this book because of its clarity and brevity, avoiding in-depth treatment of interests that are available in more scholarly works for those of us who care to know more.

Booklet prepared by the Economics & Finance Department of the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands.
April 1954

Read the document [HERE] -

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

The first English-language in-depth written study of the history of the Ryukyu Islands.

Read it HERE

[READ] it Here

31 page pamphlet provides an historical overview of operations on Okinawa. I don't know who was the target audience for this publication (Army War College?) but it's packed with information about thew Battle for Okinawa. In the introduction, it reads, in part:

This brochure was prepared in the U.S. Army Center of Military History by Arnold G. Fisch, Jr. I hope this absorbing account of that period will enhance your appreciation of American achievements during World War II.

GORDON R. SULLIVAN
General, United States Army
Chief of Staff

Read it [HERE]

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

This is another neat, small and informative paperback that I purchased at Tuttle Bookstore in Plaza House shopping center (Rte 330 aka "Miromi Street") in March 2014. Tons of good information presented briefly and many accompanied by maps.

"For Instructional Use Only"
The massive planning leading up to the invasion of the main island of Okinawa. Discusses the chain of command, manning and logistics necessary to pull off Operation Iceberg. Some details about the progress of the battle for Okinawa, charts and maps, casualty calculations, etc.

This is not a relaxing story book but is instead for anyone who has an interest in seeing the raw data, statistics - the "inside game".
An excellent research tool.

Read the entire book [HERE]

Read it [HERE] (.pdf file)
Clicking on the hyperlink will launch a new browser window.

[Read it HERE]

Lloyd Gruver, a jet pilot ace in Korea, is sent back to Japan on a new assignment. The son of a General, his fiancee Eileen is the daughter of General Webster. There is a problem with Airman Kelly, who wants to marry a Japanese girl even though she would not be allowed to come to America. General Webster's wife disapproves of American soldiers accompanying Japanese girls; and the General's wife commands the General. Eileen wants a regular marriage, not spending years of loneliness as a stateside Officer's wife.
At Airman Kelly's wedding, Major Gruver learns the secret of Japanese women: they make their men feel important. Sometimes a Congressman will get a special bill passed to allow an American to bring his Japanese wife stateside. But American officialdom did everything to prevent these marriages. The story continues with Major Gruver learning more about Japanese culture - and a Japanese girl! [Little hints point to an oncoming tragedy.] Michener paints word-pictures of Japan that match his descriptions of islands in the South Pacific. In the end tradition and duty win out over love, for both Lloyd and Hana-ogi. The reader gets a brief glimpse into Japanese culture. (Review at amazon.com)

A document for participant preparation regarding "The Dig" - an activity of the Konko-Kyo Group.
I participated in the 14th Annual Recovery effort on Okinawa.

Read the document [HERE]
This is a .pdf document. Clicking on the hyperlink will open a new browser window.

Another treatment of WW2 condensed into this 595 (excluding the bibliography and index) book. Nothing particularly remarkable about this one. A fairly sizable number of photos and maps make this standard fare for the intermediate historian.

This is not a book about the Marine Corps. It's about Marines - the tough battle-trained troops that stormed the beaches at Bougainville, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa - in some of the bitterest and bloodiest fighting of World Was II. Here some of the survivors, from the perspective of time and age, recreate in more than one hundred interviews a personalized microcosm of the Pacific war experience - the comaraderie, the women, the loneliness, the fear - and the profound emotional as well as spiritual rewards.

Seven Stars collects the battle diaries of two starkly different generals from the World War II battles fought at Okinawa. Lieutenant General Buckner was a straight laced, clockwork-precision type who preferred to use artillery and tanks to reduce entrenched positions, while General Stilwell was a short-tempered outsider who disdained set-piece battles in favor of maneuver. In addition to presenting disparate views of history in each man's own words, editor Nicholas Sarantakes offers informed and informative explanations of crucial events referred to in the battle diaries, as well as glossaries of main characters and military terms. A welcome addition to military reference shelves and primary reference sources of the Pacific battles of World War II, and utterly involving for scholars of military science and lay readers alike, Seven Stars is very highly recommended reading for students of 20th Century Military History. (review Amazon.com)

Here is a delightful little soft cover book of beautiful color photos of Okinawan people, places, markets, country-side, city-scapes, military bases, flowers, crafts, dances - you name it! All are photographed by Junko Hirai. It is a mate to another book by the same publisher entitled Festivals of Okinawa Vol.3
Thus, I presume there to be another book of this 'set' of photos by the same person in a volume 1. Alas, I do not own that missing volume. There also may be volumes beyond these three.

Eighty-two pages, each with a single, brilliant color photograph and a brief caption - in Japanese.

This is a moving story of a ship on a picket line that survived kamikaze attacks - not all did. The USS Laffey did and so did her skipper and crew. Read of dedicated sailors, professional in every way, and how they were determined to stay afloat - and to win!

Entirely in Japanese, accompanied by a second publication (see below) with English language text and drawings that correspond to those in this booklet.

The cover art: "The striking design of the Tower of the Sun, created by the famous artist Taro Okamoto, is the focal point of the EXPO '70 fairsite." (I don't know if that was a typo or if there was some kind of fair in 1970.

This is a Japanese language magazine for distribution in the Ryukyu Islands. This news feature magazine is published to promote a better understanding of the role of the United States Forces, Ryukyus, and serve as a medium of communication between the Office of the High Commissioner and the people of the Ryukyus.

I recommend opening both the Japanese-language version AND the English-language version in separate tabs/windows, then toggle back and forth between the two in order to more simply coordinate translation. This Japanese-language issue contains photographs that are not present in the English-language issue. In some cases sketches of the photos are provided in the English-language issue.
I still wonder if the Legends of the Ryukyus: The King Who Remembered (part II) that appears in the Japanese-language version - which is in English and not in Japanese - was an oversight. Why would they not have it in Japanese for their intended Japanese readers?
Anyway... Read it Here (14.8MB .pdf file)

LIGHT OF THE LAND OF COURTESY

Toward a better understanding

Saving the World's Tuna

U.S. Employees now eligible for various benefits

New Inquest System now in operation
and many more topics.

As I mentioned in the description of the Japanese-language version of this issue of Shurei no Hikari it might serve you well to open both this and the Japanese-language versions in separate windows/tabs in order to allow you to toggle back and forth between them.as you view and read.
Read it Here (16.3MB .pdf file)

Signed by the author, this little book came as a real joy in reading. Having grown up and AF brat myself I am able to associate with so many things that the author expresses. As an added bonus, she even mentions me by name on page 130! Now you just can't beat that.

Anyone who grew up in the military, foreign service, civil service, or civilian occupation that required frequent or extended residence abraod will find something in the book that will evoke memories be they fear, elation, suspicion, or simple awe of foreign lands, customs and people.

A quick and easy read that will hold your interest throughout.

Japan Library Association selected book

"Views of beautifully colored subtropical coral reefs,
generous and warm islanders,
completely altered the sense of values
that had governed my life as a photographer.
The clarity of the sea and the sky
the valuable legacy of a culture's myths and legends,
inspire me to stand as a human being in awe of those
whose spirits flow with nature."

Beautiful, hardbound 'coffee-table' style book of rich color photographs.
At the end of the book are some essays; by the artist/author, and by Itsuko Okabe, and by Tatsuhiro Oshiro.

My sincere thanks to Warren and Mieko Rucker for this generous contribution to the Okinawa Library.

a retrospective on a life of sadness and regret. Regret, and guilt, for her choices and missed opportunities to connect in a meaningful way with her Mom. Some inconsistencies and a few frank errors:

1. When her hamster died she wanted to bury it. I thought that was odd since Okinawans don't bury dead pets. When a cat dies, for example, they will hang the cat up in a tree. Their belief is that burying an animal traps its spirit/soul thus creating a situation where the spirit will never be free, Hanging it in a tree allows the spirit to rise freely into the ether.
2. She wrote that the Chinese "showed us how to grow food," but said nothing about how that came about. As seemingly well-researched as the book is I would have thought that she'd give credit to Noguni Sokan, an Okinawan, who returned to Okinawa after having completed his "tour of duty" at the Loochooan trading center in Fukien/Fujian along the eastern coast of China. HE was the one who had experimented with growing various vegetables while stationed in China, and it was he who recognized that the sweet potato might thrive on Okinawa. He brought the tuber back to Okinawa and taught farmers how to grow it. It was so successful in staving off the profound famine that officials in Satsuma heard about it, took the technology and spread it throughout Japan. Even today, the Okinawan sweet potato (derived, yes, from China) is still referred to as a Satsuma sweet potato. Some have speculated that the Chinese got the vegetable from India. Interesting note about Noguni Sokan... that wasn't his name. No one knows his name. Noguni is the village where he was born. Sokan is the name of a member of a ship's crew whose job it is to keep incense burning on the aft deck. So the 'name' Noguni Sokan is really a description of the incense-burning guy from Noguni who rode the ship back from Fujian.
3. She described the three principalities from the Nanzan Period, mentioning that Chuzan was "the leader" (of the three petty kingdoms of Hokuzan in the north, Chuzan in the central area, and Nanzan in the south) because of its harbors... to that point she was correct but then she wrote that the capital of Chuzan was at Shuri. It wasn't. It was at Urasoe. The capital wasn't at Shuri until after 1429 when Sho Hashi moved it after uniting the three principalities into one, led, of course, by Chuzan. By the time the capital was at Shuri there was no longer a political entity of "Chuzan" - the entire archipelago after unification was Ryukyu.
4. She suggested that Toguchi Beach on the Yomitan Peninsula was the site where the Satsuma forces landed in 1609. Kabayama Kenzaemon, a Satsuma samurai invaded in 1609, landing on the Motobu Peninsula. There was little resistance at Unten but for the most part, the invasion went unchallenged. They did eventually work their way down the west coast. Toguchi Beach was however smack in the middle of the 1945 Allied invasion landing.
5. She wrote that in 1879 the king of Ryukyu was captured and banished to Tokyo. Sho Tai had been ordered to go to Tokyo but feigned illness and as such was unable to make the voyage. His 12-year old heir-apparent went in his place on March 27th. Sho Tai, along with others, was later exiled to Kagoshima. Tai did eventually end up in Tokyo where he was given the title of Marquis and a "gift palace." That residence remains in the Sho Family to this day.

This one's a treasure! Large, hard-bound coffee-table style book of color photographs of all aspects of life on Okinawa. It's simply beautiful and was presented to me in 2017 by a beautiful soul, my friend, Michael J. Martin who lives in Yomitan.

Excellent stories about operations on Okinawa - headline "Okinawa Battle Ends"
I am not providing the entire issue but have selected salient articles wth an entertaining mix of comic strips, cartoons and advertisements. It's 1945 and you'd think someone would be daffy to complain (then) about prices!
"Stilwell To Head 10th Army As Slain Buckner's Successor"
"Jap On Winged Bomb Blasts U. S. Warship"
Corn Flakes, 18 ounce box, 13 cents
"All Organized Fighting Over, Nimitz Says"
"Casualties Of U.S. Rise To 1,023,453"
Our Boarding House, cartoon by Major Hoople
lots more... [Read the St. Paul Dispatch]

[Download Here] (2.71MB .pdf file)

Just finished reading "Still Having Fun" and have just experienced a reflection of my past while growing up in the military. Instead of Okinawa, my experience as a child in a military family was in France. Having lived on Okinawa though for 7 years, as a young military member with a brand spanking new family (wife and child) I can relate to many of the situations, people and places that are depicted in this critical and intimate peek into the lives of a young couple and their very small children. Much of what they experienced in the late 1940s still applied to my experience in the early 1970s. Their experiences in Germany largely mirrored mine in France. I recommend this excellent read to anyone who has lived the life or who simply wonders, "What the heck was it like living on a small island with very, very few amenities?" A study of love and devotion to duty and to family, this work deserves to be read.

This book, written by Ernie's closest friend, is his story as he would have wanted it told, directly and simply, without distortion and abiding strictly by the facts - the tribute of one newspaperman to another. It contains a good deal of Pyle's private correspondence, to his friends and bosses, and especially to his wife, "That Girl," with whom love was strong enough to withstand perhaps the most tragic stress to which a marriage can be subjected. This body of hitherto unpublished Pyle writings gives special interest to the book. (from flap)

"Based on his acclaimed previous studies, the author here presents a synopsis of the development of Ryukyu martial arts. The events described herein are all real, that is, they are all historical. Strolling along the chronology of martial arts of Ryukyuan provenance a large number of varifiable events are not only detailed but also decorated with dozens of precious illustrations. ... it provides a pristine ground to stand on for the practitioner who wishes to understand the primordial origins of Ryukyu martial arts."

One of a careful study of child rearing within six widely divergent cultures Taira is ethnologically compared with small towns and villages in Mexico, Kenya, Kalapur (India), New England (USA) and the Philippines.

There is quite a bit of information detailing typical life in a small Okinawan village that is of general interest. The reader is taken through stages of the physical setting, the basic economy, property, political organization and social controls, social organization; courtship, marriage and sex; Religion, disease and medical practice, formal education and recreation.

What follows the ethnological discussions of Okinawan society are the fundamentals of child-rearing: pregnancy and childbirth, infancy, weaning, kindergarten, first grade, and latency. An interesting read although it does delve into esoterica to a degree that may vanquish the casual reader.

No longer in existence, the Takoyama Habu Center was one of the island's most popular places to go to see the infamous Habu-Mongoose Fight.
This brochure was provided when ticket was purchased. A hand-drawn guide map of the grounds was included.

See it [HERE]

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

DURING THE first decade of the eleventh century Murasaki Shikibu, a woman born into the middle ranks of the aristocracy in the Heian period (794– 1185 CE), began writing a fictional narrative that was recognized by her contemporaries as distinctive and remarkable even as it was being composed. Expansive in form, compelling in its delineation of character, sophisticated in its representation of ethical concerns and aesthetic ideals, Genji monogatari would come to occupy a central place in one of the world’s most important literary traditions.

Summary

...the late Shoshin Nagamine's ground-breaking work, recounts the legacy and the life histories of Okinawa's greatest martial artists. In addition to profiles of the legendary tegumi wrestlers, Nagamine-sensei features many of the world's great karate masters, including the founders of the core styles from which modern karate sprang. Tales of Okinawa's Great Masters corrects historical inaccuracies surrounding Okinawan martial arts and brings alive the greatest of the great masters.

A fascinating journey - rich in humor and insight - an evocative exploration of cultural identity by a woman caught between the traditions of her Japanese immigrant family and the values of her American world. During a childhood of ethnic isolation in upstate New York, Minatoya listens to the stories of her parents' pasts. These are astonishing and poignant tales from the silk-and-shadow world of a samurai family, tales of immigration and internment, tales or psychological dislocation and spiritual transcendence.

John Patrick's hilarious story of some of the difficulties faced by the American Army in its occupation of Okinawa made a clean sweep of the year's major drama awards and won both the 1954 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 1953-54 New York Critics Circle Award for the best American play.

See trailers for the movie [HERE]

Read it [HERE]

Donn Cuson has an excellent research document of the on-island production of "Teahouse" at his website, rememberingokinawa.com that includes commentary by the director and one of the actors. It's fun to read and quite informative giving us an entirely fresh viewpoint of what it took to get the world's first off-Broadway production done on Okinawa. [HERE] it is! (a .pdf)

Tennozan offers a stunning account of the Battle of Okinawa, the last major campaign of World War II and the largest land-sea-air engagement in history. In examining the disastrous of three disparate cultures - American, Japanese, and Okinawan - the book provides an unforgettable picture of men at war and also the context for understanding one of the most ominous events of (the Twentieth) century: the decision to drop the atom bomb.
TENNOZAN - A site where a sixteenth-century Japanese ruler staked his entire fate on a single battle. It has come to mean any decisive struggle.

Beautiful hardbound volume containing a wealth of B&W photos of post-war Okinawa. Amazing scenes that rival those of Blackie the Photographer.

If someone who sees this can recognize/translate, please give me as much information as you can about this book. I'd love to be able to give credit that is well-deserved.

I received this message from Warren Rucker, Jan 16, 2016:
Mieko [Warren's wife] says that your "mystery book" is titled more or less, "That's the Way It Was". The title approximates a phrase in Okinawan language, Naha dialect. The author (photographer?) is ------? Maehara. The first (given) name could be several things depending on how the kanji is read.
My thanks and gratitude to Warren and Mieko Rucker!

Paper covered book of 71 pages chock-full of photos from the 1950s taken by "Blackie the Photographer" Bradford with captions by Willard J. Holland. This one's a real treasure. "All rights reserved" precludes me from scanning and sharing with you.

The cover photo is that of a young Okinawan boy who dressed as a girl in the hope that he would be spared the torturous treatment that the locals were led to believe would befall them if they were taken prisoner by the U.S. forces. This is a small hard-bound book full of B&W photos with captions entirely in Japanese. I'm working on translations and will post some of them here.

It's a 4 1/2" x 6 3/8" little pocket book chock full of information about what's what in the military communities on island. Lots of cool old advertisements too!
The first issue of This Month on Okinawa came out in June of 1955. If I should ever be fortunate enough to get my hands on a copy of that one I promise that I'll post it here in the Library.

Meanwhile, if you'll settle for the SECOND issue ever printed then have at it right [HERE] !

This is a 97-page work by the man who, at time of publication, was the governor of Okinawa Prefecture. Nifty brief overview of the battle with lots of photos. Three years later though, Mr Ota published a much longer, more in-depth book on the same topic, The Battle of Okinawa: the Typhoon of Steel and Bombs. I am delighted to have both in my Library.

Click [HERE] to read Smits' paper (.pdf file)
Clicking this hyperlink will launch a new browser window. Close it when finished reading.

Very enjoyable and educational read! First hand accounts of those pilots who pledged their lives for his Imperial majesty and the homeland.

from flap: Weaving the recollections of surviving participants with the documented history of the period, Hatsuho Naito re-creates the Kamikaze phenomenon with a unique human dimension ... but most of all, he recalls the pilots themselves...

[Read it HERE]

[Read about it HERE]

This book is a chronological record of events, impressions and personal experiences, based on a reproduction of the author's original data, confiscated by the Japanese police, on his dispatches to the New York Times, and on his memory, on which all of these things have been indelibly engraved by six months of Japanese police inquisition and by his own reflections during solitary confinement.

18 pages of type-written text and hand-drawn illustrations. It begins with letters of introduction by at-the-time mucky mucks, followed by a bunch of information about services, hours of availability, a map of the beach area and an introductory message in kanji.

Read it [HERE]

Review from back cover: The journey begins in a small town in New York State. In 1966, Sam "Slim" Scanlon was a 17-year-old with not a care in the world, hair "as long as Jesus," and on his way to the world of retail after college. He soon discovers that life can change suddenly and for him it's two things: "Thumper" and the draft. He finds himself at Parris Island, South Carolina on yellow footprints painted on the ground -- United States Marine Corps boot camp. After thirteen weeks of rough and tough training, Slim transforms into a lean, mean, fightin' Marine who feels he can do anything!
And continues across the U.S. to California, then Vietnam and Okinawa.
As the years pass, Slim's career in the Marines becomes his life. He learns about war, peace, love, and especially hate. Through his travels and duty stations, he dreams of retirement at home ... in Okinawa, Japan with his wife and two children. But first he must find the answer to his.... "TORMENT"

What began as mimeographed pages of information provided to those who went on Army Service Club Tours evolved into this more permanent publication, a paperback loaded with information relative to the many tours conducted by the club.

How to converse, dine, tip, drive, bargain, dress, make friends, and conduct business while in Asia. Includes information for Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Read it [HERE]

You may also read Surviving Typhoons - U.S. Naval Hospital, Okinawa (.pdf file)
(Clicking on "Surviving Typhoons" will launch a new browser window)
[stored also on Kingston Okinawa thumb drive]

A competent popularized battle narrative that fails to capture the magnitude of suffering and carnage that took place on Okinawa. A better history encompassing the human dimension is Tennozan: the Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb. It is a gripping apocolyptic description of this greatest of all Pacific War battles - one that dwarfed Iwo Jima, Tarawa and Peleliu combined. (review at amazon.com, edited)

Volume I (453-page .pdf) [READ IT]

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

"Takehara Hisaei was a casualty of World War II. He carries no visible scars, and his injuries were sustained in a campaign which saw no shots fired. Nevertheless, he was one of approximately eighteen-hundred people of Japanese ancestry who were involved in an unfortunate and little-known experience of the war.

Today, Takehara-san owns a small tailor shop in Naha, Okinawa. He sailed from that island as a young man, an emigrant bound for Peru. In Lima, long years of labor brought modest success, but World War II introduced forces into the life of this diminutive, mild-mannered tailor which he was unable to cope with or comprehend. Involuntarily, he began a trip which took him northward, to an internment camp in Texas. Fourteen months later, in 1943, he was on a Swedish liner from New York for a rendezvous with Japanese ships on the west coast of India. Having circled the world, he returned, impoverished, to the land of his youth.

The story of Takehara-san and the other Peruvian-Japanese persons who shared his fate is a story of little people at the mercy of those who make the big decisions..."

Wide variety of newsreel from the National Archives focusing on wartime footage and the post-combat years.
A treasure trove of Okinawa videos! [See them HERE]

Between 1609 and 1879, the geographical, political, and ideological status of the Kingdom of Ryukyu (modern Okinawa) was characterized by its ambiguity. It was subordinate to its larger neighbors, China and Japan, yet an integral part of neither. In this innovative and provocative study, Gregory Smits explores early-modern perceptions of Ryukyu and their effect on its political culture and institutions. He describes the major historical circumstances that informed early-modern discourses of Ryukyuan identity and examines the strategies used by leading intellectual and political figures to fashion, promote, and implement their visions of Ryukyu. Visions of Ryukyu advances a new interpretation of Ryukyuan history. Rather than regarding early-modern Ryukyu as an appendage of China or Japan, it places the kingdom at the center, highlighting Ryukyuan subjectivity and agency and giving historical depth to modern and contemporary debates on Okinawan identity.

Read excerpts [HERE]

Glossy monthly magazine published for the Air Force folks on island. The magazine is very similar to the Marine Corps' publication Okinawa Living. It contains local cultural events, some Okinawa history, things to do, stuff the GIs need to know about and a lot of advertising.
Features:
vibe - Nightlife
the bite - food
play - recreation
and a bunch of other stuff. It also has sections for Army MWR and for Navy MWR.

Also have the October, 2005 issue.

Full title: Narrative of a Voyage, in His Majesty's Late Ship Alceste, to the Yellow Sea, Along the Coast of Corea and Through its Numerous Hitherto Undiscovered Islands, to the Island of Lewchew; with an Account of Her Shipwreck in the Straits of Gaspar. This is the Narrative of the expedition (February 1816 - August 1817) of the British Naval ships the Alceste and the Lyra under the command of Captain Murray Maxwell to transport the Lord Amherst's Embassy to China and explore the relatively little known East China Sea and the Yellow Sea. The book contains extensive sections on visits to China, Korea, Okinawa (Lew Chew) and St Helena.
[Read it HERE]

If you would care to make a small donation to off-set expenses relating to creating and maintaining this Library for your use
then please drop me a line at Mick-Admin@ClickOkinawa.com or use PayPal now. Thank you for your generous contribution!

Digital text in PDF format.
[Read it HERE]

Although not having anything to do with Okinawa (Loo Choo) as in Hall's Volume 1, I'll offer his Volume 2 and Volume 3 just for completeness.
Vol 2 - on the coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico in the years 1820, 1821, 1822
Vol 3 - on the coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico in the years 1820, 1821, 1822

The War Against Japan is the U. S. Army's Official Pictorial Record of the Asian and Pacific campaigns of World War II. It contains nearly 600 of the most dramatic photographs featuring all branches of the U.S. armed forces and even contains a number from Japanese archives. Specially selected by Army historians to show important terrain features, types of equipment and weapons, living and weather conditions, military operations, and details of life in the front lines, these photgraphs reveal every aspect of the U.S. serviceman's unforgettable experience. The War Against Japan depicts training in Hawaii, Australia, and New Caledonia; defeat in the Philippines; the assaults of Iwo Jima and Okinawa; and the operation of the supply line to China through India and Burma. It provides, as only such a comprehensive photgraphic volume can, an intimate understanding of the war from the combatant's perspective.

Fetching first-hand memoir - more like a formal military report - of the creation and organization of a joint U.S. Navy and U.S. Army Civil Affairs team in preparation for the military governance of the Islands. It includes information regarding the officers and enlisted men who were selected for the mission, their preparations and education prior to departure from San Francisco (when they left CONUS they didn't know their destination), their arrival on island and the structuring of their outfit in order to get the job done.
There are a good number of entries giving detailed assessments of all walks of life in the Ryukyus (from a U.S. military point of view) as well as a lot of Ryukyuan culture and history.

A 71-type-written page account by the commanding officer is a real eye-opener.

As may be anticipated, soon after departure from Hawaii conflict emerged between the two services regarding who would be training what to whom during the voyage westward. The Army's plan prevailed.

[Read it HERE]

For the ten men whose true stories are related in this extraordinary inside account of World War II, that war was a private affair. From Hawaii to Okinawa, they fought the enemy - but their campaign against army discipline was even more absorbing. They brought humor, strategy, and stubborn individualism to bear in a continuous engagement against authority.

PFC Stephen Prosniac became a hero because he was a kleptomaniac. PVT William Hackleford won four purple hearts and a court-martial for a wound in his big toe...

This is a provocative study, with some insights into how the Chinese and Japanese view each other and their respective views on the west. The broader theme is that "human nature can be shockingly dark." The early chapters describe Japan's military history. Next, came a litany of bad behavior by European and American troops during the "boxer rebellion." He sights this as one of the reasons Japan's military stopped following International law. Thus becoming scornful of both the western barbarians and their Chinese victims. The book is well documented with a fine bibliography. But, there are errors and it is sparse on much of Japan's military history before the boxer rebellion. Nevertheless, it was worth reading for its different slant on the subject. It leaves the reader with this? If Japan was a responsible military power once, why can't it be one again? After reading it I felt he was apologizing for Japan's unspeakable crimes during WW2.

The text of this book represents (the author's) own approach to the illustrious history of karate. Like so many of the formal history studies that we have had to plod through at one time or another during our lives, this book is not intended to be an encyclopedic and linear presentation. This book is the first to deal exclusively with the lives of the Okinawan greats. Through the stories depicting the lives of these Okinawan masters, we are better equipped to see how that particular society molded the type of martial art which we study with such fascination today.

Weekly newspaper put out by the military every Wednesday for U.S. military personnel.

Read it [HERE]

206 page, comprehensive guide intended for new arrivals. Loaded with advertising. Has the usual DoD disclaimer statement. No copyright information found.

Introduction: Welcome to Okinawa
... the purpose of Welcome Okusan is to acquaint newcomers with the history and culture of Okinawa and the organizations of the international civilian community and to help them settle into the military community by informing them of the U.S. Government's services and facilities..."
That was a really long sentence!

Typical glossy colorful information magazine produced by the 313th Air Division. Intended for newcomers to Kadena AB as I was on my second assignment there in 1986. Brief treatments of

Okinawa Culture

History of Kadena

History of Okinawa

Weather

Mission, etc.

20-page soft bound magazine quality reference. Content is typical of almost all of the "throw away" mags welcoming folks to a new location. No advertising though. Has a couple of maps; Kadena Air Base and MCAS Futenma. Lots of stock photos.

Small but moving book chock full of B&W photos of the Battle of Okinawa. Entirely in Japanese but the photos certainly do speak for themselves. All photos are of American forces - no Japanese army or navy depicted. Loaded with commentary but needs translation.

Why Okinawa? is an investigative documentary that focuses on a U.S. military base located in the heart of Ginowan City, Okinawa, Japan. The base, Futenma Marine Corps Air Station, has been called, "the most dangerous base in the world."

Inspiring story of Christian faith and commitment in a remote part of the globe by Dr. W. Gordon Ross. Here is a powerful little book (137 pages) that is a very quick read and amply rewarding! Doctor Ross focuses on the life and ideology of a single old Okinawan man from the little village of Shimabuku - Mr. Shosei Kina - a teacher, community leader, Karate expert, and Christian. This is no Bible-thumping sermon between the covers - instead it's a poignant treatment of one man's admiration for the goodness of another - an admiration that is cause for the author's return again to Okinawa. Historical references are largely drawn from Kerr (Okinawa: The History of an Island People) and from Nichols & Shaw (Okinawa, Victory in the Pacific).

Account of (author's) World War II experiences in training and in combat with Company K, 3d Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division during the Peleliu and Okinawa campaigns. I can't do justice to this book by trying to explain it. It's written by E. B. "Sledgehammer" Sledge who was a ground-pounding Marine who lived and fought through the entire Battle for Okinawa. It's not a history, per se, of the Okinawa operation but instead is a mesmerizing narrative about the events as they happened. Once read, there's no way that you'll not respect, appreciate and cry for those guys who went through the hell of the Battle for Okinawa.

A story of women POWs during World War II Malaya in 1942. Harrowing true story of an astonishing band of women whose real-life wartime ordeal inspired the BBC-TV drama, Tenko.

Afterword by Masahide Ota (former governor of Okinawa Prefecture)
In conversations with Ruth Ann Keyso, nine Okinawan women reflect on life on a garrison island: on relations with mainland Japan; on their dreams and ambitions; on Japanese treatment of ethnic minorities; on the changing role of women in Japanese and in Okinawan society; and on the drawbacks and pleasures of living side-by-side with U.S. military personnel and their families.

TEXT

Received as a gift from my friend, Warren Rucker in Ruckersville, Virginia, this is a wonderful hard-bound book with a cardboard sleeve for protection.

This is an amazing account, in intricate detail, of all that went into getting several Okinawa gusuku (castle sites), monuments and ruins recognized as World Heritage Sites.

The text is exhaustive with details of each site and accompanying photographs, drawings, tables and charts. The frontispiece is a replication of an 1894 painting by Shinpo Nakasone of a diagram of the Ancient Shurijo Castle. In time I shall provide a feature on this website about this publication. When I have accomplished that I'll provide a link to that feature here.

The 227-page book begins with a "greeting" from various people in 1999 and 2000 to include

Yoshimori Onaga, Chairman, Committee for Commemorating World Heritage Registration ...

Keiichi Inamine, Governor of Okinawa Prefecture

Takeshi Onaga, Mayor of Naha City

Shintoku Kuratou, Mayor of Katsuren Town

Yoshinori Nakazato, Mayor of Nakijin Village

Keisou Yasuda, Mayor of Yomitan Village, and

Shinkou Shikiya, Mayor of Chinen Village

Chapter 1 - Photographs of Cultural Properties
Chapter 2 - On the Outstanding Universal Value of "Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyus" - Agency for Cultural Affairs MOTONAKA Makoto
Chapter 3 - The Submission for Registration
- Identification of the Property
- Justification for Inscription
- Description
- Management
- Factors Affecting the Property
- Monitoring
- Documentation
- Signatures on Behalf of the Party
- Appendix with Illustrations
Chapter 4 - Writings Commemorating Registration as a World Heritage Site
Chapter 5 - Related Materials

The sites include:

Tamaudun

Stone Gate of Sonohyan-utaki

Nakijin Gusuku

Zakimi Gusuku

Katsuren Gusuku

Nakagusuku Ruins

Shurijo Gusuku

Shikina-en, and

Sefa-utaki

This is a nifty photo book that I'll have to spend some time translating. It's entirely in Japanese. I bought this one in March, 2017 at the michi no eki (road station) along the Kaichu Douro between Katsuren and Henzajima. it contains 180 pages of B&W photographs and thankfully has only a few wartime images. Most of it pertains to the wonderful culture of the northern villages.

Chronological account of the GI's war, as written, photgraphed, and sketched by GIs for YANK, The Army Weekly. It is not an anthology. For that reason some of the staff members of YANK who did outstanding work are not represented in these pages.

Here's a book about Americans of Japanese ancestry who served secretly in the Pacific, wielding a weapon unique to war - language!
They shortened that conflict by at least two years, saving over 1,000,000 lives, but the Pentagon sat on their story for nearly three decades. Only scraps of it were known until author Harrisngton began digging.
The story is told, as with Harrington's other books - "in the words of the men who lived it." He reveals how Nisei turned the tide of battle on Okinawa, how they gave the U.S. Navy the greatest victory in its history, and other secrets. (review from flap)

This is a detailed account of the voyage of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry's "black ships" to Japan in 1853. Booth locates the voyage in the context of American trade with China; steamships headed for China required a ready supply of coal, which Japan possessed, in order to take advantage of the most direct routes to the Chinese mainland. In addition, he conveys Perry's sense that American interests had to establish a foothold in Asia in order to compete with British imperialism. Booth's handling of this story is uneven, as at times he writes engagingly and at other times seems bogged down by detail. Overall, however, it is worthwhile reading as it fully conveys the complexity of this venture, as well as the personalities of the American and Japanese officials. This is a book for those with a particular interest in this subject. (review by M. Feldman)

Though not a book about Okinawa, anyone who has served anywhere in Japan should appreciate and relate to this fun read.
Bernadette "Bernie" Root, military brat, speaks. She has never really noticed what a peculiar bunch bunch of nomads her eight-member Air Force family is (with the exception of her Post Princess sister, Kit), until the summer after her first year of college when she joins them at their new assignment: Kadena Air Base, Okinawa.
A brilliantly appealing novel whose energy, wit and feeling have won for it extraordinary advance praise.

This is a copy of the uncorrected proof of the eventually-published book as described above.

Chotai Yonaha was a self-taught artist from the city of Koza, Okinawa, Japan. He ws born in 1933 and died in 2008.
Beyond a multitude of paintings of his homeland, the Ryukyu Islands, Chotai Yonaha painted portraits of President John F. Kennedy; U. S. astronaut Lieutenant Colonel L. Gordon Cooper; air pioneer Major General Benjamin Foulois; and Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Leslie Knot, the last three portraits are or have been exhibited at the Air Force Hall of Fame in Washington, DC.
The art of Chotai Yonaha is or has been exhibited and/or sold in museums, galleries, auction houses, government buildings, and festivals including but not limited to the following:

1964 World’s Fair, New York, NY

Air Force Hall of Fame, Washington, DC

Grays Auctioneers, Cleveland, OH

Koza Art Gallery, Koza, Katakana, Japan

Lake County Historical Museum, Tavares, FL

Robyn Buntin of Honolulu, Honolulu, HI

Rycom Art Shop, Okinawa, Japan

My sincere thanks to Warren and Mieko Rucker for this generous contribution to the Okinawa Library.

I would not recommend using any of the terms or phrases discussed in this book without first bouncing them off a few native Japanese speakers. I suggest this because you run the risk of sounding like a total fool if you try some of these phrases out on strangers. Problems: First, the author does not point out that many of the phrases used in the book would only be used by women or school girls (if you want to appear effeminate, use these terms recklessly). In addition to this, many of the expressions discussed are terribly outdated. (reviewed at Amazon.com)

Samples:
Ototoi koi (Bug off!) literally "disappear yesterday!"
Kenka uten noka? (You lookin' for a fight?")
Yoake no hohi issho ni shitai. (Let's have morning coffee - in other words, Let's spend the night together)
And there are plenty of other words and phrases that I choose not to include here.

Japanese magazine quality book about Emperor Hirohito that hit the stands within hours of the report of the emperor's demise. A well-spent 800 yen and I'd have gladly paid another 800 if there were any English-language captions or text. But, after all, this is a Japanese magazine.

Japanese magazine that appears to be something of a cross between People and Playboy magazines except this mag demonstrates copious use of black-out censorship of certain anatomical images.

I'm still adding to this listing, so come around again in a few days and you'll find more.

After I get everything listed I'm going to start getting more stuff posted so that you can read more - the stuff that isn't copyright protected, that is.

Read online here:

BookFinder.com