Iejima Airfield and Its Comfort Stations

Chapter 3 Iejima Airfield and Its Comfort Stations

My only son was killed in the war. He was drafted for military service in a local levy, although he was not yet of age. He was killed somewhere near Urasoe on Okinawa’s main island. I don’t know the details. My wife has never given up hope that he’s still alive and expects him home any day. … My son graduated from what is now Yaeyama Agricultural High School, and taught agricultural science at the Iejima middle school. I admired the Zen monk Ryōkan [a hermit sage of the Tokugawa era] and tried to raise my son to be like him. And he grew up very close to my ideal, but he was one of those who never returned. My brother-in-law, my wife’s grandfa- ther and grandmother, and many of her brothers and sisters died in the war. Of the 1,500 families on Iejima today, there is not one that didn’t lose someone. No one talks about the war. Remembering what happened is too painful and makes me feel faint. ahagon shōkō, 19731

Iejima (meaning “Ie Island”)2 is a flat, raised coral and limestone formation shaped roughly like a peanut and laid out on an east-west axis. Situated 5 kilometers off the northwestern tip of the Motobu Peninsula, it has a total surface area of 23 square kilometers. It measures 8.7 kilometers from east to west and 3 kilometers from north to south at its midpoint.3 The town of Ie and its port

1 Ahagon was known as the “Gandhi of Okinawa” for his dedication to nonviolent civil activ- ism. Ahagon, Beigun to nōmin, p. 16. Chapters 1 and 2 of this work have been translated into English by Ahagon Shōkō and C. Douglas Lummis. See Ahagon, “I Lost My Only Son.” 2 Ie is pronounced “ee-eh.” Iejima is “ee-eh jeema.” 3 Iejima traditionally was divided on a roughly east-west axis into two villages, Higashie (East Ie) and Nishie (West Ie). In the early Meiji era (1875), the two villages were each subdivided along a vertical axis, becoming four settlements. Schematically, these were, in the east, Higashie-mae (Lower East Ie, due east) and Higashie-ue (Upper East Ie, north of Mount Gu- suku); and in the west, Nishie-mae (Lower West Ie, southwest) and Nishie-ue (Upper West Ie, northwest). In 1908, Iejima’s four villages were reorganized as hamlets, a fifth was added, and all were amalgamated as the village of Ie. By 1944, there were seven hamlets: Kawahara (Kabi- ra) in a narrow strip along the southern coast; Higashie-mae and Ara in the southeast; Higashie-ue in the northeast; Nishie-mae in the southwest; and Nishie-ue and Maja in the northwest (map 3.1).

Iejima Airfield and Its Comfort Stations 107 are located in the east, where several hamlets converge south of Mount Gusu- ku (map 3.1). The summit of Mount Gusuku rises nearly straight up, towering 172 meters over the plain.4 Except for this limestone peak, the rest of the island is level, and its soil is ideal for farming. As Iejima has no rivers and few natural springs, residents rely heavily on wells and captured rainwater. As a result, farmers plant vegetables, legumes, sugarcane, and tobacco, but not irrigated rice. When the wells run dry, islanders visit some of the rare springs (wajii) at the foot of the sheer 60-meter Wajii Cliffs on the northwest shore. The Wajii Cliffs are 3 kilometers from the nearest village, but their springs remain a vital water source for islanders. In the past, this was venerated as a sacred spot. During the postwar US occupation (1945–72), the area was devel- oped and water pipes were laid to supplement village water supplies. Iejima may not be blessed with ample water,5 but it has always been able to produce enough food to live on. The staple crop is sweet potatoes, but sugarcane, wheat, two varieties of millet, legumes such as peanuts, and vegetables are also grown in abundance. Sago palms (sotetsu), introduced in the late 15th century, grow wild year- round on most of the island and may be harvested freely.6 The pithy trunk of this perennial shrub-sized plant is edible, but can be toxic if not properly cooked. Famines often brought cases of mass poisoning, which islanders called “sotetsu hell” (sotetsu jigoku). The edible parts of the plant are rich in protein, however, and during the Pacific War when food was scarce, the palms became a staple of the local diet. Before the war, farm households cultivated one hect- are of land on average and met the island’s food needs, although rice had to be purchased from the outside. Ieijma’s broad fertile plain made the island one of Okinawa Prefecture’s most productive agricultural regions.7

4 Mount Gusuku (literally, castle or fortress mountain) is called Iijima Tat-chuu (Iejima Pin- nacle) in Okinawan but locally is referred to simply as Gusuku (Castle Fortress). The view from the top was once considered the finest of Okinawa’s “eight picturesque views,” and the pinnacle was venerated as a sacred site. See Ie Sonshi Henshū Iinkai, Ie sonshi, vol. 1, pp. 31, 133. 5 Ie Sonshi Henshū Iinkai, Ie sonshi, vol. 1, pp. 135–36. 6 Ie Sonshi Henshū Iinkai, Ie sonshi, vol. 1, p. 489. 7 Arasaki, “Kichi kensetsu no kakudai to hantai undo,” p. 615.