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of Japan lost almost 8,000 aircraft and 16 combat ships. Unsurprisingly, the tremendous cost of this
batle in terms of men, material and ime weighed heavily on then President Harry S. Truman and his
consequent decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan just six weeks later.
A tunnel in the Former Japanese Naval Underground Headquarters, part of the labyrinth where 4,000
men lived and then ended their lives.
8 FORMER JAPANESE NAVAL UNDERGROUND HEADQUARTERS 旧海軍司令部壕
If you're coming into Naha from the south, one of the first places you'll reach is the Former
Japanese Naval Underground Headquarters ( 旧海軍司令部壕 ; Kyū kaigun shireibugō), now a
museum and memorial. It's about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) from the central downtown. Fol-
low the road signs for there's really no clue to what lies below except that above the headquar-
ters, located in a small and peaceful park on Oroku Hill, there's a memorial tower, a ceno-
taph, for the war dead.
In 1944, anticipating the US invasion, the Japanese Navy Okinawa District Command
ordered the building of an impregnable lair, an underground headquarters designed so that
they could survive any possible bombardment. Carved into the coral stone, the marks made
by the pickaxes can still be seen on the walls and ceilings. The Imperial Navy Vice Admiral
Minoru Ota and 4,000 of his men lived through the invasion, but as the tide turned against
them, they committed suicide during the war's last remaining days. The blood and body parts
have been removed but traces of the mass suicide remain. Most chose hand grenades and
there is shrapnel from the suicide explosions imbedded in the walls. There is a plaintive mes-
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