Hitoshi Taira, an organizer of an art show displaying about 100 drawings at Naha, Okinawa's Tenbusu Naha gallery, says the pictures drawn by war survivors are precious visual records of Battle of Okinawa. (David Allen / Stars and Stripes)
NAHA, Okinawa — An Okinawan Buddhist group will host a display of drawings by survivors of the Battle of Okinawa.
About 100 drawings depicting war scenes that took place on the island 60 years ago — when most of the illustrators were children — will be open to the public for one week, beginning Friday at a Naha gallery. They’re a part of a collection of 700 drawings owned by the Buddhist group, Soka Gakkai Okinawa.
“These are the pictures drawn through the eyes of common people,” said Hitoshi Taira, an exhibit organizer and director of the local Soka Gakkai Youth Group. “The minute details of the drawings tell the realities of the war that no one had told before.”
Soka Gakkai started collecting drawings from battle survivors in 1981, he said. The idea was hatched after the group recorded stories from war survivors.
“We began to realize that it was also very important to record them in a visual form,” Taira said.
The Battle of Okinawa, which began in spring of 1945 and ended June 23, 1945, was one of the fiercest Pacific battles during World War II. The 90-day battle cost nearly 240,000 lives of American and Japanese soldiers, Okinawan civilians and Korean and Chinese laborers — an average of 2,700 casualties every day.
Taira said he initially thought collecting drawings from survivors was something that could be achieved easily and quickly.
“But, when we actually began to approach survivors, we met strong resistance,” he said. “Most of them were very reluctant, saying that it was too painful to recall the memories.”
“It was very hard for the first six months,” he said.
But after some patient persuasion, people began to agree, “little by little,” he said.
Once a few battle survivors drew their recollections, their pictures were taken by Taira and his staff to others who survived. By 1985 they had more than 700 drawings, some in color, others in black and white; some with an almost professional polish, others as if the hand that drew them was still a child’s.
“It took days for some people to complete one drawing, while others drew between tears,” Taira said.
The collection has been opened to the public several times on Okinawa and mainland Japan from 1982 to 1995.
Breaking 10 years of silence, the drawings will be reintroduced to the public this year at the Naha gallery exhibit.
Earlier exhibits generated touching feedback from visitors.
“The pictures were clear message from those who survived the war not to repeat the same mistake again,” a 16-year-old Japanese student wrote.
A 23-year-old U.S. servicemember left a note: “I’m a Marine. And for a long time, I felt that the war on Okinawa was just the past and it had no effect on today’s thinking.
“But, now I realized that the past is still very much alive,” he wrote. “I agree that war is terrible and senseless.”
Memories of war: Drawings by Battle of Okinawa survivors. At the Tenbusu Naha gallery, Kokusai Street, Naha City, Okinawa; May 20-27, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
Hitoshi Taira, an organizer of an art show displaying about 100 drawings at Naha, Okinawa's Tenbusu Naha gallery, says the pictures drawn by war survivors are precious visual records of Battle of Okinawa. (David Allen / Stars and Stripes)
Many pictures of war scenes, like this one, were drawn through the eyes of survivors of Battle of Okinawa, most of them young children. (Courtesy of Soka Gakkai Okinawa)
About 100 Battle of Okinawa drawings like this one are on display for one week, beginning Friday, at Tenbusu Naha, a gallery located on Kokusai Street in Naha, Okinawa. (Courtesy of Soka Gakkai Okinawa)
