war machine—in increasingly impossible attempts, such as the Kamikazé (神風; lit. “Divine Wind”) missions, to stop the Allied advance on the Japanese home islands at any cost. Operation Ten-Go, had it been successful, would have resulted in thousands of soldiers dying in hand-to-hand combat.
There was simply no stopping the Japanese war machine. It is widely agreed by most historians that President Harry S. Truman’s decision to employ the atomic bomb against Japan was a direct result of the apparent willingness of Japan to sacrifice countless numbers of its citizens using suicidal tactics such as Operation Ten-Go and their resistance in the Battle of Okinawa. Although to this day there is no clear consensus among scholars and historians of the moral correctness of the decision to use the atomic bombs, the fact remains that Japan did not surrender until after the twin bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, respectively.
After the war, the Battleship Yamato became an object of intense interest and, in some quarters, veneration in Japan. It remains a very sensitive and controversial topic. One of the reasons the sinking of the Yamato is such an emotionally charged issue, and one that has such special significance in Japanese culture, is that the very word “Yamato” is used as a poetic name for Japan. The ship’s destruction and the disaster of Operation Ten-Go is eulogized, to one degree or another, in modern Japan and in popular Japanese culture, as a heroic, selfless but ultimately futile effort by the Japanese to defend their homeland. Thus, the Yamato is a symbolic emblem of great national pride and its fate has come to represent the end of the once invincible Imperial Japanese Navy, Japanese militarism and the Empire of Japan.
The nicest hotel in Tokunoshima Town is the Hotel Grand Ocean Resort. And the people running the place? They couldn’t be nicer either. It’s a pleasure to stay here.
The Cape Inutabu Memorial Tower was dedicated in April 1968 to the Yamato crew and all the seamen who died in Operation Ten-go on their way to defend Okinawa. In addition to many films and books published on the Yamato, there is a second memorial in mainland Japan. Opened in 2005 and built near the site of the former Kure shipyards in Hiroshima where the Yamato was built, the Kure Maritime Museum, commonly known as the Yamato Museum (大和ミュージアム; Yamato myuujiamu) is dedicated to the battleship and its engineering.
5 IŌTORISHIMA 硫黄鳥島
By all accounts this little islet, geographically located in the Amami group, should be included in Kagoshima Prefecture as it’s only 40 miles (65 kilometers) due west of Tokunoshima and thus way north of Okinawa. As the crow flies, it’s located 70 miles (112 kilometers) due north of Okinawa’s Cape Hedo and that’s much further north than either Yorontō or Okinoerabujima, both of which are in Kagoshima.
Yet, despite this geography, whenever one finds a reference to Iōtorishima (硫黄鳥島; Iwō-tori-shima) it’s invariably described as being 135 miles (216 kilometers) northeast of Kume Island, which is almost 60 miles (96 kilometers) west of Okinawa and nowhere near Iōtori. So what’s the connection? Well none, geographically, but politically the reason is grounded in history. Long ago it was included in the Ryukyu Kingdom and another name for it was “Okinawa Torishima,” or in English “Okinawa Bird Island.” An island of birds? Perhaps, but there’s a reason for this as well. It’s common in the Ryukyus to call any minor, offshore, unnamed islet “Bird Island” (鳥島; Torishima). And historically this Bird Island, which is an active volcano, was mined for its sulphur by Okinawans, not people from Amami. Sulphur was an important source of tribute in the Ryukyu Kingdom.
Pot of Gold in Tokuno? A sugar cane field, the ocean in the background and a rainbow after a drench—it’s all anyone might ask for—except perhaps for that pot of gold.
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