Battle of
Okinawa
Toho Co, Ltd
R1 DVD
AnimEigo
Reviewer: Bob Estreich
Originally released 1971
Supplemented, Kihachi Okamoto translated
and subtitled 2007
Director
Japanese, subtitled in English in yellow
on black.
The invasion of Okinawa by U.S. forces
towards the end of World War 2 gave rise to one of the bloodiest battles of the
Pacific. Okinawa was part of the Japanese homeland and it could be expected
that they would fight to defend it. In terms of human life, the cost was
tremendous. To some extent the Japanese High Command was counting on this to
deter the U.S. from invading the islands of mainland Japan itself.
The film begins with a documentary of
mostly historical footage setting the scene. It covers the allocation of troops
to Okinawa and the early ineffective preparations for defence. The battalions
assigned to the island existed pretty much on paper only, having been weakened
in earlier phases of the war. The High Command ignored this and placed impossible
demands on the island’s Commander. Instead of building the airfields the High
Command wanted, he realized he barely had enough troops to prepare defensive
positions for the anticipated invasion.
The High Command replaced him with a more
active Commander, and allocated veteran troops to the island in adequate
numbers. The airfields were built, but after their completion many troops were
stripped from the island to support actions elsewhere, such as the Philippines
and Taiwan. Once again the island and its 500,000 civilians were left only
lightly defended, and with no air or naval support at all.
At this point the film changes to
reenactment and dramatization. The story is mostly seen from the viewpoint of
the island command officers, struggling to make the out of touch High Command
understand their problems. Token attempts were made to supply reinforcements,
but when the invasion finally came as predicted by the island command, the
defence was totally inadequate. Instead of fighting the invaders at the beachhead,
soldiers of the weakened 32nd Army sat in their defensive positions
and waited for the enemy to come into range of their guns. War Correspondent
Ernie Pyle later commented that the troops landed without getting their feet
wet.
The High Command issued increasingly
irrelevant and confusing orders, and appeared quite willing to sacrifice
Okinawa to save troops for mainland defence. The island command was
increasingly ignored and isolated.
As the invaders gradually spread over the
island the civilians were encouraged to withdraw into the mountains in the
north and south to leave the island’s center empty for the coming battle. Many
young students, male and female, volunteered to serve with the Army. The
patriotism angle is stressed, as is the bravery of the Japanese soldiers in the
face of superior troops and equipment. A memorable scene is a young soldier
carrying a backpack bomb up to a U.S. tank and placing it so the tank runs over
it.
The tragedy now begins to unfold, as the
ill-prepared Army is forced steadily back towards the south. The Americans have
complete air superiority over the island, and a huge fleet offshore to block
Japanese reinforcements. This fleet was a tempting target for the Japanese
Navy, who sent most of their remaining capital ships (including the huge
battleship Yamato) to attack the Americans. Most of the fleet was destroyed by
air attack and the Navy was unable to ever again mount a major naval operation.
The only real successes were the kamikaze air attacks against the U.S.
carriers, and it is here that the concept of dying honorably for the Emperor is
first raised. It is to be a recurring theme as things get worse. Rather
daringly for a Japanese film on this subject, some of the soldiers question the
need to die. They are treated with contempt, but the idea of suicide before
surrender is becoming entrenched among the civilians who are sharing the
bunkers with the soldiers. From here, most of the story now deals with how the
civilians survive or die in the war.
The American soldiers are faceless,
anonymous. They are savage, and there are examples of civilians being killed by
bombs before they can surrender. This could be seen as propaganda, but such
things did happen. It was a result of the Japanese soldiers pretending to surrender
and then letting off a hand grenade when in range of the enemy troops. This is
also covered in the film. The director seems to draw no conclusions from these
actions, he just shows them as a fact of war. He also shows some of the brief
moments of black comedy and human compassion, but these are few and far between
in such an environment.
The real tragedy, and one that fills the
final minutes of the film, is the bloody death of so many civilians we have met
throughout the film. Whether through enemy gunfire or through their own
suicide, there are few survivors. Reportedly the Army encouraged or forced
suicide among the population, rather than the voluntary suicides shown in the
film. The bitter scenes filmed by U.S. soldiers of civilians and their children
leaping to their death from the island’s cliffs are left out. Regardless, in
war it is always the civilians that suffer the most and director Okamoto makes
sure this point is hammered in – well over 100,000 civilians died in the
battle. He also shows the collapse in morale when the students, so proud when
they decided to help the Army (this point is also in contention with historians
– were they volunteers or were they forced to enlist?) are hopelessly unable to cope when the Army
has ceased to exist. Their growth in fatalism is their replacement for
patriotism betrayed.
In this respect it is a very sad film, and
although it looks like a documentary it is really a very powerful anti-war
film. There have been comments about the Japanese trying to rewrite history to
lessen the effects of losing the war on the Japanese national psyche, but I see
little evidence of it here apart from the incidents mentioned, even though the
original film has been added to recently. It is simply a tragic but compelling
look at war from the losing side. The final image of a small child survivor
searching for water among the bodies is a poignant summary of what the film is
about, and perhaps a symbol of Japan’s immediate future.
The DVD has been fully restored from the
original, and quality is good, apart from the rather poor sound quality. This
could have been reworked. One touch I liked was the dual subtitles – the bottom
subtitles show the speech, but an extra band of subtitles at the top explains
or translates any terms that may be confusing or lost in translation. The film
runs for two and a half hours, so an intermission break has been thoughtfully
provided. The DVD includes the usual image
gallery, notes and trailer. Strangely, there are no credits at the end of the
film.
This review will appear in Volume 2 No.2
(2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.
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