Even More Pictures from Okinawa

More Pictures from Okinawa Trip

Special suicide planes for the kamikazes.
These are the little bunkers or "hangars" where those planes were stored until they were sent off on their death missions against U.S. ships.
This is my buddy's wife Sierra standing in front of one of the ever present tombs on Okinawa.
Another castle.
The "haunted" hotel across the hill from Nakagusuku Castle. It hasn't been used for 30 years.

Okinawa - Aug and Sep 09

Looking south along the walls of Nakagusuku.
Standing on the walls of Nakagusuku Castle. We weren't supposed to be up here. Oh well. It's only a World Heritage Site and I can't read Japanese.
The gate to Shuri Castle.
A cool sign in front of Sam's Restaurant in Awase. It say it's 1417 miles to Guam from that location. It also lists a lot of other locations in the Far East I've been to now.
Palm trees on the walls of Shuri. This castle was devasted by World War II, when it was a headquarters of the Japanese military. It was bombed to smithereens. It's since been rebuilt, unlike Nakagusuku.

Okinawa in August and September - 2009

So, when our new daughter Micah was only 11 days old, I had to fly to Okinawa to Kadena Air Base for 11 days for a General Court-Martial. Fortunately, my mother was in Guam for 3 weeks to help Carrie and I with Faith and Micah. Although I worked almost the entire time, I did get a day to hang out with Reagan and Sierra Beaton and Sierra's uncle Brad. We visited several Okinawan castles and one of the Japanese last stands during the battle in 1945. The cool thing about Okinawa is that it was its own kingdom and ethnicity until the Japanese empire conquered it in about 1878. Prior to that, the Ryukan kingdom ruled this island chain.
Gate to Shuri Castle in Naha.
Inside the tunnels of the Japanese Naval Underground where 4,000 Japaneses committed mass suicide.
The crumbling walls of Nakagusuku Castle farther north on the island. Absolutely stunning craftsmanship, built in the mid 1400s. In addition, the United States Marines had to capture it in 1945 early in the battle.
There are several concentric defensive rings in the castle. And it sits on a ridge with views far north and south and of both sides of the island.