History of Okinawa reveal distinguished record of conquerors.
We have honor to be subjugated in 14th century by Chinese pirates.
In 16th century by English missionaries.
In 18th century by Japanese warlords.
And in 20th century by American marines . . .
But Okinawans most eager to be educated by conquerors.
Deep desire to improve friction.
Not easy to learn.
—Sakini, in The Teahouse of the August Moon.
AT the bitter end of World War II, the U.S. captured Okinawa in the bloodiest engagement of the Pacific, and for four years the despondency of devastation settled over the island. On its fields, supplies—stockpiled for an invasion of Japan that never happened—moldered and rotted. Okinawa became "the junkyard of the Pacific," the outpost of the outcasts, the place where old jeeps and obsolete colonels went to rust away under the gentle melancholy of the August moon.
There was even talk of returning it to Japan forthwith.
But in the U.S. awakening that followed the Communist conquest of China and the invasion of Korea, U.S. strategists discovered that Okinawa could be a valuable outpost for more than teahouses. At that point, Okinawa too awoke.
Atomic Cannon. Last week Okinawa was no longer anybody's junkyard. Four-lane highways lace the island. Modern typhoon-proof buildings dot the lush hills. On the seaside flatlands, Army warehouses stretch for serried miles. Hillsides are honeycombed with underground ammunition dumps. Offshore, sleek F-84s practice simulated A-bomb drops. And as the final cap to its new significance, the Army last week landed atomic cannon on Okinawa, the first in the Far East.
Since 1949 the U.S. has poured $350 million into Okinawa for construction that will eventually total half a billion dollars.
The garrison now includes 30,000 U.S. military personnel.
Kadena Air Base, with its 9,000-ft. runway, has become the Air Force's most important Far Eastern home. Naha Air Base is nearly as big. The Army, Defense Secretary Wilson declared recently, expects to make Okinawa its major troop base, capable of staging more troops than it handled (182,000) in World War II. And when the rest of the 3rd Marine Division, now scattered from Japan to Hawaii, makes its scheduled move to Okinawa when housing is ready, Okinawa will be headquarters for the largest Marine striking force in the Orient.
The U.S. often proclaimed that it wanted no territorial gain out of World War II. The big exception is Okinawa. According to an official U.S. Army handout, Okinawa-based bombers "have a far greater flexibility in choice of target areas than those based in either Japan or in the Philippines . . . They can reach all important target areas within an arc which includes all of Southeast Asia, the whole of China, the Lake Baikal industrial area, eastern Siberia, and the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula." In other words, Okinawa is the spearhead of U.S. retaliatory power in the Far East.