An Okinawan father is drafted locally; his evacuated wife and children survive a strafed, burning ship.

What happened

As the war came closer, many Japanese and Okinawan settler women and children were sent home. One Okinawan man, then five, recalled that his family’s convoy from Pohnpei was attacked by US aircraft in February 1944; they reached Truk in a lifeboat and, by way of Palau and Taiwan, finally landed in Kobe.