Kakazu Ridge

These pictures are from Kakazu Ridge which is about 5 minutes away from Tom's house. Tom was in "History Teacher" mode, and if you know Tom he loves to talk about war and these significant sites. Its always fun to learn. But this is a major WWII battle site that had taken place as American troops tried to take over this land.

SIDENOTE: If you didnt know, the island of Okinawa, Japan was one of the biggest battle sites in the Pacific that was key to getting onto mainland Japan. Some of the bloodiest battles were fought right here on this land. They say that if you covered the island of Okinawa with tatami mats (which are bamboo shoot floor rectangles) which are about 5ft long by 3 ft wide across, they say that about 8 American bomb shells were dropped per tatami mat across the whole island. That is a huge amount of bombs! The land was leveled by American bombers!!! ANYWAY.....

Here at this site, Japanese troops bunkered down and took out about 22 out of 30 tanks that American troops brought to the hill. They fought hard. But they lost the hill and this is a memorial to the battle.

The picture of the cement house is a family burial place that are not from the battle, but are just all over the island to serve as places of ancestor worship. It is crazy some of the things they do here for the dead!