The History of the Spy War in Okinawa

You can forget it now. I’ll be here to remember.

Description: At the end of World War II, the Allied forces landed on Okinawa, and over 240,000 people, including civilians, lost their lives in the three months before the surrender in June 1945. However, even after the surrender, guerrilla and spy warfare continued to rage in northern Okinawa. Behind the scenes, there were 42 graduates of the “Army Nakano School,” an agent training institute, who came to Okinawa in the summer of 1944, hid their identities, and went into hiding in various parts of Okinawa.

“You can forget it now. I’ll be here to remember.”
I was astounded by the shocking testimonies of the “Nakano School,” “forced migration and malaria hell by military order,” “citizens watching each other and spy massacres,” and so on. What sets this film apart from other war documentaries is that it shows and reminds us that the lack of humanity of the Japanese military during the war is not a thing of the past, but a problem that can happen even with the current Self-Defense Forces Law. And I am deeply impressed by the filmmakers’ desire to face the history told by the witnesses.