Chibichiri Cave, Okinawa, Japan
During the invasion of Okinawa the Japanese fought from an extensive series of prepared underground bunkers and interconnecting caves, which forced the Americans to flush them out one by one in heavy fighting. The United States Navy and Marines and US Army forces invaded the island on April 1, 1945, the battle would rage for 82 days before the island was declared secured. Total casualties, including civilians on Okinawa, would exceed 160,000 before the battle was ended. Many of these were suicides by civilians, warned not to allow themselves to fall into the hands of the Americans.
While the Marines and Army battled the Japanese across the island, Japanese Kamikaze planes attacked the supporting US Fleet in waves, causing heavy damage to some ships, and heavy casualties among some crews. Small boats were configured as suicide attack boats and sent out against the American fleet. The Japanese forced young Okinawan boys and old men into Japanese uniforms and front line service, leading to their deaths at the hands of the Americans. The Japanese also forced civilians into several caves and provided hand grenades and poisons for them to use in mass suicides.
As Japanese resistance began to crumble and the battle was winding down, one such cave was encountered by US troops. When the Americans arrived one of the civilians in the cave helped to maintain calm among the civilians who were preparing to carry out the orders given them by the Japanese. A former employee of an American sugarcane grower in Hawaii, he told the occupants that they would not be harmed by the Americans. The civilians in that cave, Shimuku Gama, survived the battle and were unharmed, and soon helped, by the American troops.
In another cave, Chibichiri Gama, the Japanese had included a veteran of the war in China, and he insisted that the civilians resist the Americans with whatever they had or follow the order to commit suicide, rather than submit to capture. The civilians followed his orders, some fighting with bamboo sticks and grenades while others administered poison to their children before taking it themselves. Eighty-four of the civilians in the cave died, most of them by suicide as the Americans subdued the remainder. Other Okinawans committed suicide across the island, convinced by the Japanese of the bestial behavior to expect from the Americans.
Today the Chibichiri Gama is reported to be haunted, with the sounds of children screaming and sobbing and cries of fear and pain reported by many who have visited the cave. Others have reported being instantly overwhelmed with feelings of fear or complete despair upon entering the cave. A memorial was erected outside of the cave to honor those who died there but it was destroyed in 1987 by Japanese nationalists who found it to be insulting to the Emperor. The victims of Chibichiri Gama were not combatants, but civilians caught up on a battlefield, casualties of war which some believe still haunt the place of their death.