The female students and teachers who were mobilized to form the Himeyuri corps, a nursing unit for the Imperial Japanese Army during the Battle of Okinawa, have retired as storytellers due to old age, handing the baton to a younger generation that did not experience the war.
Yoshiko Shimabukuro, 87, head of the Himeyuri Peace Museum in Itoman, Okinawa, gave her final lecture on the battle on March 22, bringing the series of lectures by former Himeyuri members that began with the museum’s opening in 1989 to an end.
The storytellers decided to retire this year because Okinawa will mark the 70th anniversary of fierce ground battle, which took place in the closing months of World War II.