When the 23-year Allied Occupation of the Ogasawara Islands ended 50 years ago, it was also a moment of closure for George Yokota, who had worked for 12 years as a teacher on Chichijima — one of the two main inhabited islands in the chain 1,000 km south of Tokyo.
The second-generation Japanese-American born in Hawaii was 24 years old in 1956 when, following his discharge from the U.S. Army, he was immediately hired by the U.S. authorities to teach Japanese elementary and junior high school students at Admiral Radford Elementary School — then the only school in the chain.
All of the subjects were taught in English, which was the official language of the Occupation era.