Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and their daughter, Princess Aiko, arrived in Okinawa Prefecture on Wednesday to mourn those killed in the Battle of Okinawa during World War II 80 years ago.
It is Princess Aiko's first visit to the prefecture.
The family arrived at Naha Airport in Okinawa after leaving Tokyo's Haneda Airport on a special airplane.
They will travel to the city of Itoman later on Wednesday to offer flowers at the National War Dead Peace Mausoleum and visit the Cornerstone of Peace, on which the names of the roughly 240,000 war victims are engraved.
They will then view a permanent exhibition at the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum and speak with war survivors and bereaved families.
On Thursday, the family will offer flowers at a monument in Naha, the prefectural capital, for the victims of the Tsushima Maru evacuation ship. They will visit the Tsushima-maru Memorial Museum for the first time.
The Tsushima Maru, which was carrying some 1,800 people, mostly evacuees including schoolchildren, sank off Akusekijima, an island in the Tokara archipelago of Kagoshima Prefecture, on Aug. 22, 1944, due to a torpedo attack from a U.S. submarine. At least 1,484 people were killed in the attack.
The family will later inspect restoration efforts for the main hall of Shuri Castle, which was destroyed by a fire in 2019, before returning to Tokyo on a special aircraft that night.
In Okinawa, more than 200,000 people were killed in ground battles in the final stages of the Pacific War, part of World War II.
It is Emperor Naruhito's seventh visit to Okinawa, and the third with Empress Masako. Princess Aiko will accompany her parents based on the imperial couple's wish to pass on the memory of war to the next generation.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.