personal narratives, japanese

Separated from her family in the confusion and horror of World War II, seven-year-old Tomiko Higa struggles to survive on the battlefield of Okinawa, Japan. There, as some of the fiercest fighting of the war rages around her, she must live alone, with nothing to fall back on but her own wits and daring. Fleeing from encroaching enemy forces, searching desperately for her lost sisters, taking scraps of food from the knapsacks of dead soldiers, risking death at every turn, Tomiko somehow finds the strength and courage to survive. Many years later she decided to tell this story, a vivid portrait of the unintended civilian casualties of any war.

Draws on firsthand accounts, archival records, and photographs to chronicle the air war in the Pacific during World War II through the stories of the last surviving aviators of the Imperial Japanese Naval unit.

Relates the personal narrative of former Japanese Kamikaze pilot, Yasuo Kuwahara, describing his youth in Japan, conscription into miliary service, and his final attack orders just prior to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Tomiko Higa tells the story of how she survived the Battle of Okinawa during World War II at the age of seven after she became separated from her family.