Kenneth Whiting (AV 14) - Naval Cruise Book

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OKINAWA THE KEYSTONE OF THE PACIFIC A TYPICAL VILLAGE , . . Like many en ihe southern nji: ci number lo Americans. Fifty years hence it will not have changed. Our first sight of Okinawa was prob- ably the same as those who proceeded us and saw the island for the first time. And like them — not knowing what to ex- pect — we were pleasantly surprised by a hilly, green coastline. It looked mighty good after ten days of nothing but sky and water. Okinawa — a word that has become a regular part of the American vocabu- lary — was unknown to most of us in the Western World until the spring of 1945. Prior to that time it was only a dot on the map — a lonely, sub-tropical island no one cared about, that is, until the Japanese converted it into a mighty bastion guard- ing the approaches to their homeland. Today it ' s a different story. We have come to recognize Okinawa as the Key- stone of the Pacific. It is no longer the Reck, the bleak and lonely island that lacked any of the comforts of home. For the military it now has facilities that com- pare favorably with those found at U. S. installations. Between our in again, out again stays in Buckner Bay, we all soon missed the wide open spaces of America. There just wasn ' t enough room to move around in on an island 7 miles long and 3 to 12 miles wide! Everything we saw — the farms, the houses, the people — were smaller. And we noticed that the 600,000 Ryukyuans of Okinawa had, through necessity, terraced and were tilling every inch of land. There were no hundred-acre pastures lying dormant. The size of the people was the most noticeable. At first most of us had the feeling of being in a country peopled by no one larger than young American teen- agers. But we remembered that it also took the Ryukyuans a while to get used to the size of the Americans that now are so prevalent in their homeland. The Ryukyuans are a devout people, though their religion is entirely different from anything we have known. The faith which most influenced the religious life of the people on Okinawa is Taoism. 38

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WE SAW... The grace, charm and beauty of the Hawaiian girl is best expressed in the dance which has become famous the world the hula! ftifc : ivSir- AND TOURED We toured the green island of Oahu, seeing the tall palms, the mighty thrust of Diamond Head, and miles and miles of sand and sea. . . We ate exotic food and sipped drinks no less powerful than their name implies — Fog-cutters, H-Bombs, Ban- yan Punch, Black Widow . . .

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WE TOURED Taoism, introduced through the Chinese, places emphasis on ancestor worship. This still is a central tenet of Okinawan faith today. Taoism teaches that, after seven generations, ancestors become div- ine; therefore, the ancestor must be hon- ored and humored. This is the reason for the thousands of pretentious tombs we saw all over the island, to which offer- ings of food and paper spirit money are taken for use of the dead. Buddhism, coming from India by way of China, and Shintoism from Japan, were important in the island at various times, but their influence today has waned to insignificance. And now there are ap- proximately 5,000 natives on Okinawa who have been converted to the Catholic and Protestant faiths. There are 17 native pastors on Okinawa. The island terrain varies greatly be- tween north and south. Southern Okinawa consists of rolling hills. Many inviting sandy beaches, comparable to the ones in Florida and Southern California, can be found along the coastline. In the north- ern part, the country is much more rugged and beautiful. There the hills raise to more than a thousand feet, with Yonaha Take (1650 feet) the highest point. Naha, the capital and largest city, was a big surprise to most of us as far as our idea of cities was concerned. We under- stand that before the war it had the mod- ern look we ' re used to — now it looks about the same as the towns and villages we saw in other parts of the island. But we had to remember that every city and village in the southern half of the island were completely destroyed in World War II. No wonder Okinawa seemed, in sharp contrast to the life we know, like one of the backward areas of the world. Occasionally, in a brave attempt at masculine superiority, we American men bleat There ' s a place for women! Well, in Okinawa the men practice it, not hide and crow about it. There, traditionally, women stay in the background. They have always been considered inferior BUCKNER BAY FROM WHITE BEACH . . . Here we spenl more lime than any other stop in the Far East. Hot and humid OS it was, it was considered cooler and more com- fortable than the Pescadores, Hong Konq or the Philippines. THE INEVITABLE RICE PATTIE . . . Although there are thousands such as this throughout the islands, they are relatively newcomers, and sweet potatoes lake precedence as the native ' s stable food. THE NEW AND THE OLD ... On streets of Ihe larger villages a few modern vehicles, mostly buses and taxis, may be seen. The principal mode, however, is Ihe horsedrav n carls such as this. The mevitable change cf shoes. Two Whiting sailors prepare to depart the celebrated Tea House cf the August Moon in Naha. 39