It can be seen both inside and on the cover of several books about the battle of Okinawa. Some of them show only the solitary stone lion, perched on a knoll that is completely barren of vegetation. Other pictures show army artillery observers hunkered down beside it and directing fire against enemy positions. It is perhaps one of the battle’s best known survivors. It’s also one of the least visited sites on the island. I had been looking for it for years before stumbling across it by accident. It was while my wife and I were driving along highway 507 through the Tomori district south of Naha in Kochinda Town that we accidentally noticed the sign. We turned on to highway 52 and had only gone a few hundred meters when my wife noticed the second sign. By the time she told me, I had passed the turn. To add insult to injury, I had a giant dump truck piloted by what appeared to be a former kamikaze climbing up my tail pipe.

I had no choice but to hit the pedal and put some distance in-between us before I could safely turn around to come back. When we returned, we followed the sign into a quiet subdivision with some very narrow and not too straight roads. The streets here are tight and narrow with many blind corners. Driving visibility is not good so we had to be extra cautious of children playing. At least here, there were more signs and they directed us right to the sight. History buffs, especially those who specialize in the battle of Okinawa know that this part of the island is where some of the most desperate fighting took place. To see the area as it is now and then compare it to historical photographs shows just how fierce the fighting was and how much the place has changed. (Check out the link below)

The Shisa now stands in a quiet park on the knoll of a small hill. We looked it over closely and it wasn’t too difficult to figure out which scars were made during the battle and which are just due to the effects of time and weather. History tells us that the hand carved stone statue was erected in the 17th century. With its solid stone base it stands at about six feet high. Local legend says that in addition to being the first such village Shisa built on Okinawa, its main purpose was fire prevention. It seems that the local people had been plagued by raging fires so they consulted a holy man who told them that a demon from nearby Yaese hill to the south was responsible and if they built the Shisa facing that direction, they would be protected from any further danger that approached from that way. It seems that it worked for about 250 or so years till “The Typhoon of Steel” otherwise known as the battle of Okinawa came to the island.

By the time the war reached this part of Okinawa, the battle was all but over. The juggernaut U.S. forces approaching from the north had the last of the Japanese organized resistance pinned down to the south toward Yaese hill. Perhaps if the Imperial Japanese Army Commander, General Ushijima, had heeded the lessons of the Tomori Lion, he might have arranged his defense of Okinawa differently. If he could have forced the Allies to approach from the direction of Yaese the final result of this great tragedy of human history might have turned out differently. http://okinawablog.vox.com/library/photo/6a00c2251c4db4f21900cd970a8c0d4cd5.html