Imperial Family Visits Tsushima Maru Monument
Naha, Okinawa Pref., June 5 (Jiji Press)--Japan's Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and their daughter, Princess Aiko, on Thursday visited a monument in Okinawa Prefecture for victims of the 1944 sinking of the Tsushima Maru evacuation ship.
The family laid bouquets of white flowers at the monument in Naha, the capital of the southernmost prefecture, and bowed deeply.
In August 1944, the Tsushima Maru, carrying some 1,800 people, including schoolchildren and other evacuees from Okinawa, was sunk in a U.S. torpedo attack. According to the operator of the museum, at least 1,484 people perished.
The Emperor and his family then paid their first visit to the Tsushima-maru Memorial Museum.
Guided by Tsugiko Taira, 62, who heads the museum, the Imperial couple and the princess walked around looking at pictures and personal belongings of children who died.
The Emperor inquired about the difficulty in preserving paper-based materials, while his daughter suggested the idea of collecting portraits of the victims.
The family then spoke with nine people, including survivors of the incident and people who work on passing stories on to the next generation.
"It must have been hard," the Emperor told Masakatsu Takara, 85, who lost his parents and seven siblings in the incident. The Empress and Princess Aiko asked about a letter written by his older brother.
Takara had met with the Emperor's parents, the current Emperor Emeritus Akihito and Empress Emerita Michiko, when they visited the museum while the Emperor Emeritus was on the throne.
"I'm very honored that the second and third generation members of the Imperial Family (since the Emperor Emeritus) took an interest in the Tsushima Maru," Takara said.
Reika Hanaoka, 49, told the Emperor and his family that she became a storyteller after she, together with her son, had an opportunity to listen to Takara's stories about the incident. Her son was a member of a children's choir at the museum when he was in elementary school.
The Empress asked how many people were in the choir, while the princess asked what songs the choir sang.
The family then changed into the prefecture's traditional "kariyushi" fashion and visited Okinawa Commemorative National Government Park.
There, they visited an exhibition on the Okinawa International Ocean Exposition held between 1975 and 1976.
They also inspected restoration efforts on the roof portion of the main hall of Shuri Castle, which was destroyed by a fire in 2019, and spoke to artisans aiming to finish the repair job by next year.
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