The sky was overcast and there were some sprinklings of rain but that didn’t dissuade me. It didn’t take long to get to the cave once I finally made it to the starting line. It was a short walk along a narrow trail in the woods which was easy enough to negotiate. No hills to climb! No rocks to traverse. No river to ford. Yeah, this was an easy walk. A small stream ran alongside the trail as I got nearer to the cave and when I got to the mouth of the cave, I could see that the stream ran right into it. The cave was wide at its mouth and didn’t seem to be very deep, at least what I could see of it. I didn’t have a good flood light with me so couldn’t make out much detail at the back of the cave. A sandy path led into the cave so this one was easier to walk through since there weren’t lots of rocks and roots to contend with.
Shimuku gama was another cave that provided shelter for over 1,000 local citizens in the Yomitan area of the island. Unlike Chibichiri, this one has a happier history.
The Kerama Islands had already been invaded and seized and everyone knew that the main island of Okinawa was soon to follow. More than one thousand Okinawan civilians took refuge in Shimuku Gama. The outcome here however was to have a different outcome than that which took place at Chibichiri.
Chibana Haruo, an Okinawan civilian who was 12 years old at the time, was one of hundreds who took shelter in Shimuku. Haruo-san explained that there were two adult men among them, one being his uncle Higa Heiji, who had worked before the war in the sugar cane fields of Hawaii. Contrary to what the locals had been told by the Japanese military propagandists, the two men assured his fellow citizens that it was simply not true that Americans would slaughter unarmed civilians; that they both had worked with Americans and knew that they would never commit such atrocities. The other civilian man, Heiji-san’s nephew Higa Heizo, corroborated his uncle’s assertion. Chibana Haruo said that when the American soldiers arrived at the cave, they set up machine gun emplacements and, through an interpreter, called for everyone in the cave to come out. They were assured that no harm would come to them if they peacefully complied. The two Higa’s exited the cave and were observed by the villagers to be talking amicably with the soldiers. The Higa’s then turned to their fellow citizens and coaxed them to come out. One-by-one they all came out and were properly cared for by their American beasts and devils.
In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the battle, survivors dedicated a monument at the mouth of the cave to Higa Heiji and Higa Heizo.