Shiraume Gakutotai
The Shiraume Gakutotai ( Japanese 白梅 学徒 隊 , German “Shiraume student group”, also Shiraume Kangotai 白梅 看護 隊 , German “Shiraume nursing team”, English Shiraume student nurse corps ) was a troop of auxiliary nurses consisting of 56 students Okinawa Prefecture's Second Upper Girls' School.
history
Similar to the " Himeyuri student group ", the schoolgirls served as nurses for wounded soldiers in the Battle of Okinawa (from April to June 1945) when, towards the end of the war, the Okinawa schoolchildren were called Tekketsu Kinnōtai . Most of the schoolgirls lost their lives in the course of the fighting for the island. A total of around 200,000 people died in Okinawa, including 120,000 civilians, 13,000 American soldiers and around 66,000 Japanese soldiers.
Okinawa Prefecture's Second Girls' School opened as a vocational school in September 1905. In 1921, the school in the city of Naha was formally advanced to a high school, three years later to a municipal high school and in April 1928 to the 2nd prefectural high school for girls. In December of the same year, a new school building was built on Matsuo-yama in the Kume district, where the high school moved from Kumoshi.
In April 1936, most of the newly constructed school building was burned to death. The building was then rebuilt, completed in 1940 and destroyed again in the great air raid on Okinawa on October 10, 1944 ( 十 ・ 十 空襲 , Jūjū kūshū ). Even before the students were transferred to the front, an explosion occurred on December 11 near the Inamine train station in Ōzato-son ( 大里 heute , today: Nanjō ) during an ammunition transport to the 24th Infantry Division, in which two students lost their lives and a schoolgirl was badly wounded. Another student died on a passenger ship from Kume to Naha that was attacked and sunk by the American Navy. The surviving seventy fourth grade girls were trained as auxiliary nurses from February 1945.
On March 6, 1945, 56 of these students were assigned as auxiliary nurses to the base of the 24th Infantry Division in the Kochinda elementary school in Yaese . When the attacks by the Americans increased from March 24th, the training of the girls was stopped and they were assigned to the field hospital of the 24th Infantry Division. On March 25, three schoolgirls were discharged from military service, and on March 27th seven, so that 46 girls remained in the field hospital.
On June 4, it was decided to move the field hospital further south as part of a retreat; the students of the Shiraume troop were gradually released and occasionally fled south. Many of the schoolgirls died during the escape, while others who continued their work in the field hospital moved to Kuniyoshi fell victim to the American attacks on June 21 and 22.
Of the 46 schoolgirls, 22 died in the course of the war. In their memory was in Kuniyoshi, Itoman the temple Nanzenkōji ( 南禅廣寺 ) the Shiraume Memorial ( 白梅の塔 , Shiraume-to , 26 ° 6 '59.3 " N , 127 ° 41' 10.5" O ) built.
The white plum blossoms ( Shiraume ) form the school badge of the Second Girls' High School in Okinawa Prefecture.
Web links
- Article Excerpt - Documentary shows Japanese girls' horror stories during WWII
- 沖 縄 第二 高等 女 学校 （白梅 学徒 隊） - Chronology of Events (Japanese)
- Illustration of a cave in which schoolgirls from the Shiraume squad perished.
Individual evidence
- ↑ "Shiraume" means white plum blossoms
- ↑ 沖 縄 第二 高等 女 学校 （白梅 学徒 隊） 関 連年 表
- ↑ Online dictionary (Japanese)