Himeyuri Peace Museum

In March 1945, 222 students and 18 teachers from two girls' schools in Okinawa were mobilized as nursing staff for the Okinawa Army Hospital at Haebaru. They are remembered as the Himeyuri student corps. On 18 June the group was suddenly ordered to disband, and of the 240, 136 died; about 80 percent of those deaths came in the days after the order. The museum stands next to the Himeyuri Monument, at the site of the Ihara Third Surgery Cave, where more of them died than anywhere else. It was founded on 23 June 1989 by the schools' alumni association, Himeyuri Dosokai, to pass on what the students went through and the value of peace. Inside are photographs from the time, testimony videos and a life-size model of a cave; the testimony videos have English subtitles. The rooms are quiet, and many visitors leave in silence. Most people spend 30 minutes to an hour, some two or three hours. Photos, video and audio recording are not allowed in the exhibition rooms. There is no museum car park: drivers use the lots of the souvenir shops across the road, and by bus from Naha the trip takes 60 to 90 minutes with a change at Itoman. The Peace Memorial Park at Mabuni is a short drive east.