Like wraiths in the night
p. 73 · Read in the full issue
They came like wraiths in the night to honour their dead, Japanese dead. They came to Betio on Tarawa where, in 1943, the Americans won a victory that cheered the spirits of the Allies and which was later made famous by John Wayne and other tough guys.
They came to Betio where 4,690 Japanese died, and they stuck a post in the ground and wrote on it and left.
Nobody on Tarawa knew what the Japanese symbols meant. But with the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Tarawa coming up someone thought it would be a good idea to find out about the post and perhaps honour it in some way.
So they took the post and stuck it in the old Japanese gun turret which lies in the triangle by the Club at Betio, they copied the Japanese symbols and sent them to the BBC’s Japanese Service, which is in London.
From London came this translation: “Memorial for the Spirits of the Japanese who died in the fighting on the Islands and Atolls.
Erected by the Association of Relatives of the Dead, July 22, 1967.”