Eighty years after World War II, Okinawa and Taiwan remember the war in vastly different ways. Okinawa still bears deep physical and emotional scars from a brutal ground battle, while Taiwan, though also under Japanese rule at the time, was spared an invasion. Historians say Okinawan civilians suffered immense casualties, caught between Japanese military orders to resist and massive U.S. bombardment. In contrast, Taiwan watched the war’s final battles from afar, leaving people to wonder how differently history might have unfolded if the fighting had reached their shores.
