Fifty years after the end of World War II, one of its bloodiest battlefields - Sugar Loaf Hill on Japan's Okinawa Island - has given up five more dead.
The remains were found in a tunnel in what is left of the former battle site, which is being razed to build a city hall for Naha, Okinawa's capital."We believe it was the main tunnel in Sugar Loaf because of its size," Dave Davenport, curator of the Battle of Okinawa Museum on Camp Kinser, a U.S. Marine base on Okinawa, said Wednesday.
Davenport said he and a local construction crew found the remains, mostly bones and leather from belts and boots, during the past week. Medicines and munitions were also found in the tunnel.
The remains, which have not been identified but are most likely of Japanese soldiers, will be turned over to Okinawan authorities, Davenport said.
The 1945 battle for Okinawa, the largest of Japan's southernmost set of islands, was the last major campaign of World War II and proved disastrous for Japan and the Okinawan people.