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With twin films, Japan and US let go of Iwo Jima scars
2006-10-20
As he took his first stroll in six decades on the sulfuric sands of this Pacific island, a blazing sun beating on his sturdy frame, Keith Renstrom knew he could finally let go. Muzi.com News 10024098-0 (muzi.com) In 1945, the last time he was in Iwo Jima, he was a 24-year-old US Marine gunning his way through a maze of Japanese trenches, fighting an enemy whose face was invisible -- in more ways than one. Muzi.com News 10024098-1 (muzi.com) On the 11th day of the bloody Battle of Iwo Jima, Renstrom at last had a clear view of an enemy soldier. The Japanese flung a hand grenade, pieces of which still remain in Renstrom's left arm and below his heart. Muzi.com News 10024098-2 (muzi.com) Returning to Iwo Jima, the former Marine Gunnery sergeant again saw a Japanese man waiting for him on the black sand where US forces had landed on February 16, 1945. Muzi.com News 10024098-3 (muzi.com) Except this time it was a Japanese television journalist in a coat and tie, eager to know why he came back to an island of such bitter memories. Muzi.com News 10024098-4 (muzi.com) Renstrom let out the words he had waited so long to utter on Iwo Jima. Muzi.com News 10024098-5 (muzi.com) "I used to hate your people. I used to hate them!" Renstrom, the passion raw in his voice, exclaimed to the Japanese camera crew, as one of his adult sons stood behind him, filming as well with a handheld recorder. Muzi.com News 10024098-6 (muzi.com) "But I have got that hate out of me. That is the code of the warrior," he said. Muzi.com News 10024098-7 (muzi.com) "I respected them because they would die doing what they believed in," he said of the Japanese. Muzi.com News 10024098-8 (muzi.com) Sitting at a memorial on the island -- which was immortalized in a photograph of battle-weary soldiers hoisting up the American flag in victory -- Japanese veteran Takeshi Arai has also overcome the scars of World War II. Muzi.com News 10024098-9 (muzi.com) "I could never imagine this would happen," Arai said. Muzi.com News 10024098-10 (muzi.com) "The way we had been taught and raised was that we would never be defeated," he said. "I am so happy that former enemies could become friends." Muzi.com News 10024098-11 (muzi.com) Those former combatants came together for one day earlier this year on a rare tour of Iwo Jima. After the war, the United States returned the island to Japan, which has transformed into one of its closest allies. Muzi.com News 10024098-12 (muzi.com) Now the two perspectives on one of World War II's bloodiest battles have also come to the cinema in films directed by Clint Eastwood. Muzi.com News 10024098-13 (muzi.com) In an unusual move, Eastwood has produced two films on the battle -- one from the US and the other from the Japanese point of view. Muzi.com News 10024098-14 (muzi.com) But instead of highlighting the differences between the two sides, Eastwood -- echoing veterans like Renstrom and Arai -- has thrown a spotlight on the common experience: the human toll of war and the emotional frailties of those ordered by their superiors to kill. Muzi.com News 10024098-15 (muzi.com) "In most war pictures in the past, the ones I grew up with, it was always one sided. There was a villain on one side and there were the good guys. Life isn't like that. And war isn't like that," Eastwood said. Muzi.com News 10024098-16 (muzi.com) "The results and the impact are the same on all warriors -- and people -- sent out there to defend their country," he said in Tokyo. Muzi.com News 10024098-17 (muzi.com) Some 21,900 Japanese and 6,821 Americans died in the Battle of Iwo Jima. For Americans, the hard-fought triumph brought the US military in crucial striking distance of the Japanese mainland, which US planes soon afterward firebombed. Muzi.com News 10024098-18 (muzi.com) The Japanese had prepared for a US invasion for months, turning the island 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) south of Tokyo into what they believed would be an invincible line of defense with soldiers in caves and underground trenches ready to die. Muzi.com News 10024098-19 (muzi.com) Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who was personally tasked by prime minister Hideki Tojo with defending Iwo Jima, died in a last-ditch charge as his men lost the island. Muzi.com News 10024098-20 (muzi.com) Kuribayashi is played in the Japanese film, entitled "Letters from Iwo Jima" and due for general release in Japan in December, by Ken Watanabe, the country's best-known actor overseas. Muzi.com News 10024098-21 (muzi.com) Despite giving his life to holding back the US military -- and contrary to many US troops' impression of an impossibly foreign enemy -- Kuribayashi had studied in the United States and had deep respect for Americans. Muzi.com News 10024098-22 (muzi.com) "I wanted to take part in this question of why the main character, Lieutenant General Kuribayashi, a man who adored the US and did not want to fight the US, nevertheless fought the US with everything he had," Watanabe said. Muzi.com News 10024098-23 (muzi.com) "Clint Eastwood's intention is to show the very struggle of this man, who ended up doing something that he wanted more than anything else not to do. He wanted to show the struggles of this man and of regular men who were sent to fight," Watanabe said. Muzi.com News 10024098-24 (muzi.com) To better understand the Japanese perspective, Eastwood sought the advice of Kuribayashi's grandson, Yoshitaka Shindo, a member of the Japanese parliament who heads an Iwo Jima veterans group. Muzi.com News 10024098-25 (muzi.com) "This isn't just a war movie," Shindo said. Muzi.com News 10024098-26 (muzi.com) "What it tells you is why Japanese soldiers fought. It was for their family and for their country, the same as the Americans. They had the same thoughts but yet they had to fight," he said. "It will be rewarding for both sides to see." Muzi.com News 10024098-27 (muzi.com) -- 'We can make up' -- Muzi.com News 10024098-28 (muzi.com) The US film, "Flags of Our Fathers," out in US cinemas on October 20, is based on James Bradley's best-selling book of the same name telling the stories of the five Marines and a Navy corpsman who raised the flag on Iwo Jima. Muzi.com News 10024098-29 (muzi.com) The soldiers in the iconic photograph relate the US story by their very backgrounds. They included a Slovakian immigrant, Michael Strank, and an American Indian, Ira Hayes. Muzi.com News 10024098-30 (muzi.com) James Bradley, the son of one of the six men in the photograph, John "Doc" Bradley, said his father was "just doing what he was trained to do." Muzi.com News 10024098-31 (muzi.com) "The men on Iwo Jima fought for each other. When you train with someone for six months and you land on a beach with them, you are concerned about your buddies, and they in turn are concerned about you," Bradley said. Muzi.com News 10024098-32 (muzi.com) On top of Mount Suribachi, at 166 meters (546 feet) the highest point on Iwo Jima, veterans and their families proudly restaged the raising of the flag, some kissing the Stars and Stripes as they took it down. Muzi.com News 10024098-33 (muzi.com) Few seemed to notice -- or care -- that nearby the commemorative flagpole lay a small shrine dedicated to Japan's notorious kamikaze suicide pilots. Muzi.com News 10024098-34 (muzi.com) "The guys who died down on that beach had to fight them," said Anthony DeFusco, an Iwo Jima veteran from Massachusetts. "But we can make up and be one. They're our strongest ally now." Muzi.com News 10024098-35 (muzi.com) Renstrom -- known affectionately by fellow Marines as "Gunny" -- recalled that the last time he walked the fabled beach he was in dread of a ruthless enemy. Muzi.com News 10024098-36 (muzi.com) Instead of a full-fledged attack on the US forces, the Japanese -- whose cry as they charged was "Banzai," or long live the emperor -- would pop out of their hiding spots, hoping to kill or maim. Muzi.com News 10024098-37 (muzi.com) "We had expected a banzai charge. But they never cracked. Never did they crack," he said. Muzi.com News 10024098-38 (muzi.com) After being evacuated for his injuries to Guam and then returning to his native Utah, he eventually learned another side of the Japanese. A Mormon, Renstrom worked as a missionary to the Japanese community in Hawaii. Muzi.com News 10024098-39 (muzi.com)
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