With the 65th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa upon us, Jon Mitchell traces the life of a U.S. serviceman who dedicated himself to keeping alive the memory of some of its victims
In 1966, Dave Davenport was a mystery to his fellow U.S. Air Force clerks on Okinawa. Whereas they would dress up in their finest threads and make for the clubs of Koza in their free time, Davenport would don the oldest clothes he owned and jump on a local bus heading into the middle of nowhere.
When he returned from these unexplained trips, he wouldn't be lipstick-stained or smelling of perfume. Instead, he'd be covered in mud and carrying dirt-covered objects he'd hide safely out of sight in his locker.
Needless to say, word soon spread that there was something different about Davenport — something that was possibly a little peculiar. But if his colleagues had known more about his background, they might not have considered his behavior so strange after all.
Born in South Carolina in 1944, he grew up immersed in history. At his doorstep lay Fort Sumter, the flash point that ignited the American Civil War in April 1861, when Confederate forces fired on its Union garrison. Nearby were the military bases of Charleston and Parris Island — home to veterans of more recent campaigns in France, Germany and the Pacific.
As a young boy, Davenport spent hours at his local library, poring over accounts of these battles, impatient for the day when he'd be able to explore the scenes of fighting for himself.
At the age of 21, Davenport got the opportunity to do just that when, as a member of the U.S. Air Force, he learned he was to be posted to one of the very battlefields about which he'd read so avidly — Okinawa.
Back in June 1942, in the epic, mid-Pacific Battle of Midway, the fighting force that was the Imperial Japanese Navy had effectively been eliminated. After that, with their overwhelming command of the air, Allied troops led by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps "island-hopped" from Guadalcanal to Guam to Iwo Jima as they drew ever closer to Japan's home islands.
Finally, in the spring of 1945, the ultimate showdown took place on Okinawa, a small island that, as the last stepping stone before Japan proper, was to witness some of the most ferocious fighting of World War II.
During some 82 days of slaughter after the U.S. assault began on April 1, more than 12,000 American and 110,000 Japanese troops lost their lives, together with 145,000 Okinawan civilians — almost a quarter of the island's population — before all organized resistance was overcome by June 22.
