Tombs of the Dead

My grandfather was in Okinawa during World War II.  He wrote a lot of letters to my grandma, and not too long ago I read those letters with my Mom.  One of the things he wrote about was the tombs built into hillsides.  Yesterday, when we were driving to the aquarium, we saw a number of tombs along the road.  We stopped and took some pictures.

The tombs look like little houses and oftentimes face the ocean.  Here is an article about the tombs from Stars and Stripes.  Some of the tombs had flowers displayed, and some had cups with water or beer.

There are some tombs that have a round shape.  Those are called turtleback tombs.  There weren't any of those in the area where we stopped.

Later in the week we took some other pictures of tombs, so I want to add them here.

This last photo looks out toward Camp Kinser, a Marine base that lies just beyond the two towers you can see in the distance.  Camp Kinser is where the Battle of Okinawa Museum is located.