1945 Katsuyama killing incident

Residents of Katsuyama had reportedly killed the three Marines for their repeated rape of village women during occupation of Okinawa and hid their bodies in a nearby cave out of fear for retaliation.

[2] Shinsei Higa, who was sixteen at the time, remembers that "I didn't see the actual killing because I was hiding in the mountains above, but I heard five or six gunshots and then a lot of footsteps and commotion.

[1] In June 1997, Kishimoto and Inafuku searched for the cave near Katsuyama, but could not find it until August when a storm blew down a tree which had been blocking the entrance.

[1] Kishimoto and Inafuku informed the Japanese police in Okinawa but they kept the discovery a secret for a few months to protect the people who discovered the location of the bodies.

Steve Rabson, Professor of East Asian Studies at Brown University, estimated that as many as 10,000 such instances of rape occurred after the war.