Falsely briefed of working in Red Cross hospitals away from the fighting,[1][2] the Himeyuri students were instead positioned on the front lines performing crude surgery and amputations, burying the dead, transporting ammunition and supplies to front-line troops, and other life-threatening duties under continuous fire throughout the nearly three-month battle.

[3] Near the end of the Okinawan battle, those still alive endured disease and malnutrition in dark caves filled with countless gravely injured and dead civilians, soldiers, and co-students.

Told simply to "go home" amidst total war, the schoolgirls suffered a high casualty rate in the crossfire of Japanese and American forces.

[4][5] In the early hours of the next day (June 19), 5 teachers and 46 students hiding inside the Ihara third surgery shelter were killed by white phosphorus munitions during an attack by US forces.

Renovated and reopened on Okinawa Memorial Day in 2009, the museum has six display chambers displaying photos from the eve of the Battle of Okinawa, the Haebaru Army Field Hospital, portraits of all the young victims who died after the military's retreat to the southernmost tip of the Kyan Peninsula, panels explaining the circumstances under which they died, twenty-eight volumes of testimonials and memoirs by survivors, and a life-sized diorama of the aforementioned cave where many students lost their lives.