presence in Okinawa dates back to 1944, in the final days of World War II, when Okinawa became the site of the only ground battles fought on Japanese soil during the war. Although the fighting claimed the lives of more than 10,000 American and 90,000 Japanese troops, the greater tragedy was the number of noncombatant victims: more than 100,000 people, nearly a third of the Okinawan population, were killed.
             In 1945, after US troops invaded the island, they built bases in preparation for an attack on mainland Japan. Thousands more Okinawans were forced into relocation camps and mountainous villages to clear the way for base development.
             Seven years after Japanfs surrendered, in April 1952, the San Francisco Peace Treaty and US-Japan Security Treaty went into effect. The Peace Treaty secured Japan's independence, but retained Okinawa as a US-administered territory. Even though the US recognized Japan's residual sovereignty over the islands, since Okinawa remained under US control, the Security Treaty did not apply to the island. Although international law, as determined by the Hague Convention, prohibits the confiscation of private property without payment even during war, the US claimed its administrative authority as an excuse to requisition as much land as it pleased for military bases. Thus, many of the refugees, upon their release from relocation camps, found their homes and farmlands requisitioned by the US military. Some of the land was even confiscated by force, with armed troops and military vehicles surrounding villages and bulldozing or burning houses. The confiscation of land actually occurred at a greater scale after the war was over and the US assumed administrative authority, thus creating the vast military bases still present in Okinawa today.
             In 1972, sovereignty over Okinawan territory was returned to Japan. The main reason many Okinawan people voted to rejoin with Japan was the false belief that US bases wou...