The Girl with the White Flag: A Spellbinding Account of Love and Courage in Wartime Okinawa

by Dorothy Britton and Tomiko Higa

Book Overview

New York Newsday called this memoir of a warhood childhood in Japan "one of the saddest and yet most uplifting books about childhood you will ever encounter."

Separated from her family in the confusion and horror of World War II, seven-year-old Tomiko Higa struggles to survive on the battlefield of Okinawa, Japan. There, as some of the fiercest fighting of the war rages around her, she must live alone, with nothing to fall back on but her own...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 4770029314
• ISBN13: 9784770029317
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Kodansha
• Length: 130 Pages
• Weight: 0.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.4" x 5.2"

Customer Reviews

the girl with the white flag

In "Girl with the white flag" you experience the harsh realities of warfare and the living conditions of civilians. You encounter a girl named Tomiko on the island of Okinawa in WWII. The background behind the story even being written was when later in life she had been flipping through a National Geographic and had recognized her own photo of her surrendering to United States troops. Upon discovering who was responsible for the picture, she wrote her long, horrifying tale of her taking on the role of a civilian in this time of war. The story starts out with her describing everyday life in an average Okinawa household. Her father who's a samurai raises her as any person would when his wife passes away. Then all hell breaks loose when the shadowed war with the U.S. reaches their doorstep. Japan currently has rule over the island and they spread farfetched rumors of torture and killing. When Tomiko's father leaves home one day to visit the nearby town to help with recent bombings, he never returns. Upon hearing of fighting in the area they abandon their home and embark on a nightmarish quest. While hiding in caves amidst machine gun attacks, incendiary blitzes, and Japanese mass suicides and executions, she is split form her family. The betrayal of her home military, the losing of a second family, and the unfortold knowing that she may never see her family again add up in this compelling, emotional adventure. You'll feel heartbreaks, laughs of joy, and bitter hatred through out this novel. It's one book worth reading in a lifetime. Shane lakes

A Good Children's Book

I moved to Okinawa in 1991 when my parents were both stationed at Kadena Air Force Base. I was eight years old at the time and not long after arriving, I happened to check this book out of the school library. To assume that children cannot understand or appriciate the meaning of war and the hardships that it entails is insulting to their intellegence. I loved this book, and I treasure the signed copy I got in 1993 when Higa-san held a signing at Camp Lester. Like "Sadako and The Thousand Paper Cranes" this book, narrated by a child, makes the popularly forgotten Pacific Campaign of WWII assessable to children who will then become socially responsible adults. It does not do to shelter children from the injustice of the world. The book is only mildly graphic, the narrative is heart breaking, and it deserves a place in school libraries right next to Sadako, "Number the Stars" and "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl"

Oh How Lovely

This is the only book that I have read cover to cover literally ten times. I have the book basically memorized. I first read it several year ago in my middle school years. Once I started reading I could not put it down! I will always have a copy of it in my house hold and it is in my top three books list. This a story about a young girl about six years of age whom is amidst WWll in Japan. When her father leaves to go fight in the war the young lady along with her fellow sisters and brother to find safety. Along the way she some how get seperated from her family and is left alone for months dodging bullets, bombs and surviving by finding abandoned gardens and eating out of dead soldiers knapsacks. Her adventure takes her from running from a crazy soldier to a hole in the ground where she finds an old couple who take care of her until the young girl is forced to march around a warfront in the brightnees of day in front of American soldiers marching with a white flag in her hand. No written report could possibly do this book it's justice. You have to read and live the tale yourself.

A Gripping Tale of Survival

How a young girl of 7 years can survive on her own on the battlefields of war-torn Okinawa, 1945, is absolutely astonishing. As a history teacher in Okinawa, Japan, I have run accross a wide array of materials concerning the Battle of Okinawa, but no other book so vividly details the human side of the struggle from the viewpoint of civilian Okinawans. This is a heart-warming story of triumph in the midst of great tragedy. I often encourage my students to place themselves in the "shoes" of those whom we are studying, to go beyond just facts and figures and identify with the real people who experienced history. Tomiko Higa takes the reader directly to the Battle of Okinawa through the eyes of a child.

How A Little Kid Survives a Big Man's War Alone

This is an incredible memoir of Mrs. Tomiko Higa's experience as a 7 year-old during the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1944. At the end of the battle, after emerging from a cave with a piece of white loincloth attached to a stick, she was photographed by an American soldier. Roughly 40 years later, she accidentally spotted the photo in a bookstore. Reluctant to come forward and identify herself at first, she finally did so after reading several false accounts about the identity of the little girl. The book is short, only 127 pages, and a fast read. It is also poignant--the prose is clean, the descriptions frank and insightful, the story inspiring. Mrs. Higa begins by telling of her life in Shuri, the ancient capital of the Ryukyu Kingdom known today as Okinawa. She progresses to the landing of the American forces at Kadena, her consequent hiding in air-raid shelters, and then her moving from cave to cave with her siblings to escape the fighting. She eventually becomes separated from them and has to survive the battle on her own. Where a child of 7 gains such strength and smarts is really beyond one's imagination and the manner in which Mrs. Higa describes her experience is what makes this book so worth reading.