Yakushima - History and Info

[gwendy85]

Hello everyone!

It's been a long time since I last posted. I'd like to know a little about Yaku Island or Yakushima. It's in the Kyushu region, I believe, and is a volcanic island (?) that's almost circular in shape. I know it's a UNESCO world heritage site, and that it's covered in pristine forests filled with the Yakusugi cedar (said to be the world's oldest trees) and a lot of animals are endemic to this island.

Now, can anyone tell me a bit of its history esp. during war time? Was it peaceful there? What's the means of living in the island? Fishing? Logging? Where there fishing villages there? Where the houses there like anywhere else in Japan?

Thanks for taking the time. I need this bit of info for a story I'm working on, since my character lives in Yakushima...

[Davey]

There is a small article on Wiki

some Experience Through the Eyes of a Traveler

Yakushima Island is a mountainous island. Miyanouradake (1,935 meters) in the central part is the highest peak in Kyushu. Forestry makes up a major portion of the economy. However, 80 percent of the forests became assets of the Japanese national government at the beginning of the Meiji period (1868– 1912). The Japanese cedar (Yakusugi) tree grows here and many of them are over one thousand years old. The variety of plants growing in any given locale on the island changes with the altitude and ranges from species indigenous to subtropical zones to those of cold temperature zones. Agricultural products are sugarcane, sweet potatoes, and Ponkan oranges (Citrus reticulata). One-third of the island forms the principal part of the Kirishima-Yaku National Park, which contains twenty-three volcanic peaks. In 1993 Yakushima became the first place in Japan to be designated as a World Heritage Site, and 196,500 tourists visit annually.

link

Pictures

This is what I found, hope you can get some more information with this.

[Hiroyuki Nagashima]

About wartime of Yakushima.
http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:...&ct=clnk&cd=14
An air raid in Yakushima
March 18, 1945:A U.S. military plane,
Central in the prefecture mainland and army and navy airport
The first air raid.
April 15, 1945:A U.S. military plane,Yakushima iisou A great air raid
April 24, 1945:
May 18, 1945:
A dead person by an air raid
2,329 people

http://ygublog.jugem.jp/

(Automatic translation)

In old days,
A suicide attack plane seems to have made an emergency landing in harumaki of Yakushima.
The old man looked.
I "remember that I heard a sound to creak of a fighter from far-off one".
Indeed, a fighter was out of condition and seemed to fall with a van, a van.
A pilot is going to still land somehow and,
The fighter was going to land at a field, but was not able to land,
A fighter was caught on a pine and fell in a clump of bamboo.
Therefore I save a pilot immediately,
We treated a pilot immediately.
I treated a pilot for around 1 month,
And I left Yakushima and returned to the mainland when to some extent a pilot recovered
A pilot left Yakushima and returned to the mainland
The old man told it.
And the old man continued a story.
From it,
About 1 week later
Perhaps I think that it is pilot of the fighter which it helped,
The fighter turned in the sky of our village three times slowly.
The fighter shook it in right and left.
I remember that he flew at a fleet of an enemy.
It is the last.
I never meet him.
That scene is not forgot.
As for those those days, the Yakushima offing have a hostile craft corps,
Because I saw it a fighter of an enemy went to the mainland as for me from there, and having flown,
I understood that he went there.
The old man told it to me.

[gwendy85]

Thank you so much! I needed that!
BTW, are there villages in Yakushima, like fishing villages? The only one I know of is Kosugidani and it's a logger's paradise...at least, in the past...

[craftsman]

Hi,
I live in a fishing village on Yakushima - so yes I can tell you that there are many.
Take a look at http://yakushima.50webs.com/. I threw together a load of English sites on Yakushima - some of them may be useful.
A neighbour once told me about the crash of an American bomber on Kuroimi-dake mountain during the war. There is often thick cloud around the peaks and obviously the pilot was not familiar with the area. All the occupants were killed but the nearest mountain cabin is supposed to be haunted by the spirits of these men.