Comprising hundreds of small islands in a chain that stretches over six hundred miles, Okinawa is the most southerly of Japan’s forty-seven prefectures.

The region is probably best (and most infamously) known for the role it played in the bloodiest conflict of the Pacific War, when almost a quarter of a million people were killed in fighting between the Allied and Japanese forces at the Battle of Okinawa.

After World War II ended, Okinawa remained under the administration of the United States until 1972, when the islands finally reverted to Japanese rule. That wasn’t to be the end of American interest in the islands, however, and more than a dozen military bases, covering almost a hundred square miles, still operate in the region.