Japan is marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa - one of the bloodiest episodes in the Pacific during World War Two.
Thousands of visitors gathered at a monument to the fallen in the southern city of Itoman to pray and lay flowers.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was also attending the ceremony.
About 80,000 Japanese soldiers died and more than 100,000 Okinawans were killed or committed suicide during the 82-day battle with Allied forces.
More than 12,000 US troops also died on the island, about 340 miles (550 km) south-west from mainland Japan.
The strategic island was seen by the Allies as a launchpad for an invasion of Japan.
The assault never came as Tokyo surrendered following the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
Okinawa remained occupied by the US military until 1972, when Tokyo regained control of the island.
However, Japan's southern-most prefecture is still home to about 26,000 US troops and several bases.
A controversial project to move a US air base from an urban area to the coast has recently triggered a stand-off between the central authorities in Tokyo and Okinawa's officials.
The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo says there is still considerable bitterness about how the island's population was sacrificed during World War II.
He says many Okinawans accuse Tokyo and Washington of continuing to treat the island like an imperial possession, ignoring the wishes of the islanders to have US military bases removed.
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