A large part of the U.S. military's Yomitan Auxiliary Airfield in the heart of the village of Yomitan -- the site of a 1945 landing by U.S. forces that cost some 4,000 villagers their lives -- will be returned to local control next month..

The transfer comes after a long struggle by local residents to regain what they consider to be rightfully theirs.

Former Yomitan Mayor Tokushin Yamauchi, 71, still remembers his father telling him in March 1945: "At this rate, our whole family will be destroyed. Let's split up to survive."

The 11 members of his family divided into two groups, and Yamauchi, who was 10 at the time, evacuated to the northern part of the main island of Okinawa with his mother and brothers.

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