Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 12, 1991                   TAG: 9102120463
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LEXINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

VMI RETURNING BELL SEIZED DURING WAR

The bell, cast in 1465, originally hung at the Daiseiji Buddhist temple on Okinawa. When the 6th Marine Division claimed it as a trophy of war in June 1945, the bell was mounted at the entrance to Nago Harbor, evidently as a ship-warning gong.

The late Maj. Gen. Lemuel Shepherd Jr., who commanded the division, presented the 3-foot-high bell to Virginia Military Institute, the state-supported military college he attended.

In September, Oshiro Shinjun, a member of the Japanese parliament, wrote to VMI superintendent Maj. Gen. John Knapp asking for the bell's return to Okinawa's capital of Naha.

Knapp discussed the request with Shepherd's family and agreed to the bell's return.

"The bell is a national symbol to the Okinawan people, in much the same way as the Liberty Bell is a symbol," said Col. John Ripley, commanding officer of VMI's Naval Marine Unit. "It's the only known man-made religious artifact to survive the Battle of Okinawa."

U.S. policy says war trophies in federal collections shall not be surrendered. However, VMI officials said the bell was a private gift and is not viewed as a military symbol.

"VMI has chosen to do this, independent of government feeling," Ripley said. "VMI sees this as the right thing to do."

In 1968, the bell was mounted next to VMI's library, suspended from a steel frame with a bronze plaque mounted beneath it on a slab of coral from Okinawa.

The cost of the bell's return, estimated at between $3,000 and $5,000, will be borne by the Japanese.