The Himeyuri students sometimes called “Lily Corps” in English, was a group of female high school students and teachers formed into a nursing unit for the Imperial Japanese Army during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. 222 students and 18 teachers of the former Okinawa Daiichi Women’s High School and Okinawa Shihan Women’s School were mobilized by the Japanese army on March 23, 1945. Many of the Himeyuri students thought that the Japanese army would defeat the Americans in a matter of days, and accordingly brought various school supplies to study and get ready to get right back into the classroom.