The Maritime Self-Defense Force has confirmed that a group of its personnel visited a war memorial museum belonging to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo as part of their training program in May.
The Maritime Staff Office told the Asahi Shimbun that officer candidates from the MSDF training squadron visited the Yushukan Museum on the shrine grounds on May 10.
The visit was part of their coastal training cruise, which was attended by around 200 people. The MSDF has not yet released an exact number of trainees who visited the museum.
Nor has the Navy confirmed whether the trainees visited the main hall of the Shinto shrine for prayer purposes.
During the annual training voyage, the ship makes regular stops in Yokosuka and Tokyo, according to MSDF. During their stay there, the trainees visit historical sites in the capital’s Kudanshita district as part of their training program.
This district is home to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead. It has often been the focus of international controversy because it houses the remains of 14 Class A war criminals from World War II.
The Yushukan Museum presents an extremely positive view of Japan’s involvement in the Pacific War.
The museum calls the war the “Great East Asian War” and praises the kamikaze pilots as the embodiment of the “nation’s ancient belief in the immortality of the soul and the Bushido spirit in a time of national crisis.”
The recent revelation is the latest in a series of developments highlighting growing ties between the SDF and the temple.
In May last year, the MSDF confirmed that a large number of members of the training squadron visited Yasukuni Shrine during a break from a similar training session involving 165 people in the Kudanshita area.
This year, a group of senior Self-Defense Force officials visited Yasukuni in January. In April, the shrine appointed a former MSDF commander as its head priest.
Current SDF members have different views on the shrine.
A GSDF member believes it is important to honor the souls of the fallen, regardless of their affiliation with the former military.
A member of the Air Self-Defense Force who is unwilling to visit the shrine in person attributes the group visits to peer pressure within the SDF.
“The SDF should distance itself from the Yasukuni Shrine in view of the principle of separation of religion and state enshrined in the post-war constitution,” said Haruo Tomatsu, professor of political and diplomatic history at the National Defense Academy.
He stressed the importance of educating self-defense forces about modern history and the Constitution.
(This article was written by editor Nen Satomi and Naotaka Fujita, a senior editor.)
