Yasukuni, a section of
Tokyo north of the Imperial Palace means literally "peaceful country".
The Yasukuni
Shrine is a war memorial built in 1869. It is adjacent to a museum with 2 rooms dedicated to the
kamikaze pilots in
World War II. It's a rough paralell to the United States'
Arlington Cemetery.
The first
exhibit is sponsored by the survivors of the 721st Naval Task Force, the Jinrai Butai or Divine Thunderbolt Corps. They flew the OKHA, or
Cherry Blossom gliders which were towed aloft and released within striking distance of the U.S. fleet. Each aircraft held a single
pilot, three minutes worth of propellent in the tail, and a 1,200-kilogram
bomb in the nose cone. On the wall, next to it, it said that every member of the corps was asked individually whether he would undertake a fatal mission-- 100% replied yes.
In the second room, a notice states that 6,000
young men between the ages of 17 and 30 found the courage to crash their planes into the U.S. fleet-- as they boarded, they vowed to meet again when the
cherries bloomed at Yasukuni.
On the wall, there are final
photographs taken of handsome young pilots with their families, knowing that they'll never see them again. Underneath, in
glass cases, are their final letters.
Pilot Officer Masahisa Uemura to his infant
daughter Motoko, depicted together in a
photograph, wrote to her, "
I want you to respect your mother and be like her, always honest and kind... I won't see you again in this life, so when you want to see me, you should come to the Yasukuni Shrine. If you pray hard enough, I will be there beside you, and share your happiness as my own. Never say you have no father. I will always be with you, by your side."
Uemura died on October 26, 1944 at 26.
Ensign Takamitsu Nishida, aged 22, wrote his parents,
"I attack in four hours. I shall be shining among the clouds, drifting and tumbling forever. This is my last letter. Your loving son."
There are last messages from others, including
teenage girl nurses and telephone
operators who commited suicide rather than be captured.
When I visited, it was virtually deserted, with no other tourists and a few
Japanese people.
This shrine remains a controversial issue, similar to the one in the
American South-- how to glorify the hero without endorsing the cause for which they died.
Sources: Atlantic Montly, http://www.geraldinesherman.com/WarHeroes.html, http://www.j-aircraft.com/research/quotes/kamikaze.html.