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Social political aspects of Japanese commemoration tours and recovery

of remains

Dr. Kaori Maekawa

Institute of Asian Cultures, Sophia University (Area Studies, Indonesia, Southeast Asia)

Introduction

Before giving today’s talk about the present commemoration tours to West Papua New Guinea

by Japanese, I will give a brief background on how families received the news about the loss of

their family members in West Papua New Guinea. Generally speaking, a local official visits the

family and hands over a wooden box covered with a white cloth which supposedly has bones of

the lost family member. Usually people found it was empty. What they found was a small piece

of paper confirming the approximate date of death and location or area of the person’s death.

There is an old Japanese song, “Java is heaven, Burma is hell, but it is even worse in New

Guinea since your dead body will not be recovered to be send home”

『ジャワは極楽、ビルマは地獄、死んでも還れぬ ニューギニア』

In most cases, the families of the deceased still don’t have further information about their lost

family. Families join Nippon Izokukai (Japans Bereaved Families Association) to commemorate

and praise the honor of their war dead, to support themselves, for better welfare of the family.

They also join veteran’s organizations to look for information about their lost family.

It is important to keep in mind that more than 1.13 million out of 2.4 million people who died

during the Pacific war outside of Japan are not yet recovered until today. In the case of Western

New Guinea about 53,000 Japanese were dead by the end of the war, we can estimate that

about half of them have not yet been recovered.

The Commemoration of Military War Dead in Modern Japan

Yasukuni does not have keep bones of war dead. The Holy mirror and holy sword are the

worship of Yasukuni shrine. Military war dead are considered to be military gods and have to

be enshrined at Yasukuni shrine as a “nation’s hero” according to the Meiji government policy

(since 1868). So, Yasukuni shrine creates holy name strips of the military war dead and

prepares worship for them (Chart 1).

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Chart 1. Number of War Dead enshrined to Yasukuni Shrine

Name of war (year) Number of military war dead added to

Yasukuni shrine

Satsuma Rebellion (1877) 6.971

Taiwan Expedition (1874) 1.130

Sino-Japan War (1894-1895) 13.619

The Boxer Rebellion (1900) 1.256

Russo-Japan War (1904-1905) 88.428

First World War (1914-1918) 4.850

Jinan Incident (1928) 185

Manchurian Incident (1931) 17.174

Second Sino-Japan War (1937-1945) 191.074

Pacific War (1941-1945) 2.132.699

Total

Keiichiro Kobori, Yasukuni Jinja to Nihon jin (Yasukuni shrine and Japanese) (Tokyo: PHP

Shinsho, 1998), pp.95-96.

[千鳥ヶ淵戦没者墓苑 Chidorigafuchi Senbotsusha Boen.]

The Monument and Cemetery for the Unknown soldier Chirdorigafuchi was founded in 1959 by

politicians, the Ministry of Welfare and private organization such as Nippon Izokukai (Japan

Bereaved Families Association). This National Monument and Cemetery for the Unknown

soldier holds 360,000 unidentified remains out of 1.27 million recovered remains.

Chidorigafuchi cemetery is a non-religious, semi-governmental institution to honor and

commemorate the unknown soldier from WWII.

Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery for Unknown Soldiers

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Although it is considered to be a “cemetery”, legally speaking the institution is a “storage” or

“depot” for ashes run by a committee under control of the Ministry of Environment, which is in

charge of the park and use of public space.

Long before the establishment of Chidorugafuchi unknown soldiers cemetery, Yasukuni was

the sole pre-war militaristic symbol to honor and praise of the soldiers died in their service.

Yasukuni shrine takes revisionist point of

view that denies the fact of aggression

East and Southeast Asia and justified its

reasons.

In addition, Yasukuni shrine supports the

idea to recover the honor of “A-class war

criminal” in denying the legal legitimacy

of the Far Eastern Tribunal. Lacking the

formal and common commemorative

installation of the war dead including

Japanese civilians and military and more victims in Asian countries, Yasukuni remains to be sole

common place to commemorate the war dead until now.

The foreign policy of Japanese government attitude to admit the aggression in the past war

creates much complex situation at the domestic politics. The government gives close support

to the Nippon Izokukai (Japan Bereaved Families Association) which shares closest view with

Yasukuni states. Although the association members carry simple family sentiment to

commemorate their lost family, the extreme statement also exists among members that A-class

war criminal is sacrifice and victim of international politics created by the Allied countries.

When the official exhumation ceased in 1970’s, it was coincidentally same period that Yasukuni

received official nominal roll from the government in 1970 and secretly enshrined A-class war

criminals as military god in 1978. This created far more complex sentiments among Japanese

that Yasukuni equally deals military soldiers who died in hunger and the war criminals who sent

them to the battlefield. Being disappointed with the shrine’s decision, Emperor Hirohito

stopped visit to Yasukuni shrine since 1976.

Post war recovery of remain program and Yasukuni issues

As noted in the previous chapter, more than 1 million war dead still remain outside Japan. It is

an obligation for modern nation states to recover the remains of soldiers who died during

service. However, the exhumation and commemoration of the war dead came to be closely

connected to Japan’s internal politics about issues connected to Yasukuni that contradict

foreign policy to neighboring countries. Although families of the lost soldiers wish strong

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support by the government, the basic public sentiment was neglected over and over again

since 1970’s until the first decade of the 21st century.

The Japanese government came into action after the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952. The

Ministry of Welfare started the first recovery in 1952 and continued until 1958. The first

program collected approximately 11,000 remains. The second program started in 1967 and

collected about 115,000 remains. The third program, which started 1973, was the last of the

governmental operations and collected 99,000 remains. It was ended in 1975.

(Chart 2).

Chart 2. The number of recovered remains of Japanese outside Japan

Approximate numbers of deceased Japanese outside

Japan

2,400,000

Number of recovered body 1,270,000

Number of the body still missing 1,130,000

Number of the missing at sea 300,000

Number of the remains which are recovered but waiting

for the clearance of arrangements at the local countries

230,000

Estimate of the remains which would return to Japan in

the future

610,000

(Ministry of Welfare and Labor 31 March 2011

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/engo/seido01/index.html#ikotsu

The Ministry of Welfare switched program after 1975 to form special task forces once they get

substantial and reliable information about the location and number of remains.

Marginalized exhumation programs in ambivalence

The Governments decision to discontinue the exhumation program was received in large

frustration among families concerned. But this did not attract much attention in public. The

task to recover soldiers’ remains transferred to private persons, however without

governmental, financial support.

The governments ambivalent attitude to forsake strong leadership for the exhumation

frustrated the families. As second and third generations anticipated to look for information on

their missing grand-fathers and relatives the governments foreign policy towards China and

other victims

Families organized themselves into organizations to take over the governmental task. Part of

these private initiatives were inspired by

Interestingly, families and veterans commemoration trips became more common since then. In

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1975 the Indonesian government officially requested foreigners to stop excavating remains of

Japanese soldiers. There had been 4 exhumation projects in West Papua from 1956 to 1974.

After 1975 the Japanese government switched to build monuments at various locations rather

than exhumations. Families and veterans formed commemorating groups on a major scale to

visit these sites and hold religious ceremonies every year.

Tours shifted to Papua New Guinea and Burma and these private tours continued the task to

recover the remains of the soldiers (Chart 3). From mid 1970’s to the end of the century,

private organizations such as veterans’ reunion groups and volunteer students continued the

exhumations on a minor scale.

Chart 3. Numbers of bones(remains) to place at Chidorigafuchi cemetery (31 May 1999）

Area/ year 1959 1965

-1974

1975

-1978

1979

-1982

1983

-1996

1987

-1988

1989

-1990

1991

Northern islands 878 4 0 4 0 - - -

Japan

Mainland(Okinawa

, Iwo jima)

1860 5483 490 751 899 718 424 146

(former)

Manchuria

37024 425 0 145 - - - -

China and Taiwan 35064 2930 412 378 - - - -

Korea 51 427 378 - - - - -

Philippines 4313 43557 35732 3689 1187 2165 1182 167

Malaysia, Vietnam,

Indonesia

4598 1328 2365 14 20 20 - -

Burma, Thailand,

India

1277 95 34053 157 300 42 5 4

Central Pacific,

New Guinea,

Solomon, Bismarck

2016 68209 22033 7663 5846 1621 964 402

(former)

Soviet Union

20 17 - - - - - 27

Area/ year (cont-) 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Northern islands - - - - - - - -

Japan

Mainland(Okinawa,

341 54

64 40 16 26 10 51

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Iwo jima)

(former)

Manchuria

- - - - - - - -

China and Taiwan - - - - - - - -

Korea - - - - - - - -

Philippines 153, 306 496 36 178 64 630 18

Malaysia, Vietnam,

Indonesia

- - - - - - - -

Burma, Thailand,

India

13 0 0 14 5 0 24 22

Central Pacific,

New Guinea,

Solomon, Bismarck

358 90 506 437 551 399 133 77

(former) Soviet

Union

26 0 32 853 1204 1929 1426 1631

Newsletter Chidorigafuchi, 1 July 1999

Commemorating comrades and visiting the battle fields were key issues to maintain veterans’

reunions. They published newsletters and journals to ask for donations from private persons

and companies to charter airplanes to Rae, Kevien, Rabaul, Sepik & Biak islands, Noemfor

islands and Hollandia.

They also collected Japanese automobiles, motorbikes, bicycles and souvenirs as well as

giftmoney for the local people and villages who maintain the monuments and who also search

for the remains. In general, Japanese veterans and families donate money at various locations

as a kind of war compensation on a private level to the local society. The bilateral peace treaty

has almost no impact on the local villages. Excavating bones of Japanese soldiers promised

rewards for next year’s foreign money, this quickly developed into new business at the local

economy.

However, the financial burden for the private people was so huge that many veterans and

families became frustrated with the government’s lack of support and sincere compassion for

these activities. These tourists requested aid for a number of times to the ministry and

politicians. They collected reliable information from local people about soldiers’ remains. The

government and local Japan Embassies, in most cases, did not take quick action to open

negotiations with the local government to accommodate the remains.

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The accusation against the government’s negligence of taking action about these matters

became serious when revisionist historians became influential in the late 1980’s and early

1990’s. The arguments quickly became a part of patriotic discourse that “every one of the

post-war Japanese must respect the “nation’s heroes” who died and were left behind in jungles

of the lost war”. Although it was, sometimes cynically, accepted by the families who lost family

members in the war, the arguments appealed to many younger generations.

Kutei Tai” Non-profit organization activities in Philippines in 2009.

Blog by Ken Noguchi at http://blog.livedoor.jp/fuji8776/archives/2009-08.html

Concluding remarks

Since the late 1990’s, long standing and newly founded exhumation groups registered as NGO’s

and became active with relatively younger generations with support from the Ministry of

Welfare and Nippon Izokukai, etc.

The Japanese Government during this period was fully dependent on the private NGO’s and

private networks on operation level. It was August 1999 when finally the government offered

financial and official support to create a special task force made up from members from each

NGO. However the competition between each group to receive official funding for the

operation weakened the focus of the broad network until now.

Finally, after 2000, the government created an official program for exhumation and appointed

several NGOs to perform assignments of these tasks in each region (Chart 4). At the same time,

for example the Papua New Guinea government officially prohibited exhumation of Japanese

soldiers by private cooperations and individuals. In the case of Indonesia, the government

opened negotiations in 2010 to create a mutual agreement with the Japanese government

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concerning the recovery of remains of Japanese soldiers.

Chart 4. Recently recovered remains of Japanese soldiers (2006-2010)

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Total

Papua New

Guinea

5 94 114 415 214 842

Bismarck

islands

0 1 2 8 2 13

Solomon

islands

66 118 144 94 163 585

West Papua 35 115 108 291 216 765

Indonesia (ex.

West Papua)

0 0 0 10 0 10

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/engo/seido01/index.html#ikotsu

Rabaul 30 September 1979 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/engo/seido01/ireihi04.html

Wewak 16 September 1981 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/engo/seido01/ireihi06.html

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Biak island 24 March 1996 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/engo/seido01/ireihi11.html

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Biak Island 1956

Madang 12 September 1983