Memorial to war dead or reminder of dark past: Tokyo shrine divides Japan

TOKYO—Eight decades ago, when Japan’s kamikaze pilots were crashing their planes into American ships and its soldiers were dying from the Aleutian Islands to Guadalcanal, all were given the same promise: Upon death, their souls would be enshrined at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine. This April, Umio Otsuka, a retired vice admiral in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force or navy, became Yasukuni Shrine’s chief priest. A fluent English speaker who also served as Japan’s ambassador to Djibouti, Otsuka has said Yasukuni represents the “soul of the peace-loving Japanese people." Yasukuni supporters say today’s Self-Defense Forces differ from Imperial Japan’s military, which occupied vast swaths of Asia, but in a way, they agree with Saito about the return to prewar values. Yamagami, the former Japanese ambassador to Australia, said the U.S. would accept the shrine’s significance given the importance of its alliance with Japan.