Photo/Illutration Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo’s Kudan district (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Defense Ministry officials are investigating whether members of the Self-Defense Forces violated regulations concerning religious facilities by visiting war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.

Lt. Gen. Hiroki Kobayashi, vice chief of staff of the Ground Staff Office, and dozens of his subordinates in a Ground Self-Defense Force committee investigating aircraft accidents visited the Shinto shrine on Jan. 9.

A 1974 notice released in the name of the administrative vice defense minister banned military unit visits to religious institutions or the forcing of subordinates to visit a religious facility.

Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead, has often been at the center of international controversy because 14 Class-A war criminals from World War II are enshrined there.

According to officials of the Defense Ministry’s Bureau of Personnel and Education, Kobayashi, second in command at the Ground Staff Office, and his subordinates, both SDF members and administrative staff, visited Yasukuni out of uniform.

They paid for ritual offerings of “masakaki” sprigs with their own money.

The aircraft accident investigation committee’s annual schedule included a visit to Yasukuni to pray for aircraft safety at the start of the New Year.

Kobayashi worked at Defense Ministry headquarters in the Ichigaya district of Tokyo on the morning of Jan. 9. A ministry vehicle took him to the shrine, where he took a few hours off work, before returning to the ministry.

All the other committee members who visited Yasukuni also took a few hours off from work that day.

Officials of the Bureau of Personnel and Education have questioned those who took part. They all stressed that no one was forced to go to Yasukuni and that some committee staff members did not attend.

But bureau officials are looking into a possible regulation violation because the visit to the shrine had the appearance of a public one.

The officials were also looking into the appropriateness of Kobayashi and a number of other GSDF officers using ministry vehicles for the visit.

In June 2015, a number of GSDF members studying at the GSDF Chemical School visited Yasukuni as part of “spiritual education.” The members were disciplined for violating the 1974 notice.

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