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

Personnel from the Maritime Self-Defense Force Training Squadron visited war-related Yasukuni Shrine in uniform as a group last May, the MSDF top official revealed on Feb. 20, the second such recent visit to draw attention.

Among those who visited was Rear Adm. Yasushige Konno, commander of the MSDF Training Squadron.

During the training session involving 165 members of the squadron, which included visits to historical sites, “many of them” visited the Shinto shrine in Tokyo, Adm. Ryo Sakai, the chief of staff of the MSDF, said at a news conference on Feb. 20.

A notice issued in the name of the administrative vice minister of defense in 1974 prohibited military unit visits to religious institutions or the compulsory participation in such visits.

However, Sakai said that the visit did not violate the notice, insisting, “We understand that the visit was not at all compulsory but was undertaken based on individual free will.”

He said that members of the training squadron were asked in advance if they wanted to visit the shrine, and a “tamagushi-ryo” cash offering was collected voluntarily from the participants and then collectively presented to Yasukuni.

Regarding whether they went to the Yushukan war memorial museum on the shrine grounds, Sakai said, “We are aware that they did not visit the museum as part of the training. We don’t know whether they went there during their free time.”

According to the MSDF, graduates of the MSDF’s Officer Candidate School are assigned to the squadron, and every year they participate in the training session including visiting Kudanzaka Park and the Nippon Budokan hall as part of their historical studies. 

During a break in the session on May 17, 2023, those who wanted to visit the shrine did so while in uniform, the MSDF said.

Their visit was reported in the Yasukuni Shrine’s newsletter issued in July 2023.

The article in the newsletter obtained by The Asahi Shimbun said, “(Junior officers and others) paid a formal visit to the shrine before setting sail,” along with a photo of many uniformed MSDF personnel visiting the shrine.

The Asahi Shimbun has sought confirmation of the visit from Yasukuni Shrine since Feb. 19 but did not receive a response by noon on Feb. 20.

Asked about the shrine’s newsletter stating that MSDF personnel “paid a formal visit,” Sakai clarified that since the visit was made “privately,” it “does not mean that they officially visited the shrine as a training squadron.”

“Individuals visited the shrine privately, based on their own free will, during a break in the training session,” Sakai said. 

He added that he doesn’t know exactly how many personnel visited there.

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

In January, Ground SDF members visited the shrine.

The Defense Ministry conducted an internal investigation following the visit by Lt. Gen. Hiroki Kobayashi, vice chief of staff of the GSDF, and other officers who belonged to the GSDF aircraft accidents investigation committee he was heading.

The ministry later determined that the visit did not violate the 1974 notice, citing that 19 did not participate, despite invitations being sent to 41 officers.

Sakai said regarding the MSDF training squadron’s visit, “We do not view it as a problem and have no plans to conduct an investigation.”

But Akira Mogi, the Defense Ministry’s spokesman, said at a news conference on Feb. 20, “We are currently verifying the details of the facts.”

Military commentator Tetsuo Maeda disputes the MSDF claims that the visit was “private” and based on individual free will.

The visit “can be said to be effectively an order from a broader perspective” as “newly commissioned officers will need a lot of courage to refuse to visit the shrine even if asked about their intentions,” Maeda said. 

(This article was written by Nen Satomi and Nobuhiko Tajima.)

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