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

The Maritime Self-Defense Force has confirmed that a group of its personnel visited a war memorial museum that belongs to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo as part of their training program in May.

The Maritime Staff Office told The Asahi Shimbun that officer candidates from the MSDF’s Training Squadron visited Yushukan Museum within the shrine's compound on May 10.

The visit was part of their near-shore training cruise involving approximately 200 personnel. The MSDF has yet to provide a specific number of trainees who entered the museum.

Similarly, the maritime force has not confirmed whether the trainees visited the Shinto shrine's main hall for worship purposes.

During the annual training voyage, the vessel regularly makes stops in Yokosuka and Tokyo, according to the MSDF. While there, trainees visit historical sites in the capital's Kudanshita district as part of their educational program. 

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

Yushukan Museum presents a highly positive view of Japan’s involvement in the Pacific War.

The museum refers to the war as the "Great East Asia War" and glorifies kamikaze pilots as embodying the nation's "ancient belief of the imperishability of the soul and the Bushido spirit during a time of national crisis."

The recent revelation is the latest in a series of developments highlighting growing ties between the SDF and the shrine.

In May last year, the MSDF confirmed that a large number of Training Squadron members visited Yasukuni Shrine during a break from a similar training session involving 165 personnel in the Kudanshita area.

This year, a group of senior Ground Self-Defense Force officials visited Yasukuni in January. In April, the shrine appointed a former MSDF commander as its chief priest.

Current SDF members hold a variety of views on the shrine.

A GSDF member believes that it is important to honor the spirits of the fallen, regardless of their affiliation with the former military.

An Air Self-Defense Force member, who is not willing to visit the shrine personally, attributes group visits to peer pressure within the SDF.

"The SDF should distance itself from Yasukuni Shrine in light of the principle of separation of religion and state enshrined in the postwar Constitution," said Haruo Tomatsu, a professor of political and diplomatic history at the National Defense Academy.

He emphasized the importance of providing self-defense personnel with education on modern history and the Constitution.

(This article was written by staff writer Nen Satomi and Naotaka Fujita, a senior staff writer.)

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