Atami final resting place for Tojo, 6 others

ATAMI, Shizuoka Prefecture--U.S. Occupation forces didn't allow relatives of wartime leader Hideki Tojo and six other Class-A war criminals hanged at Tokyo's Sugamo Prison in 1948 to collect the bodies.

Instead, they arranged for the bodies to be cremated in Yokohama on Dec. 23, the day they were executed.

Afterward, the U.S. military took possession of the ashes, fearing that formal interment would offer nationalists an opportunity to exploit the site to worship martyrs.

Supposedly, the Americans dumped the remains over Tokyo Bay or in the Pacific Ocean. To all intents and purposes, no physical trace of the men remained.

It turns out that residual scrapings--enough to fill a single urn--were later collected at the crematorium and handed over to Koa Kannon temple here.

For decades, few people other than kin of the seven men visited the temple. But in recent years, a younger crowd has shown interest.

The temple erected a monument to the seven war criminals, who are:

・Tojo, the Imperial Japanese Army general and wartime prime minister who declared war on the United States;

・Seishiro Itagaki, a general who engineered the 1931 Manchurian Incident that escalated Japan's military aggression in China;

・Kenji Doihara, a general who masterminded the creation of Manchukuo;

・Iwane Matsui, a general who oversaw the 1937 Rape of Nanking;

・Heitaro Kimura, a general who commanded Japanese troops on the Burma front;

・Akira Muto, a lieutenant general who pushed for the escalation of war in China and hostilities against the United States; and

・Koki Hirota, a diplomat and prime minister who signed the Japan-German anti-Communist pact in 1936.

They were among 28 Class-A war criminals tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo from 1946 to 1948.

The temple's statue of Koa Kannon, a goddess of mercy, was dedicated to both Japanese and Chinese killed in the Rape of Nanking. Matsui, who took charge of the onslaught, ordered it erected three years after the massacre.

The 3-meter-tall statue is said to have been made with soil from Nanking, now called Nanjing. The temple is about a 20-minute walk up a steep mountain trail.

Close to the Koa Kannon statue is a stone monument engraved with the following words: "Marker dedicated to seven leaders." The calligraphy was penned by prominent postwar Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida (1878-1967).

Myojo Itami, a 56-year-old Buddhist priest who performed a memorial service at the temple on Aug. 15, the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II, said the site had long been below the public's tourist radar.

"For many years, only a limited number of people have known that remains of the seven people were buried here," she said.

Three days after the bodies were cremated, the head of the crematorium secretly scooped up leftover ashes with Shohei Sanmoji, who represented Kuniaki Koiso, a former prime minister and Class-A war criminal who received a life sentence.

In 1949, the ashes were entrusted to Itami's father, Ninrei Itami, who kept them secret for 10 years. He then buried them at Koa Kannon temple, erecting the stone monument for the seven wartime leaders.

Myojo stressed the neutrality of the memorial service.

"There are no such words as 'war criminals' here," she said. "There is no right or left. This is a venue for giving prayers to ponder peace."

Some people call the temple "Another Yasukuni," in reference to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo which commemorates the nation's war dead as well as 14 Class-A war criminals, including the seven.

Just as with Yasukuni, the stone monument has not escaped criticism. Three left-leaning extremists tried to blow it up in 1971, damaging it.

Over the decades, few people have visited outside of family members of those executed. But that has changed in recent years because the temple is featured in many websites. Now, a younger crowd visits as well.

On a weekday in July, two students from Tokyo made offerings of incense. They learned of the temple from a comic book by Yoshinori Kobayashi, a manga cartoonist who champions nationalist views.

One of the students, a 26-year-old male, spoke favorably of the monument.

"Neither the Americans nor the Chinese have a mind-set that goes so far as to console the spirit of the enemy," he said. "This is a facility of which Japanese can be proud."

A group supporting the temple's activities revived summer last year after a long hiatus. Many of the members were born after the war.

A 44-year-old man who works in the insurance industry in Atami is a member. He said he does not regard the executed war criminals in a negative way.

"I don't think the seven leaders are criminals," he said. "They accepted their responsibilities because they happened to hold those positions."

But relatives of the seven men have mixed views about the attention now being shown.

"Young people taking an interest (in the lives of the seven men) is in itself not bad," said Masaaki Honda, 49, who is a great-grandson of Tojo's younger sister.

"But it is a far cry from the agonizing path that bereaved family members followed in postwar years," he said.

Honda said his mother told him about the family's blood ties to Tojo when he was an elementary school pupil. "You should never tell that to anybody," his mother warned him.

Honda said that when he was young, he avidly read books on atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in China.

He said he thought the Tokyo Trial was one-sided.

"I also disagree with the stereotype that only Class-A war criminals were villains," he said. "It is not true, however, that Japanese are merely victims of the war, either."

Tadashi Itagaki, an 85-year-old son of Seishiro Itagaki and a former member of the Upper House, said that unlike Yasukuni Shrine, the temple was unlikely to ever draw large crowds.

"Despite its claim to mourn for the war dead, whether they are friend or foe, Chinese are less likely to accept it," Itagaki said. "It is not a facility that average Japanese today will accept, either."

However, he said he held out hope that one day people would flock to the monument out of a sincere wish to mourn the war dead.

But he also expressed misgivings about the growing spotlight on the monument, noting the continuing controversy over Yasukuni Shrine for memorializing Class-A war criminals along with the war dead.

In recent years, visits by Japanese politicians to the shrine have generated animosity toward Japan by China and South Korea.

"If visiting the monument becomes a futile, political issue like the one regarding Yasukuni Shrine, I would rather see it as it is now," he added.(IHT/Asahi: September 15,2009)