|
|
|
|
Photo of Pilot in
Army Special Attack Forces [1]
|
|
|
Museums
Several Japanese museums have exhibits to honor members of
special attack forces, who carried out suicide attacks against Allied forces
near the end of World War II. These exhibits portray the soldiers as brave young
men who voluntarily sacrificed their lives to defend their country and families.
Their letters and photos cause many museum visitors to weep as they reflect on
the young soldiers' lost lives and consider how they felt before their missions
of death.
Most museums with exhibits on special attack forces are
located at sites of former navy or army bases. Almost all of these locations
also have special attack force memorials constructed prior to the opening of the
museum exhibits. Except for the Yasukuni Jinja Yushukan in Tokyo, the museums
present a separate history of either the navy or the army special attack forces.
Most museums also honor fallen soldiers who were not members of special attack
forces.
Most people associate Japan's suicide attacks in World War
II with kamikaze plane pilots, but the special attack forces also included
kaiten (manned torpedoes), midget submarines, explosive motorboats, fukuryu
(suicide frogmen), and others. Only the Yasukuni Jinja Yushukan in Tokyo has
exhibits to cover all the special attack forces. The Kaiten Memorial Museum on
Otsushima Island covers the history of the kaiten, and all the other museums
have displays on kamikaze pilots. The Etajima Museum of Naval History also
honors special attack force members who perished in midget submarine and kaiten
attacks.
Private citizens, mostly war veterans and bereaved family
members, took the lead in founding the majority of museums with exhibits related
to special attack forces. Japan's Self-Defense Force still uses the former
Imperial Navy bases in Etajima, Kanoya, and Tsuchiura [2], and it operates the
history museums at these locations. As a result, these museums cover Japan's
entire naval history, with only part of the exhibits related to special attack
forces. As part of Japan's demilitarization during the American occupation after
the war, existing military museums such as those at Yasukuni Jinja and Etajima
were closed [3]. The Etajima Museum reopened in 1960
[3] and included exhibits
of letters and photos of members of naval special attack forces who died during
the war. Several other museums with special attack force exhibits opened over
the next 15 years: Yasukuni Jinja Yushukan (1961) [3], Kaiten Memorial Museum
(1968), Yokaren Museum in Tsuchiura (1968), Kanoya Naval Air Base Museum (1972),
and Chiran Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots (1975).
|
|
Letter of Kaiten Pilot in
Navy Special Attack Forces [4]
|
|
|
|
Photos and letters form the foundation of each museum's
exhibits related to special attack forces. Museums display photos of individual
pilots, groups such as kamikaze units and training classes, and places such as
former air bases. Except for Etajima Museum, the photos of individual pilots
are exhibited in rows together with each pilot's basic biographical information,
such as name, unit, date of death, age at death, and home prefecture. See the
top of this page for a typical photo of an individual pilot.
Letters written by the kamikaze pilots have the strongest
emotional impact on museum visitors. All museums with special attack force
exhibits display numerous letters, poems, diary entries, and other miscellaneous
writings. Most were written on the eve of the final flight or soon before, but
others were written sometime after a pilot had entered a kamikaze unit but not
yet knowing his final sortie date. It is difficult to generalize on the contents
of the hundreds of letters on display at museums around Japan, but many pilots
convey thanks to their parents for everything they have done and express the
honor of the opportunity to make an attack to defend their country. Some pilots
may have been inhibited in writing down their true feelings since the letters
would be subject to military censorship. Also, the letters would be the final
remembrance the pilots' families would have of them, so they most likely wanted
to write something to make their families proud and happy rather than burdening
them with any feelings of doubt or fear.
Several museums display restored planes or other weapons
used in suicide attacks. Yasukuni Jinja Yushukan, Kanoya Naval Air Base Museum,
and Yamato Museum each
display a restored Zero fighter, the plane type used for many kamikaze
attacks. The Yushukan also has a kaiten (manned torpedo), ohka (piloted
rocket-assisted glider bomb), and a Suisei dive bomber (Judy). Most
museums also have many models of planes and other weapons with the most
impressive being Yamato Museum's 1/10-scale model of the battleship Yamato,
which was sunk by American aircraft during a special attack mission toward
Okinawa in April 1945. Museums
with special attack exhibits display a wide variety of other artifacts, such as
military uniforms, medals, hachimaki (headbands), model planes,
paintings, and senninbari (thousand-stitch belts worn for good luck).
Three museums with special attack force exhibits (Chiran,
Kaseda, and Tachiarai) include in their names the term "peace museum,"
something many people do not associate with kamikaze attacks. For example, the
brochure for the Chiran Peace Museum explains the museum's purpose is "to
commemorate the pilots and expose the tragic loss of their lives so that we may
understand the need for everlasting peace and ensure such incidents are never
repeated." Although these
three museums have a stated goal to promote peace, the types of historical
artifacts displayed at the peace museums do not differ from the museums that do
no not identify themselves as peace museums. In any Japanese museum that
displays letters and photos of the young men who perished in suicide attacks,
visitors can reflect on war's tragic consequences and most will leave the museum
with the conviction that such a terrible war must never be allowed to happen
again. Whereas most of the museums concentrate on the tragic aspects of war, the
museums at Etajima, Yasukuni Jinja, and Kanoya have several displays to
commemorate Japan's military successes in battles prior to World War II. The
Kanoya Naval Air Base Museum also has many exhibits related to the history of
the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) after the war. A secondary
purpose of these exhibits seems to be the encouragement of young people to
choose a career with the JMSDF.
|
|
|
|
|
Type 3 Hien Fighter Used in Kamikaze Attacks
(Chiran Peace Museum)
|
|
|
The primary goal of the exhibits on special attack forces
is to memorialize the pilots who sacrificed their lives to defend their country,
so the museums do not present controversial or negative aspects of Japan's
history of suicide attacks. The only negative items found in any museum are two
wooden bats used in the military by leaders and instructors to inflict physical
punishment on subordinates. The small private Yokaren Museum in Oita City
displays these bats but does not provide details on their use during the war.
The Yasukuni Jinja Yushukan actively tries to convince visitors of the
nationalist perspective of Japan's war history for which Japan has no reason to
apologize, whereas the other museums generally remain silent on responsibility
for the war other than brief explanations, such as western nations cutting off
imports of oil and other natural resources to Japan prior to December 1941.
Japanese museums with special attack force exhibits have
very few displays in English and limited information on the Internet. The Chiran
Peace Museum has a 22-page English booklet explaining the exhibits, and the
Kaiten Memorial Museum has a high-quality 30-minute film in English on the
history of manned torpedoes. However, both museums have no exhibits translated
to English. Only the Yasukuni Jinja Yushukan has extensive English translations
of exhibits, but even there many letters and other items related to the special
attack forces remain without translations. The Yasukuni Jinja Yushukan, Yamato
Museum, Chiran Peace Museum,
and Kanoya Naval Air Base Museum have created well-designed web sites to provide overviews of
museum exhibits, but they have few details related to special attack forces. The
Yokaren Museum in Oita City has created a web site with Yokaren (Japanese Naval
Flight Training Program) history, photos of museum exhibits, last letters of
kamikaze pilots, comments from museum visitors, and essays on wartime
experiences. The other museums have limited or no information on the Internet.
This web site on Kamikaze Images examines 12 museums with
substantial exhibits related to special attack forces. Each museum has a
separate web page that includes the following information:
- purpose
and overview of museum
- reason
for location
- museum
history
- exhibits related to special attack forces
- layout and organization
- historical significance
- user friendliness
- notable displays
- portrayals and images of
soldiers who perished
- perspective on historical
events
- films and other audiovisual
materials
- facilities
(access, cost, number of visitors)
- material
available in English
- books
and other items available for purchase
- Internet
information
The significance and influence of the 12 museums differ
greatly. Whereas the Yamato Museum, Chiran Peace
Museum, and Yasukuni Jinja Yushukan receive several hundred thousand visitors
each year [5] [6], most museums with exhibits on special attack forces have very
few visitors. However, even small museums can have a very strong effect on a
small segment of the population, such as relatives and friends of the soldiers
memorialized at these museums. The following list ranks the museums based on
their influence on people's perceptions of special attack forces. The following
factors were used to develop the ranking: number of visitors, books about museum
and its exhibits, mention in mass media, historical importance of museum's
location, references in books, appearance in films, international influence, and
museum web site.
- Chiran Peace Museum for
Kamikaze Pilots
- Yasukuni Jinja Yushukan
- Yamato Museum
- Kanoya Naval Air Base Museum
- Etajima Museum of Naval History
- Hotaru Museum
- Kaiten Memorial Museum
- Bansei Tokko Peace Museum
- Yokaren Museum - Tsuchiura
- Yokaren Museum - Oita
- Tachiarai Peace Museum
- Kokubu No. 2 Air Base Exhibit
No U.S. museum covers the history of Japan's kamikaze operations, but the Intrepid
Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City has some exhibits related to
the five kamikaze attacks experienced by the aircraft carrier Intrepid.
Notes
1. Photo of Toshio Sakai displayed at the Bansei
Tokko Peace Museum.
2. The address of the Ordnance School of the Japanese Ground
Self-Defense Force, where the Yokaren Museum is located, is in Ami Town, which
is next to Tsuchiura City.
3. Murakami 2000.
4. Letter written by Fumio Kobayashi displayed at the Kaiten
Memorial Museum.
5. Murakami (2000, Figure 1) indicates that Chiran Peace
Museum attendance from 1990 to 1997 was over 500 thousand annually.
6. Murphy (2002) indicates Yushukan attendance is one
thousand per day.
Sources Cited
Murakami, Toshifumi. 2000. The Role of Peace Museums
in the Construction of a Culture of Peace. Paper from 18th General IPRA
(International Peace Research Association Conference) held August 2000 in
Tampere, Finland.
<http://kyoiku.kyokyo-u.ac.jp/gakka/murakami/peacemuseum.htm>
(July 15, 2004), link no longer available.
Murphy, Paul. 2002. Yasukuni Museum Tugs At
Heartstrings To Keep Military Memories Alive. Asahi Shimbun News
Service. August 25. <http://www.rense.com/general28/tudg.htm>
(February 9, 2004), link no longer available. Originally available at: <http://www.asahi.com/english/feature/K2002081500254.html>
|
