Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes postwar Japanese pilgrimages to battlefields of the Asia-Pacific War. It shows how practices, such as the recovery of remains and memorial services, are shaped by religious ceremonies, battlefield environments, and interactions with local residents and former enemies.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation analyzes the development of transnational pilgrimages to Asia-Pacific war sites, using examples from Southeast and South Asia, the Pacific Islands region, and with a specific focus on the sea element, in relation to connected cases in Japan. It will introduce the perspective of “War-Phase Environment Complex” in order to shed light on the islands and sea components which defined the environment of war contexts and battlefields.

Since the 1950s, Japanese religious figures, bereaved families, and soldiers started to visit sites of the Asia-Pacific war battlefields as a form of pilgrimage. While involved in the intensive collection of remains as a government project from 1953 to the early 1970s, these visitors’ activities were not limited to this government mission, as they developed various forms of pilgrimage and memorial practices. After restrictions on overseas travel for civilians were lifted in 1964, Buddhist sects and New Religions, as well as veterans associations, organized pilgrimage groups. Even before that, some Buddhist priests practiced war memorials when participating in the World Buddhist Congress or going on pilgrimage to Buddhist sites. In addition to erecting cenotaphs and holding memorial services in former battlefields, they also held religious memorialization ceremonies at sea, for example using floating papers printed with Buddha images at sites of naval battles and where ships had been sunk by torpedo attacks.

This presentation will argue that, in order to consider the postwar memorials for Japan's war dead, it is necessary not only to focus on the Yasukuni Shrine, which has attracted attention as a political battleground, but also to consider these battlefield memorials. The analysis of these memorials can shed light not only on the environmental element defining the former battlefields, but also on the interactions with local inhabitants and other pilgrims from former enemy countries.