ABSTRACT
After the Asia-Pacific War ended in 1945, Japan had to look for new ways to commemorate the war dead and console the bereaved families of approximately 3.1 million civilians and military personnel who died as a result of the conflict. The wartime system of war commemoration in Shinto shrines was highly discredited and took a hard hit when the Allied Occupation of Japan banned what they called ‘State Shinto’. Since the 1950s, the government therefore explored new ways and, in 1956, proposed to build a Tomb for the Unknown Soldier, following European examples where this type of war memorial was invented to deal with the mass dying during First World War. As a result of these discussions, in 1959, Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery was inaugurated in Tokyo. This chapter examines the history of Chidorigafuchi and the failure of Japanese politics to come to terms with the legacies of Japan’s wartime past by establishing an uncontroversial site to commemorate the war dead and address the trauma of mass dying during Second World War.
