By HIRAKU HIGA/ Staff Writer
August 16, 2023 at 15:17 JST
Visitors offer flowers and pray at the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery in Tokyo on Aug. 15. (Takeshi Iwashita)
Many people visited the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery in central Tokyo to pay tribute to their family members on Aug. 15, the 78th anniversary of the end of World War II.
A 75-year-old woman traveled from Ryugasaki, Ibaraki Prefecture, to remember her uncle who died in the Philippines during the war at the age of 22. His body was never returned.
“He must have been bitterly disappointed that he died so far from home,” she said. “At least on this day, I want to console the souls of victims of the war.”
The woman, who has come to the cemetery annually for 15 years, said she will continue her pilgrimage as long as her health allows.
“I will be back one year from now,” she said before she left, bowing deeply to the hexagonal charnel house, where about 370,000 unidentified people killed in the war are buried.
Yuko Odagiri, 47, has been coming here regularly for about 20 years.
In her childhood, her grandfather often talked about his wartime experiences over alcohol when relatives gathered during the Bon holidays.
In former Manchuria in northeastern China, he drove out women and children from villages. He was holding a bayonet merely to threaten them, but once stabbed a woman in the thigh by mistake.
She said her grandfather, who died about 10 years ago, always regretted that incident.
“I want those who were killed in the war to watch over us and join us in praying for a lasting world peace,” Odagiri said.
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