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Time to Remember, Time to Forget: The Battle of Tsushima in Japanese Collective Memory since 1905
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
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The Battle of Tsushima was fought between Japan and Russia in 1905. It was the most notable naval battle during the century before the First World War and one of the most decisive naval clashes ever. Although it has left a deep and indelible mark on both belligerents, it was only natural that the battle would remain a center point in the collective memory of the country that won it. Indeed, throughout the years before Japan's surrender in 1945, and to a lesser extent even after, the battle continued to be the focus of commemoration and pride, possibly more than any other single battle the country had ever won or lost. Nonetheless, with the passing of time and changing circumstances, attitudes toward the battle witnessed their ups and downs much like the attitudes toward the entire war against Russia, empire, and militarism. Accordingly, the history of the battle's collective memory can be divided into four distinct phases: the immediate response; the subsequent forty years of imperialistic expansion; the era of Allied occupation; and the years since a democratic Japan regained its sovereignty. This article aims to examine the winding road of this memory, its sources and repercussions.
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References
Notes
1 For an overview of the battle, see Julian S. Corbett, Maritime Operations in the Russo–Japanese War, 1904–5, 2 vols. (London, 1914; rep., Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994), 2:141–344; Rotem Kowner, Tsushima (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 40–82.
2 The Russian losses included 125,910 tons sunk, 48,941 tons captured, and 23,879 tons interned. The total figure includes 146,905 tons of warships and 51,916 tons of auxiliary ships. The Russian and Japanese aggregate displacements are calculated based on Rotem Kowner, Historical Dictionary of the Russo–Japanese War, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), passim, and Hansgeorg Jentschura, Dieter Jung, and Peter Mickel, Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869–1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1977), 124.
3 For the commemoration of the war in post-1905 Japan, see Frederick R. Dickinson, “Commemorating the War in Post-Versailles Japan,” in John W. Steinberg et al. (eds), The Russo–Japanese War in Global Perspective, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2005–7), 1:523–43; Ben-Ami Shillony and Rotem Kowner, “The Memory and Significance of the Russo–Japanese War,” in Rotem Kowner (ed), Rethinking The Russo–Japanese War, 1904–05 (Folkestone, UK: Global Oriental, 2007), 1–9.
4 For the Japanese losses in the war, see Kowner, Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War, 100–1.
5 For these efforts, see Robert Valliant, “The Selling of Japan,” Monumenta Nipponica 29 (1974), 415–38; Rotem Kowner, “Becoming an Honorary Civilized Nation,” The Historian 64 (2001), 19–38.
6 Proverbs 24:17–18. For the selective reintroduction and at times also invention of the samurai code (Bushidō) in Meiji Japan, see Oleg Benesch, Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushido in Modern Japan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), especially 76–110.
7 For the poem, see Donald Keene, Emperor of Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 645.
8 Interestingly, the news of the triumph in the Battle of Mukden prompted the gathering of twice as many people. See Sakurai Ryōju, Taishō seijishi no shuppatsu (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1997), 22–5.
9 See, e.g., “Kaigun dai-shōri” (The navy's great victory), Tōkyō Niroku Shimbun, 29 May 1905, 1; “Dai-kaisen” (The great naval battle), Hōchi Shimbun, 30 May 1905, 2.
10 Stewart Lone, Army, Empire, and Politics in Meiji Japan: The Three Careers of General Katsura Taro (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 117. Often forgotten, Russia too was broke and required loans. See William C. Fuller, Civil-Military Conflict in Imperial Russia, 1881-1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 160.
11 Elting E. Morison, The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951–54), 4:1221–2. Also see Komura Jutarō to General Kodama Gentarō, 9 June 1905, in Japan: Gaimushō, Nihon gaikō bunsho: Nichiro sensō, 5 vols. (Tokyo: Gaimushō, 1958-60), 5:252–4.
12 For the takeover of Sakhalin, see Hara Teruyuki (ed), Nichiro sensō to Saharin-tō (Sapporo: Hokkaido Daigaku Shuppansha, 2011(; and Marie Sevela, “Chaos versus Cruelty: Sakhalin as a Secondary Theater of Operations,” in Kowner (ed), Rethinking, 93–108.
13 See Rotem Kowner, “Japan's ‘Fifteen Minutes of Glory’,” in Yulia Mikhailova and M. William Steele (eds), Japan and Russia: Three Centuries of Mutual Images (Folkestone, 2008), 47–70.
14 For a personal account of one of the prisoners, see Vladimir P. Kostenko, Na ‘Orle’ v Tsusime (Leningrad: Sudostroenie, 1955), 469–70; For the general treatment of Russian POWs during the conflict, see Rotem Kowner, “Imperial Japan and its POWs,” in Guy Podoler (ed.), War and Militarism in Modern Japan (Folkestone, 2009), especially 86–7.
15 Georges Blond, Admiral Togo (New York: Macmillan, 1960), 237. Also see Frank Thiess, The Voyage of the Forgotten Men (Tsushima) (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1937), 385.
16 The most notable artistic depiction of the visit was made by the Japanese painter Fujishima Takeji (1867–1943). The painting is available online here.
17 The other hospital ship, the Orël, remained in Japan as a prize. For the negotiations and debate about these ships, see Pierre Boissier, From Solferino to Tsushima: History of the International Committee of the Red Cross (Geneva: Henry Dunant Institute, 1985), 331–2; House of Representatives, Papers Relating to Foreign Relation of the United States, vol. 1: House Documents (Washington: GPO, 1906), 1: 595–6, 790–1.
18 There is extensive literature on the Portsmouth Peace Conference and its repercussions. E.g., Eugene Trani, The Treaty of Portsmouth (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1969); Shumpei Okamoto, The Japanese Oligarchy and the Russo–Japanese War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 150–63; Norman Saul, “The Kittery Peace,” in Steinberg et al. (eds), The Russo–Japanese War, 1:485–507; Steven Ericson and Allen Hockley (eds), The Treaty of Portsmouth and Its Legacies (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2008); and Francis Wcislo, Tales of Imperial Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 204–14.
19 Okamoto, The Japanese Oligarchy, 167–95.
20 Vladimir Semenov, The Price of Blood; The Sequel to “Rasplata” and “The battle of Tsushima,” (London: J. Murray; New York: E.P. Dutton, 1910), 82.
21 Okamoto, The Japanese Oligarchy, 196–223; idem, “The Emperor and the Crowd,” in Tetsuo Najita and J. Victor Koschmann (eds), Conflict in Modern Japanese History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 262–70; Lone, Army, Empire, 117–20.
22 For an overview of the war's impact on Japan, see Rotem Kowner, “The War as a Turning Point in Modern Japanese History,” in R. Kowner (ed), The Impact of the Russo–Japanese War (London: Routledge, 2007), 29–46.
23 Schencking, J. Charles. Making Waves: Politics, Propaganda, and the Emergence of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1868–1922 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), 111.
24 See Ian Nish, Anglo-Japanese Alliance: The Diplomacy of Two Island Empires 1984-1907 (London: Athlone Press, 1968).
25 See, e.g., Jiji shimpō, 21 October 1905; “Editorial,” The Yamato Shimbun no. 1870, 13 November 1905, 1. For the atmosphere among the British naval observers in Japan that helped elicit the association between and Nelson, see Richard Dunley, “‘The Warrior Has Always Shewed Himself Greater Than His Weapons’: The Royal Navy's Interpretation of the Russo-Japanese War 1904–5,” War & Society 34 (2015) 248–62.
26 Schencking, Making Waves, 111.
27 For the naval review, see Takashi Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 134–6; Blond, Admiral Togo, 240–2.
28 There have been sundry speculations and theories about the source of the explosion, ranging from humid gunpowder to a terrorist attack. See Toyoda Jō, Kikan Mikasa no shōgai (Tokyo: Kōjinsha, 2016), 368–402.
29 Constantine Pleshakov, The Tsar's Last Armada: The Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 316.
30 Lithograph, 1905. Dimensions: 40×55 centimeters. Among the other dignitaries (standing to the Emperor's left): Admiral Gerard Noel, Commander-in-Chief, China Station; Admiral Itō Sukeyuki; Admiral Yamamoto Gonnohyōe; Prime Minister General Katsura Tarō; and Field Marshal Yamagata Aritomo.
31 The aggregate displacement of the Russian ships captured at the Battle of Tsushima was 48,941 tons (among them 32, 641 tons of warships). The IJN had also captured five semi-sunken Russian battleships in Port Arthur which were commissioned after the war. For the Imperial Russian Navy's (IRN) structure and vessels in 1906, see The Editors, “The Progress of Navies,” 23–5. Cf. “Sea Strength of the Naval Powers,” Scientific American 93, no. 2 (July 8, 1905), 26.
32 See David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie. Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 147. This specific position is also corroborated by George Modelsky and William R. Thompson, Seapower in Global Politics, 1494–1993 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), 123, although their proportional distribution of global sea power suggested that the IJN had never been in a higher position than the sixth place.
33 Schencking, Making Waves, 117–22, 128–34.
34 For the popularity of cards containing naval images, primarily warships, both during and after the Russo–Japanese War, see Japanese Philately 41:4 (August 1986), 152–8.
35 By the same token, the Army Day was celebrated every year on 10 March, the date of the victory in the 1905 land Battle of Mukden. For the emergence of these two dates, see Harada Keiichi, “Irei to tsuito: sensō kinenbi kara shūsen kinenbi e,” in Kurasawa Aiko et al. (eds), Sensō no seijigaku (Tokyo: Iwanami, 2005), 296–307.
36 For the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and IJN's respective resentment over the public indifference towards the army and navy memorial days, see Harada, “Irei to tsuito,” 300.
37 See Yuriĭ Pestushko and Yaroslav A. Shulatov, “Russo–Japanese Relations from 1905 to 1916: from Enemies to Allies,” in Dmitry V. Streltsov and Nobuo Shimotomai (eds), A History of Russo–Japanese Relations: Over Two Centuries of Cooperation and Competition (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 109.
38 For various indications of the flagging interest by 1906, see Isao Chiba, “Shifting Contours of Memory and History,” in Steinberg et al. (eds.), The Russo–Japanese War, 2: 361.
39 Today, this Memorial of the Battle of the Sea of Japan (Jpn. Nihonkai kaisen kinenhi) is part of Tonosaki park (Tonosaki Kokutei Kōen), in Kamitsushima town.
40 The other War God was the IJA's Major Tachibana Shuta, who was killed in the Battle of Liaoyang. For more on Hirose, see Naoko Shimazu, Japanese Society at War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 197–229.
41 See Edwin Falk, Togo and the Rise of Japanese Sea Power (New York: Longmans, Green, 1936), 431–33; Jonathan Clements, Admiral Togo: Nelson of the East (London: Haus Publishing, 2010), 208–24.
42 Tōgō is accompanied by Major General Thomas Henry Barry, the superintendent of the United States Military Academy, West Point.
43 For the most part, Tōgō opposed the erection of statues of himself. Nonetheless, in 1927 he was persuaded to allow the erection of such a statue, alongside Nogi's statue, at the Tōgō Park (Tōgō Kōen), on the grounds of Chichibu Ontake Shrine, near Chichibu, Saitama, and took part in the unveiling ceremony. See Ōkuma Asajirō, Shinsui Horiuchi Bunjirō shōgun o itamu (Fukuoka: Okuma Asajiro, 1942), 5.
44 At an earlier point in time, Ogasawara was heavily involved with the creation of the IJN myth of its first gunshin, Hirose Takeo. See Shimazu, Japanese Society at War, 200–2.
45 Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), 108-11.
46 Falk, Togo, 457-8.
47 Upon Tōgō's death, his domestic lionization reached a zenith alongside renewed international interest, as is evidenced by a flurry of publications in Japanese and English. See, for example, Nakamura Koya, Sekai no Tōgō gensui (Tokyo: Tōgō Gensui Hensankai, 1934); Abe Shinzō, Tōgō gensui jikiwashū (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1935); Kaigun Heigakkō, Tōgō gensui keikōroku (Tokyo: Dai-Nihon Tosho, 1935); Naganari Ogasawara. Life of Admiral Togo, trans. by Jukichi and Tozo Inouye (Tokyo: Seito Shorin Press, 1934); Ronald Bodley, Admiral Togo (London: Jarrolds, 1935); Falk, Togo (1936); and Koya Nakamura, Admiral Togo (Tokyo: Togo Gensui Publishing Society, 1937).
48 A key figure in the campaign was Shiba Sometarō, the editor of The Japan Times during the 1920s. See his “Save the Mikasa,” The Japan Times, 14 June 1923; “Save the Mikasa!” The Japan Times, 21 July 1923.
49 For the establishment of the Society (Jpn. Mikasa Hozonkai), see “‘Save the Mikasa’ Men Meeting to Organize Today,” the Japan Times, 24 March 1924; Ogasawara Naganari, Seishō Tōgō Heihachirō den (Tokyo: Kaizōsha, 1934), 490-6.
50 Ozaki Chikara, Seishō Tōgō to reikan Mikasa (Tokyo: Mikasa Hozonkai, 1935), 100-1. For the Society and its publications, see Ministry of Defense, National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS), Tokyo, Senshi-Nichiro sensō-11.
51 Edan Corkill, “How the Japan Times Saved a Foundering Battleship, Twice,” The Japan Times, 18 December 2011.
52 For the ceremony, see Dickinson, “Commemorating,” 536-7.
53 Tatsushi Hirano et al., “Recent Developments in the Representation of National Memory and Local Identities,” Japanstudien 20 (2009), 252.
54 Jpn. Fukutsu shi no Nihonkai kaisen kinenhi.
55 For this revived memory, see Chiba, “Shifting Contours,” 2:365; Benesch, Inventing the Way of the Samurai, 178-80.
56 See Saburo Ienaga, “Glorification of War in Japanese Education,” International Security 18, no. 3 (1993-94), 119-20.
57 This Japanese traditional unit is now standardized as 30.3 centimeters. Thus, the measures of the monument are 11.51; 1.52; and 8.18 meters.
58 This phrase, as represented by the famous Z flag Tōgō hoisted on the Mikasa, is redolent of Nelson's famous signal sent as the Battle of Trafalgar was about to commence: “England expects that every man will do his duty.”
59 “Togo shrine dedicated,” Nippu Jiji, 27th May 1940, 1. Curiously, and for a short time before the war, Togo worship took place also on American soil, as part of the Daijingu Temple of Hawaii, a Shinto shrine in Honolulu. See Wilburn Hansen, “Examining Prewar Tôgô Worship in Hawaii,” Nova Religio 14 (2010), 67-92.
60 For the history of the two shrines, see Nogi jinja-Togo jinja (Tokyo: Shinjinbutsu Oraisha, 1993). In November 1945, however, the construction of a Buddhist temple of the Nichiren sect named Tōgōji was completed on the site of Tōgō's villa in Fuchu, Tokyo Metropolis. Designed by the famous architect Itō Chūta it is considered today a major tourist attraction.
61 Hiroyuki Agawa, The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1979), 2.
62 For the IJN strategy in late 1941, see Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, 480–1.
63 Shigeru Fukudome, “Hawaii Operation,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 81 (1955): 1315–31.
64 Samuel Eliot Morrison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Vol. 3: The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931–April 1942 (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1948), 93.
65 Donald Goldstein and Katherine Dillon (eds.). The Pearl Harbor Papers: Inside the Japanese Plans (Washington, DC: Brassey's, 1999), 122.
66 For the reasons behind the choice of that day for departure, see Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2005), 69.
67 Toyoda, Kikan Mikasa, 491.
68 For the state of the site during the early years of the occupation, see Elmer Potter, Nimitz (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1976), 397–8, 466.
69 For Rubin's visit and letter, see Toyoda, Kikan Mikasa, 497–8.
70 John S. Rubin, “Flagship Mikasa Then and Now,” Nippon Times, 24 September 1955.
71 For the postwar efforts to restore the Mikasa, see Patalano, Post-war Japan, 45–7.
72 For this notion, see Alessio Patalano, Post-war Japan as a Sea Power: Imperial Legacy, Wartime Experience and the Making of a Navy (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 37.
73 For Itō's campaign, see Alessio Patalano, “A Symbol of Tradition and Modernity,” Japanese Studies 34 (2014): 61–82.
74 See Potter, Nimitz, 56–7, 158, 397–8, 467; and Brayton Harris, Admiral Nimitz (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 13, 48, 175.
75 Directed by Watanabe Kunio, the film offered a pioneering portrayal of Emperor Meiji. See Chiba, “Shifting Contours,” 2:371–4.
76 For the reception of the film, see Joseph L. Anderson and Donald Richie, The Japanese Film: Art and Industry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 250–52.
77 “Japan Deeply Moved By War Film,” The Times, 29 May 1957, 3, quoted in Benesch, Inventing, 219–20. For the early decades of Japan's dialectical dealing with its imperial past, see Sebastian Conrad, “The Dialectics of Remembrance: Memories of Empire in Cold War Japan.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 56 (2014), 9–25.
78 Bungei Shunjū had been involved in drumming up public interest in the Memorial Ship Mikasa since 1957. See NIDS, Senshi–Nichiro sensō-7. For Nimitz's article in the Bungei Shunjū, see Potter, Nimitz, 466–7; Harris, Admiral Nimitz, 210. Nimitz's legacy did not end there. In 2009, sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz volunteered to paint the Mikasa. For further information on Nimitz's involvement in the Mikasa restoration, see Papers of Chester W. Nimitz, Archives Branch, Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, D.C., Box 63, folders 499-503.
79 The main source on the restoration project is the 32-page booklet published by the Mikasa Preservation Society, Memorial Ship Mikasa (Yokosuka, Japan: Mikasa Preservation Society, 1981).
80 After an initial surge of visitors, their number fluctuated between 150,000 and 200,000 annually throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, but declined considerably in the following decade. See Tatsushi Hirano, Sven Saaler, and Stefan Säbel, “Recent Developments in The Representation of National Memory and Local Identities: The Politics of Memory in Tsushima, Matsuyama, And Maizuru.” Japanstudien 20 (2009), 252.
81 Elmer B. Potter and Chester Nimitz (eds.), The Great Sea War (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1960); Chester Nimitz and Elmer B. Potter, Nimittsu no taiheiyō no kaisen-shi (Tokyo: Kōbunsha, 1962).
82 For Nimitz's donation of the royalties of the Japanese translation of his book, see Potter, Nimitz, 467; and Harris, Admiral Nimitz, 175.
83 Another Tōgō Shrine alongside a small museum was opened on 27 May 1971 in the town of Fukutsu, in the vicinity of the 1934 memorial monument.
84 Harald Salomon, “Japan's Longest Days,” in King-fai Tam et al. Chinese and Japanese Films on the Second World War (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2015), 126.
85 Salomon, “Japan's Longest Days,” 121; Marie Thorsten and Geoffrey M. White, “Binational Pearl Harbor?” The Asia-Pacific Journal 8 (2010), Issue 52 no. 2.
86 The story was simultaneously reprinted in six volumes. See Shiba Ryōtarō, Saka no ue no kumo (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 1969–72). A four-volume English translation of the novel has also been published recently, with the last of these being largely devoted to the battle. See Ryōtarō Shiba, Clouds above the Hill (London: Bungei Shunjū, 2012–14).
87 For Shiba's literary legacy and its impact on Japan's war memory, see Donald Keene, Five Modern Japanese Novelists (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 85–100; and Hidehiro Nakao, “The Legacy of Shiba Ryotaro,” in Roy Starrs (ed.), Japanese Cultural Nationalism at Home and in the Asia Pacific (Folkestone, England: Global Oriental, 2004), 99–115.
88 For Shiba's historical perspective, see Tomoko Aoyama, “Japanese Literary Response to the Russo–Japanese War,” In David Wells and Sandra Wilson (eds), The Russo–Japanese War in Cultural Perspective, 1904–05 (Houndsmills, UK: Macmillan, 1999), 79–82; Sinh Vinh, “Shiba Ryotaro and the Revival of Meiji Values,” in James C. Baxter (ed.), Historical Consciousness, Historiography, and Modern Japanese Values (Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 2006), pp. 143–51; and Alexander Bukh, “Historical Memory and Shiba Ryōtarō,” in Sven Saaler and Wolfgang Schwentker (eds.), The Power of Memory in Modern Japan (Folkestone, UK: Global Oriental, 2008), 96–115.
89 See Nomura Naokuni, Gensui Tōgō Heihachirō (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 1968); Yonezawa Fujiyoshi, Tōgō Heihachirō (Tokyo: Shin Jinbutsu Ōraisha, 1972); and Togawa Yukio, Nogi to Tōgō (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1972).
90 Yoshimura Akira, Umi no shigeki (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1972). The book was reissued in several editions and numerous reprints, most recently in 2003.
91 This serialized manga was also published in book form. See Ueda Shin and Takanuki Nobuhito, Jitsuroku Nihonkai kaisen (Tokyo: Tachikaze Shobō, 2000).
92 Egawa Tatsuya, Nichiro sensō monogatari (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 2001–6). Starting in 2001, the story was serialized in a leading manga weekly for five years and then reissued gradually in 22 independent volumes.
93 For the differences between Egawa and Shiba's works, see Yukiko Kitamura, “Serial War: Egawa Tatsuya's Tale of the Russo–Japanese War,” in John W. Steinberg et al. (eds.), The Russo–Japanese War, 2: 427–30.
94 For the museum webpage, see here.
95 The average viewership rating of the entire 13-episode series was 14.5 percent.
96 For a brief review of the attitude toward the war and empire in 1990s Japan, see Conrad, “The Dialectics of Remembrance,” 25–31.
97 Hirose Takeo, “Nichiro sensō o megutte,” in Roshiashi Kenkyūkai (ed.), Nichiro 200 nen—rinkoku Roshia to no Kōryūshi (Tokyo: Sairyūsha, 1993), 106.
98 See Toyoda Jō, “Tōgō Heihachirō,” in Bungei Shunjū (ed.), Nihon no ronten (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 1992), 594–601; and Ienaga, “Glorification of War,” 129–31.
99 For an overview of these textbooks, see Elena Kolesova and Ryota Nishino, “Talking Past Each Other?” Aoyama Journal of International Studies 2 (2015), 22–3.
100 For the ceremony, see Hirano et al., “Recent Developments,” 252.
101 The presumed link with these two foreign warships has also been maintained on the Memorial Ship Mikasa's webpage. They are “the world's three largest memorial ships,” the webpage text states, “because they bravely fought in historic naval battles to protect their respective nation's independence.” Available online here (accessed on 1 March 2020).
102 Patalano, Post-war Japan, 90.
103 See Colin Joyce, “Japan Proudly Flies Battle Flag Again” The Telegraph (6 January 2005).
104 Miyajima Shigeki, MIGHTY FLEET seikyōnaru Nihon kantai (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2012), 148.
105 For this monument and the “pacifist” aspects of the battle's recent commemoration, see Hirano et al., “Recent Developments,” 253–7.
106 For photos of this site and the cenotaph in its center, see Trip Advisor (accessed on April 19, 2022).
107 The original drawing used in the relief is printed in H.W. Wilson, Japan's Fight for Freedom, 3 vols. (London: The Amalgamated Press, 1904–06), 3: 1385.
108 See Tsukada Shuichi, “Taiken naki sensō no kioku no genba,” Mita Shakaigaku 23 (2018), 94.
109 In July 2009, for example, a ceremony of reenlisting a crewmember took place onboard the memorial ship. See Wikipedia Commons.
110 This trend can be seen in the celebration of the humane treatment of German POWs in the Bando Camp, Shikoku, in both the restored site and the subsequent feature film (Baruto no gakuen, 2006). Another facet of it is the recent public reverence for the Japanese consul Sugihara Chiune. Granting visas to Jewish refugees in Lithuania in 1940, this diplomat and his deeds are presently commemorated in several museums, including the “Port of Humanity” (Jpn. Jindo no minato) in the city of Tsuruga. See Rotem Kowner, “A Holocaust Paragon of Virtue's Rise to Fame: The Transnational Commemoration of the Japanese Diplomat Sugihara Chiune and Its Divergent National Motives.” American Historical Review 127 (2022). For the movement to reform Japan's historical image, see Masami Saito et al., “Dissecting the Wave of Books on Nippon Kaigi,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 16 (2018).
111 See Tsukada, “Taiken,” 89–90.
112 For the use of this narrative in recent ceremonies on board the Mikasa that also deplores Japan's weak reaction to the “unlawful invasion of China” and the unsettled state of affairs with North Korea and Russia, see Tsukada, “Taiken,” 93.
113 Cited in Hirano et al., “Recent Developments,” 254.
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