There has long been a small kamikaze memorial in the old samurai town of Chiran, on the southern tip of the island of Kyushu, which held the runway from which the pilots took off. To my surprise, the memorial had doubled in size since my previous visit, ten years ago, and it was crowded with visitors, all Japanese. A few of them were grizzled veterans, but most were young people, learning about the kamikazes for the first time. A more accessible barometer of Japanese attitudes toward war is the Yasukuni Shrine, in the middle of Tokyo, on a hill overlooking the Emperor's palace. Considering its purpose, Yasukuni is strangely unmilitary.
Visitors buy curios and feed flocks of specially bred white doves.
I recently escorted another American friend there. The walls were lined with photographs of handsome kamikaze pilots, forever young and smiling. In glass cases beneath were their farewell letters to their families and the dates of their missions. I hope you will be a good wife. I won't see you again in this life, so when you want to see me, you should come to the Yasukuni Shrine.