The Yokohama war cemetery, Japan: imperial, national and local remembrance

The Yokohama War Cemetery came into being because the bodies of the British Empire and Dominion Second World War dead were buried overseas rather than being repatriated when the war ended. The site ultimately chosen was a pre-war children’s park in the Hodogaya-ku district of Yokohama. While the Australian military authorities had not initially grasped the political sensitivities involved in the Yokohama burials, by October 1946 they had escalated the matter to Cabinet for consideration. Even though the imperial vision that created the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries may be anachronistic, and the sub-national engagement with cemeteries such as Yokohama limited, the political message that these sites enshrine has lost none of its utility. The remembrance activities initiated by the Gull Force Association in the post-war years reflected the sense of disconnection with Yokohama. The Japanese authorities manifested a cooperation which went beyond the merely diplomatic.