Chapter 6 - Post-Colonial Representations of Japanese Military Heritage: Political and Social Aspects of Battlefield Tourism in the Pacific and East Asia

Abstract

The Pacific Theatre of the Second World War provides several important sites in the tourist geography of war and peace. These range from the Pearl Harbour, Hiroshima and Nagasaki Memorials to battlefield detritus throughout the Pacific and Asia, and to battlefield sites on Okinawa and Sakhalin, the Solomon Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands. As the war progressed, land, sea and air battles filled the jungles and lagoons of Southeast Asia, China, Micronesia and Melanesia with discarded equipment, war graves and fortifications. These are now sought as tourist attractions by visitors ranging from ex-combatants to scuba divers, and are on one level outstanding examples of the disaster of war turned to peace-time profit. On another, they are memorials to battlefield action and human suffering. As many authors have noted, nostalgia has long been a potent factor in tourism; the incorporation of the Second World War’s legacy into Asia-Pacific tourism travel not only rekindled interest in some destinations, it was largely responsible for creating interest in others, like the Solomon Islands (Seaton & Bennett, 1996; Lennon & Foley, 2000; Douglas, Douglas & Derrett, 2001; Weaver & Lawton, 2002).