Japanese prime minister arrives in Hawaii for memorial visit

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has arrived in Hawaii to recognize the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. Abe arrived on Tuesday for the historic visit. He will be the first Japanese prime minister to visit the memorial that honors sailors and Marines killed in the 1941 attack.

The memorial will be closed to the public Tuesday when he visits with US President Barack Obama, who is vacationing in Hawaii with his family.

Japan’s former leader Shigeru Yoshida went to Pearl Harbor six years after the country’s World War II surrender. Yoshida arrived at Pearl Harbor in 1951, shortly after requesting a courtesy visit to the office of Adm Arthur W R Radford, commander of the US Pacific fleet. Abe laid wreaths at various cemeteries and memorials ahead of a visit today to the site of the 1941 bombing that plunged the United States into World War II.

Abe landed at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and then headed to National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, where he laid a wreath. He stood for a moment of silence at the cemetery near downtown Honolulu, which is known as Punchbowl.

He later visited a nearby memorial for nine boys and men who died when a US Navy submarine collided with their Japanese fishing vessel in 2001. At the Ehime Maru Memorial, he again laid a wreath and bowed his head.

He Will be the first Japanese prime minister to visit the memorial that honors sailors and Marines killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan’s former leader Shigeru Yoshida went to Pearl Harbor six years after the country’s World War II surrender, but that was before the US Arizona Memorial was built.