[PARTIALLY TRUE] While visiting Arlington National Cemetery, did Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga show tribute to the American pilots who bombed Tokyo during WWII?

Screenshot of the Sohuhao article.

The Claim and Our Verdict

• The claim: An article published on Sohuhao on April 19, 2021, claims that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga placed a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery to show tribute to the American pilots who bombed Tokyo during World War II.
• Fact-checking:
  • Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga did visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (the Tomb) at Arlington National Cemetery on April 16, 2021.
  • Buried in the Tomb are the unidentified remains of four American soldiers, one of each who died during World War I, World War II (WWII), the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
  • The unidentified remains of one soldier buried in the Tomb represents all unidentified American dead from WWII. It is inconclusive whether the soldier participated in the bombing air raids on Tokyo during WWII. Suga’s wreath-laying at the Tomb can generally be regarded as a tribute to all American soldiers who died during WWII. However, the claim might mislead readers to believe the unidentified soldier buried at the Tomb participated in the bombing of Tokyo.
• Our ruling: Therefore, we rate the claim as PARTIALLY TRUE.

News Brief

Referencing a news report from Russian news media outlet Sputnik, an article published on Sohuhao on April 19, 2021, claims that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, during his visit to the United States, placed a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery (the Cemetery) to show tribute to the American pilots who bombed Tokyo during WWII. The Sohuhao article claims Suga’s visit hoped to secure American support for the release of Fukushima radioactive wastewater. Sohuhao is a blog-style platform developed by Sohu, a Chinese internet company, allowing independent publishers to post news and share information.

The article had received 17 likes as of the issuance of this report.

Fact-checking

According to an Associated Press news article published by ABC News on April 17, 2021, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on April 16, 2021. The Mainichi, an English-language news website operated by Japanese daily newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, also reported Suga’s visit to the Tomb. A tweet published on April 17, 2021, on the Twitter account of Arlington National Cemetery claims that Suga visited the Cemetery on April 16 and participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is confirmed that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga did visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on April 16, 2021.

Screenshot of the ABC news article.

Earlier today, Prime Minister of Japan Yoshihide Suga visited Arlington National Cemetery and participated in an Armed Forces Full Honors Wreath-Laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. pic.twitter.com/gZ0cLjFwWR

— Arlington National Cemetery (@ArlingtonNatl) April 16, 2021

The official tweet posted by Arlington National Cemetery.

Keyword searches on the Chinese– and English-language websites of Sputnik limited from April 1 to June 9, 2021, delivered no results related to Suga’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery.

According to the official website of Arlington National Cemetery, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was created in November 1921, when the unidentified remains of an American soldier killed in World War I were interred. In the following decades, unidentified remains of an American soldier each died during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War were also interred at the Tomb site. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the selection and interment of unidentified soldiers from both WWII and the Korean War. The unidentified remains of one soldier buried at the Tomb represents all unidentified American dead from WWII. That unidentified soldier was randomly selected from all unidentified soldiers who died in different conflict regions during WWII, i.e., Europe, North Africa and the Pacific. Therefore, it is possible that the unidentified soldier from WWII now buried at the Tomb might have participated in the bombing air raids on Tokyo during WWII.

Suga’s wreath-laying at the Tomb can generally be regarded as a tribute to all American soldiers who died during WWII. However, based on the available evidence, it is inconclusive that the unidentified WWII solider interred at the Tomb participated in the bombing air raids on Tokyo during WWII. The claim is false, because it could mislead readers to believe the unknown soldier buried at the Tomb participated in bombing Tokyo.