“Memorial to Captain Araki in Hsingan Ling” (now Xing’anling), Manchuria (Manchukuo) propaganda postcard, 1936. A portion of postcard caption reads: “The monument of Captain Araki’s death in battle, scattered with flowers.”

See also:
Yasukuni Shrine at Kudan, Tokyo, c. 1910
The Funeral of Commander Hirose, Tokyo, 1904.

There was a Captain Araki who served as a railway engineer army officer in the Imperial Japanese Army. During the early months of the Manchuria Incident in 1932, he was in command of an armored railroad car unit, a Type 91 armored railroad car, that could run on either railway or road by changing wheels. The Type 91 was used to guard Japan’s railways in Manchuria from saboteurs.

When Araki’s unit was fighting in Hsingan Ling in 1932, he found a Chinese train rapidly approaching, released by the enemy to collide with his armored car. To derail this train, Captain Araki ordered his men to set derailment devices to rails and he commanded them by himself. When he went back last, the runaway Chinese train appeared and derailed. It run over Captain Araki and he died.

After his death, he became gunshin (God of war). The monument was built at the place of his death.