Gokoku (lit. "Protect Country") Jinja are shrines where the  spirits of those people who gave their lives for their country in the wars fought by Japan from the Boshin War of 1868 onwards. They were initially established by local citizens' groups as Shokonsha (lit. "shrine dedicated to the spirits of the war dead" 招魂社), but in 1939 the Home Ministry issued an ordinance requiring them all to be renamed as Gokoku Jinja. The main Gokoku Jinja is Yasukuni Jinja in Tokyo and 52 of the 110 or so Gokoku Jinja around the country are loosely affiliated with it. Full details can be found in my book "Sacred Tokyo 40 Shinto Shrines." Please click the image at the top right-hand corner of this page.

Hyogen-ken Himeji Gokoku Jinja is the first such Jinja to be described on this webpage. Its origin was in 1893, when a memorial service for the war dead  was held annually in a garden near to the present site of the shrine. In 1936 it was decided to build a formal Shokonsha and the new building was dedicated in 1938. The following year it was given its present name in accordance with the Home Office ordinance described above. After Japan’s defeat in WWII and its occupation by the US, the shrine’s name was changed to Shirasagi-nomiya, しらさぎのみや (Shirasagi is another name for Himeji Castle). Come the regaining of independence in 1951, however, the old name was reverted to but the Shirasagi-nomiya name is still displayed. 

With the ongoing aging of the population and general lack of interest in Japan’s pre-1945 wars the shrine has lost its natural support base and has, perhaps ironically, been marketing itself as a wedding venue.