ABOARD THE SHIRASE — Old soldiers may just fade away, but it is a fate far better, some feel, than what awaits the Maritime Self-Defense Force's icebreaker Shirase, which is headed for the scrap heap after 25 years of hard service.
"Personally, I am saddened by the possibility" that the ship may be dismantled, Capt. Takashi Shinagawa, the Shirase's skipper, said Friday during an onboard news conference. The MSDF invited guests and press members for a four-hour excursion aboard the ship from Harumi port in Tokyo to Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.
The Shirase, which made the annual trek to the Antarctic for 25 straight years, will be decommissioned in August. The education ministry has so far been unable to find anyone willing to take charge of the ship for public display.