By The Associated Press
 
 TOKYO (AP) -- A half-century after they were hanged by  the Allies,
wartime Japanese leader Hideki Tojo and six  other convicted war
criminals were quietly honored  Wednesday in a memorial service in Tokyo.
 
 More than 600 people gathered for a three-hour service  at the Kudan
Kaikan hall in downtown Tokyo. The  memorial was sponsored by a group
planning to build a  permanent hall for those executed.
 
 Participants sang the Japanese national anthem and  offered a
one-minute prayer for the souls of the war  dead at the start of the ceremony,
which included  statements by Tojo's granddaughter, Kyodo News agency
reported.
 
 As Japan's prime minister from 1941 to 1944, Tojo  authorized the
surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. After  Japan's surrender in 1945, Tojo and six
other top  leaders were found guilty of war crimes in the Tokyo
trials and hanged on Dec. 23, 1948.
 
 While Tojo is widely reviled abroad as a symbol of  Tokyo's brutal rule
over a wide swath of Asia and its  war against the Allies, he is a more
ambiguous figure  at home.
 
 A popular film released in May depicted him as a gentle  family man who
went to war in self-defense -- a popular  notion among right-wing
activists and revisionist  academics who say Japan should not be ashamed of its
military past.
 
 Officials from the Showa Memorial Hall Preparation  Committee, which
sponsored Wednesday's service, were  not available to comment.
However, a message on their  answering machine urged ``any Japanese who loves
Japan'' to come to the memorial.
 
 The conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper reported  Tuesday that Tojo's
granddaughter, Yuko Tojo, is  working to build a memorial hall to the
executed war  criminals to re-establish their reputations.
 
 ``I would like to hand over from generation to  generation the
historical
facts which are not being  taught at school,'' Yuko Tojo was quoted as
saying by  Sankei.
 
 Still, Tojo and the other war criminals symbolize times  that many in
Japan would rather forget.
 
 National broadcaster NHK made no mention of the  memorial on Wednesday,
which was also a national  holiday to honor Emperor Akihito's birthday.
Kyodo News  carried a report on its English-language service, but  had
no story in Japanese.