Wartime Ethanol Production and Allied Bombing of Ciaotou Sugar Factory

The Ciaotou (Kyoshito) sugar factory was built by the Taiwan Sugar Company (臺灣製糖株式會社); construction began in February 1901 and it went into operation in January 1902 as Taiwan's first modern mechanised sugar mill. An alcohol plant added in 1908 was the first in Taiwan to make alcohol from molasses, a by-product of sugar refining. As the Pacific War intensified and Japan's access to petroleum was cut off by Allied submarine and naval blockades, sugar factories across Taiwan were directed to convert molasses into industrial ethanol (alcohol fuel) for military use, including as aviation fuel blending stock. Taiwan's approximately 40 sugar factories became a critical component of the empire's wartime fuel production network. Ciaotou, one of the largest and most established refineries on the island, produced large quantities of alcohol usable as substitute fuel for fighter aircraft, reportedly supplying the Japanese Navy's 61st Air Arsenal at nearby Okayama (Gangshan).

This strategic role made the factories targets. U.S. Army Air Forces bombers attacked Taiwan's sugar refineries and alcohol plants in systematic raids during 1944–1945, aiming to disrupt both sugar and ethanol production. Ciaotou was treated as a priority target in the Kaohsiung area and was bombed repeatedly from 25 March 1945; the sugar-making machinery of its No. 1 and No. 2 mills was wrecked and production stopped, though the core buildings survived the war.

After Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945, the Republic of China government assumed control of Taiwan's sugar industry. The factory was taken over in November 1945, came under the newly established Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖) and was renamed the Ciaotou Sugar Factory on 1 June 1946. Repairs to the pressing and clarifying houses of the No. 1 mill were completed in 1948 and sugar production resumed.

Sugar production ended in 1999. The site was designated a Kaohsiung County historic monument in September 2002, opened as the Taiwan Sugar Museum in 2006 and was additionally registered as a cultural landscape in 2007. Twenty-four air-raid shelters survive on the grounds, together with the remains of a magazine and anti-aircraft gun positions, and bear witness to the wartime raids; the bronze Kannon statue installed in 1902 also remains. The 48-metre 'wartime command centre' on the grounds is described by Chinese Wikipedia as a postwar construction rather than a Japanese-period facility.