Keelung Fortress Command

Keelung was northern Taiwan's principal port and the gateway from the Japanese home islands. The Imperial Japanese Army began organising its defence soon after Japan acquired Taiwan, and permanent batteries were built from 1900 under the Keelung Fortress defence plan drawn up around 1899. This site's earlier text dates the Keelung Fortress Command (基隆要塞司令部) to 1896; Japanese sources record that the command was established in May 1903 and began work that June at Dasha Bay (大沙灣), with ten batteries and forts completed by 1905. The difference may reflect an early provisional defence arrangement followed by the formal creation of the command.

The command served as the supreme coastal defence authority for northern Taiwan. Its jurisdiction extended along the northern coast from Aodi (澳底) in the east through Keelung, Jinshan, and Tamsui, all the way to Hsinchu and Houlong in the west. It oversaw the construction and operation of the permanent batteries, including Baimiweng, Dawulun, Gangziliao, Shiqiuling and Ershawan, some on Qing-era positions. The fortress guns were manned by the Keelung heavy artillery unit (基隆重砲兵大隊, later a regiment), renamed the Keelung Fortress Heavy Artillery Regiment in September 1941. Under the Fortified Zone Law, surveying, photography and building around the fortress were tightly restricted.

Initially located at Dasha Bay, the command headquarters was rebuilt in 1929 as a two-story reinforced concrete building at No. 46 Xiangfeng Street, Zhongzheng District, Keelung. During World War II, the command coordinated coastal and air defense operations for the Keelung area; the port was repeatedly bombed by U.S. aircraft from October 1944 and suffered heavy damage. In January 1945, in anticipation of an Allied landing, the northern defences were reorganised: the commander of the 76th Independent Mixed Brigade doubled as fortress commander and the artillery became the 13th Heavy Artillery Regiment.

After Japan's surrender in 1945, the building was taken over by the ROC military and used for many years. The headquarters building has been restored and designated as a cultural heritage site, now open to the public as a cultural venue. Together with the nearby commander's residence and officers' housing and the battery ruins scattered across the hills around the harbour, it forms the core of what can be seen of the Keelung Fortress today.