Akae Airfield Revetments
掩体壕群・赤江飛行場跡
Surviving WWII aircraft revetments from the former Imperial Japanese Navy Akae Airfield in Miyazaki City. Seven concrete shelters remain from the approximately 50 originally built in 1944, making them among the best-preserved examples in Japan. The airfield served as a major staging base for kamikaze operations during the final months of the war.
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History
Akae Airfield (赤江飛行場) was established in 1943 as an Imperial Japanese Navy air station on the coastal plain south of Miyazaki City, in what is now the site of Miyazaki Bougainvillea Airport. The Miyazaki Naval Air Group (宮崎海軍航空隊) was initially stationed here as a training unit for attack aircraft crews.
In October 1944, as the war situation deteriorated and the threat of Allied air raids intensified, the Navy constructed approximately 50 aircraft revetments (掩体壕, entaigō) around the airfield perimeter. These included 7 medium-sized covered (concrete) revetments designed to shelter twin-engine bombers such as the Yokosuka P1Y Ginga, 7 small covered revetments for single-engine fighters, and approximately 37 open-topped earthen revetments. The concrete structures featured distinctive arch-shaped roofs capable of withstanding near-miss bomb blasts.
From March 1945, Akae Airfield became a critical staging base for kamikaze operations during the Battle of Okinawa and the preparations for Operation Ketsu-Go (決号作戦), the homeland defense plan. The Kikusui (菊水) special attack units launched multiple waves of sorties from the base. About 380 special attack crewmen who sortied from Miyazaki Base (Akae Airfield) on one-way missions, together with men from Miyazaki Prefecture who flew from bases in other prefectures — roughly 800 in all (801 in a recent count) — are commemorated at the Miyazaki Special Attack Base Memorial, erected in 1983 on the west side of the airport.
After Japan's surrender, the open-topped revetments were quickly dismantled for agricultural land reclamation. However, the robust concrete covered revetments proved too costly to demolish and survived. Today, seven remain: four medium-sized structures in the Hongo district (本郷地区) south of the airport, and three small structures in the Akae district west of the airport. Miyazaki City has acquired one of the Hongo revetments for public preservation and educational purposes, though entry to the interior is prohibited for safety reasons. Relatively few wartime aircraft revetments survive nationwide, making the Miyazaki examples valuable as tangible reminders of Japan's wartime aviation infrastructure.