Huwei Sugar Factory Dormitories

The Huwei Sugar Factory Dormitory Complex (虎尾糖廠宿舍群) is a group of about a dozen Japanese colonial-era residential buildings (reports give 11 or 12 surviving) in Huwei Township, Yunlin County, Taiwan, designated as a county-level historic monument (縣定古蹟) in 2015. These structures bear a significant but lesser-known connection to Japan's kamikaze operations during the closing months of World War II.

The Huwei Sugar Factory (虎尾製糖所) was established in 1906 by the Dai Nippon Sugar Manufacturing Company (大日本製糖株式會社), with operations commencing in 1909. By 1924, its daily crushing capacity of 4,900 metric tons made it the most productive sugar plant in colonial Taiwan, earning Huwei the nickname 'Sugar Capital' (糖都). The factory complex included an extensive residential quarter for employees, featuring Japanese-style wooden buildings ranging from the luxurious First Official Dormitory (第一公差宿舍, known as Taishunkan / 臺春館) — a refined Taisho-era wooden structure built in 1916 that hosted visiting dignitaries including Prince Chichibu, who called there in 1925 — to duplexes, row houses, and bachelor quarters along Minzhu Road (民主路).

The military dimension came with the Huwei Airfield (虎尾飛行場), which the Japanese Navy laid out on sugar-company land near the town to train naval aviation pilots; its construction date is not documented, but it existed by 1943. The training unit based there came under the Takao (Kaohsiung) Guard District.

On May 15, 1944, the Huwei Naval Air Group (虎尾海軍航空隊) was formally established as an initial flight training unit. Of the 500 flight cadets selected across Japan that year, 260 were assigned to Huwei for training. However, as American bombing raids intensified — targeting both the sugar factory (which produced alcohol fuel for the military) and the airfield — the situation deteriorated rapidly.

By February 15, 1945, exhaustion of aircraft, fuel, and personnel forced the dissolution of the Huwei Naval Air Group. Its remaining aircraft were transferred to the Chūsei-tai (忠誠隊, 'Loyalty Squadron'), a kamikaze special attack unit tasked with suicide missions against American naval vessels near Okinawa. The sugar factory's dormitory buildings, located just kilometers from the airfield, are said to have lodged special attack pilots before deployment, but the sources consulted for this entry do not document such use; the airfield had its own barracks in four zones.

Local residents later recalled seeing the distinctive 'Red Dragonfly' (赤とんぼ) training aircraft — Yokosuka K5Y biplanes — parked at the airfield, each fitted with two 50-kilogram bombs for ramming attacks against American aircraft carriers. The military had also relocated residents from three nearby villages (後壁寮, 竹圍仔, 吳厝) to make room for military barracks, hangars, hospitals, and storage facilities across four designated zones.

The sugar factory itself suffered heavy damage during American bombing raids but was repaired after the war; the second workshop resumed production by late 1945. The dormitory quarter survived largely intact and continued to house Taiwan Sugar Corporation employees through the postwar decades.

Today, the dormitory buildings along Minzhu Road (including structures at Minzhu 9th Road, 7th Road, 5th Road, 3rd Road, and 1st Road) are under active preservation. The First Official Dormitory (第一公差宿舍) was individually designated as a county monument on December 25, 2009 (together with the Third), and the broader dormitory complex received collective designation in 2015. The nearby Jianguo Village (建國眷村), built on the former military barracks zone, has also been preserved as a cultural heritage site documenting the transition from Japanese naval air base to postwar military dependents' village.

The site is a surviving physical link between Taiwan's colonial sugar industry and the wartime naval airfield beside it; its specific connection to the special attack units rests on local tradition rather than on documented evidence.