Kamaishi Naval Bombardment Site

The Kamaishi Naval Bombardment Site marks the location where Allied naval forces conducted the first-ever naval bombardment of the Japanese home islands during World War II. On July 14, 1945, Task Unit 34.8.1 under Rear Admiral John F. Shafroth Jr., comprising the battleships USS South Dakota, USS Indiana, and USS Massachusetts, along with heavy cruisers USS Quincy and USS Chicago and nine destroyers, shelled the city of Kamaishi for over two hours.

The primary target was the Kamaishi Iron and Steel Works (釜石製鉄所), one of Japan's largest ironworks and a critical producer of steel for the war effort. During the two-hour bombardment, the task force fired 802 sixteen-inch shells, 728 eight-inch shells, and 825 five-inch shells, devastating the industrial complex and surrounding residential areas. The attack destroyed over 1,460 houses and killed 424 civilians.

A second bombardment took place on August 9, 1945—the same day the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. This time, American warships were joined by British Royal Navy vessels including HMS Newfoundland and HMNZS Gambia. Over 2,781 shells were fired during this attack, killing an additional 283 people. Tragically, the bombardments also struck prisoner of war camps in the city: 32 Allied POWs held at the Sendai POW Camp Kamaishi Branch were killed across the two attacks, five of them in the July bombardment.

In total, more than 5,000 shells were fired into Kamaishi across the two bombardments, killing approximately 782 people—mostly civilians. The ironworks, which had been a symbol of Japan's modernization since the Meiji era, was left in ruins. The city, with a wartime population of about 40,000, suffered devastating destruction.

Today, the site serves as a memorial to the civilian victims of naval bombardment and stands as a testament to the devastating impact of the Pacific War on Japanese coastal communities. The city of Kamaishi has worked to preserve the memory of these events through memorial activities and peace education, though the original war memorial museum established in the city was destroyed during the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.